RYTHER, Sir William

The Rythers had been established at Ryther in the West Riding since the twelfth century. Sir William Ryther had been summoned to Parliament between 1299 and 1307, but, as with many families of the same rank, those early summonses were not repeated.2 CP, xi. 6-10. Throughout the fourteenth century the family estate remained remarkably settled, principally comprising the manors of Ryther, a few miles to the south of York, and Scarcroft, some 12 miles to the west, and, further afield, the manor of Keal Cotes in the Lindsey division of Lincolnshire. The first of these was valued at as much as 100 marks p.a. on the death of our MP’s grandson, Sir Robert Ryther, in 1491, and the family were thus one of substance even before the marriage of our MP’s parents brought a further enhancement of its ancient estate.3 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 614. When this marriage was made, probably in the early 1380s, the bride, Sibyl Aldeburgh, had yet to fall coheiress to her family lands, but with the childless death of her brother in 1391 she did so. By a fine levied in 1403 the couple had their share of the inheritance – moieties of the manors of Harwood and Kirkby Overblow, both near Scarcroft – settled on themselves in tail-male with remainder to her right heirs.4 CP, i. 101-2; CIPM, xvi. 1077-9; CP25(1)/279/149/46. The marriage does not appear to have been a happy one. On 18 Mar. 1408 our MP’s father had to swear before Henry Bowet, archbishop of York, that he would inflict upon his wife ‘ne bodily harme ne her mahyame ne bete ne enprisone bot kepe hir in full ffredom als a man of his degre hayth to do to his Wyfe’. He also had to undertake to avoid one ‘Marion of Gryndon’ as long as his wife lived and have nothing more to do with her ‘be way of synne’.5 A. Goodman, Margery Kempe, 56-57.

Whatever the state of his parents’ long marriage, however, Ryther was heir to an estate substantial enough to compare with those of the leading West Riding gentry families of Gascoigne, Plumpton, Stapleton and Tempest of Bracewell.6 C.E. Arnold, ‘Political Study of the W. Riding 1437-1509’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1984), 76. Yet it was one that he was to inherit in its entirety only shortly before his own death. He was of age by as early as 1405 when his career had an inauspicious start. He was implicated in Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion of May 1405, or, at least, that is the obvious implication of the pardon granted to him on the following 8 Aug. for all treasons committed ‘against the King and his royalty’ and any consequent forfeitures.7 CPR, 1405-8, p. 41. His apparent involvement in this rebellion implies a connexion with the rebel Percys, with whom the Rythers were certainly closely associated later in the fifteenth century, and that connexion may also have determined his marriage, which is also to be dated to these early years of his career. His bride belonged to the great northern family of Umfraville, which was connected to the Percys through the marriage of Maud Lucy (d.1398), widow of Gilbert Umfraville, earl of Angus (d.1381), to Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (d.1408).8 CP, i. 150-3. The date of the marriage can only be estimated. In 1440 our MP’s son and heir was said to be 35 and more: CIPM, xxv. 479-80. It is thus possible that our MP was already married when allegedly involved in the Scrope rebellion. The chief value of the match from our MP’s point of view was the connexions that came with it, for all four of his wife’s sisters married into leading northern families, most notably Elizabeth who married Sir William Elmden* and Margaret, the wife of Sir John Constable*.

No more is known of Ryther until 6 Mar. 1416 when he and his father witnessed a deed at Carlton for his first cousin, Sir Brian Stapleton†. Exactly three months later he was again involved with Stapleton, appearing before Richard Norton, c.j.c.b., in the London parish of St. Andrew in Holborn to acknowledge a debt of £500 to his cousin, payable at the following Michaelmas. It is probable that this debt had something to do with the division of the Aldeburgh inheritance, to which Sir Brian was coheir through his mother, Sibyl Aldeburgh’s elder sister.9 Yorks. Deeds, iii (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. lxiii), 88; CP40/754, rot. 406. Stapleton’s share had, in 1401, been settled on his mother’s issue by her second husband, Sir Richard Redmayne†. More significantly, in both these transactions Ryther is described as a knight, and, although no proof has been found, it is very likely that he had participated in the Agincourt campaign. He certainly fought in the next French campaign, serving under his brother-in-law, Sir Gilbert Umfraville, and he appears on the list from Lindsey, sent to the royal council in about January 1420, of men suitable for military service.10 E101/51/2, m. 33; E28/97/20B.

Thereafter the improvement in Ryther’s material circumstances gave him little reason to pursue further military adventures. On the death of Sir Gilbert his wife fell coheiress to a once great inheritance. The bulk of that inheritance had been either alienated to the Percys or settled in tail-male with remainder to the Tailboys family as descendants of the sister of Sir Gilbert’s great-uncle of the half-blood, Gilbert Umfraville, earl of Angus. Further, our MP’s wife had to share what remained with her four sisters: on 26 July 1421 the escheator of Northumberland was ordered to divide the manor of Fawns (in Kirk Whelpington parish) and other lesser property between them.11 CCR, 1419-22, p. 169. Much more materially significant to Ryther was the death of his long-inactive father. The precise date of that event is unknown but it had certainly occurred by 12 Apr. 1424, when Sibyl was party to a deed as woman sole. Sir William began his public career a few months later with appointment to a commission of inquiry in Yorkshire; and on the following 16 Oct., as lord of Ryther, he was indicted at the sheriff’s tourn at nearby Sherburn in Elmet for failing in his obligation to maintain a local road.12 CP40/728, rot. 128d; CPR, 1422-9, p. 275; KB27/706, rex rot. 24d. Yet, although he now held the bulk of his patrimony, subject to the deduction of his mother’s interest, he was less wealthy than his father. The family’s moiety of the Aldeburgh inheritance remained in Sibyl’s hands almost until the end of his career.

None the less, with his father dead Sir William was able to make a generous provision for his wife. He conveyed his principal manor, that of Ryther, to feoffees closely associated with his wife’s family; then, on 1 May 1425, these feoffees, headed by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, and her uncle, Sir Robert Umfraville, resettled the manor on the couple and their issue.13 Interestingly, on 6 May 1426 at Leicester, while Parliament was in session there, three of the feoffees, Cromwell, Walter Tailboys*, who was then like Ryther sitting as an MP, and John Tailboys*, formally acknowledged their deed of 1 May 1425 for enrolment on the plea roll of King’s bench: KB27/665, rot. 64. His father’s death also allowed him to become as active in local affairs as his father had been inactive. On 28 Jan. 1426 he was elected to represent his native county in Parliament, and a few months after the conclusion of the assembly he was pricked as the county’s sheriff.14 C219/13/4; CFR, xv. 157. More surprising was his nomination, in February 1430, less than three years after the end of his Yorkshire shrievalty, to the same office in Lincolnshire, and, on the day his term ended there, his reappointment in his native shire.15 CFR, xv. 297; xvi. 11. He held little land in the former county and appears to have had few connexions among its leading gentry. His appointment probably reflects both the difficulty the Crown had filling the office in Lincolnshire, and perhaps an unusual willingness on his part to serve as sheriff. Strikingly he was twice more appointed in Yorkshire, on both occasions as soon as he was eligible for reappointment under the terms of the statute of 1377 (this provided that no sheriff should be reappointed in a county in which he had served a full term for three years after relinquishing office). Further, the Crown was so anxious to appoint him in 1434 that it overlooked the consideration that he was then labouring under the disability of minor outlawry. On 30 Sept. that year he had been outlawed in Middlesex on a plea of debt sued by the executors of Sir Thomas Tunstall of Thurland (Lancashire), and the outlawry was not revoked until the following 25 Jan.16 CFR, xvi. 221; KB27/695, rot. 27.

These frequent appointments are hard to understand, but it is possible that Ryther’s connexions with the Crown were closer than implied by the surviving evidence. Suggestive here is the minor grant made on 25 Nov. 1435, soon after the end of his fourth shrievalty, to his son, William, of the marriage of Lionel, the young son and heir of Sir Richard Copley, and the wardship of some inconsequential lands. The younger William may already have had a place in the royal household as he certainly did by early in 1441 when he described himself as such in a petition to the King.17 CFR, xvi. 255; CIPM, xxiv. 425; E28/70/29. He appears as a household esquire in the first two of a series of household accts. that begins at Mich. 1441: E101/409/9, f. 36v; 409/11, f. 38. An alternative explanation for our MP’s frequent appointments and his apparent willingness to serve is a place in the retinue of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. Again the connexion is not well documented but the fact of it cannot be denied. On 17 Dec. 1435 he was appointed, undoubtedly, like the other commissioners, as the earl’s nominee, to inquire into Percy’s right to various manors in Yorkshire and Northumberland forfeited by his grandfather.18 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 531-2. He did not, however, sit as a commr. in either county: KB27/704, rex rots. 9, 16. Yet whatever the explanation for Ryther’s shrievalties, he seems to have tired of the burden they placed upon him. On 29 July 1438 he sued out a royal exemption from office, perhaps hoping that it would prevent his pricking in the following November, the first occasion he was eligible for reappointment. If so, he was to be disappointed.19 CPR, 1436-41, p. 186; CFR, xvii. 56.

Towards the end of his last shrievalty, the death of Ryther’s elderly mother increased his wealth. According to the inquisition held at York on 3 Oct. 1439 she died seised of a moiety of the manor of Harwood, extended at £11 6s. 11d. p.a. but worth more. On 20 Oct., the same day as this inquisition was delivered into Chancery, the escheator was ordered to take his fealty for this moiety.20 CIPM, xxv. 436; CFR, xvii. 124-5. In 1491 the moiety was valued at £24 p.a.: CIPM Hen. VII, i. 614. Yet he did not have long to enjoy this augmentation of his resources. His failure to account for his last term as sheriff led, on 30 Mar. 1440, to the seizure of his manors of Ryther and his moiety of Harwood by his successor as sheriff, Sir John Tempest, followed, on 30 May, by that of a messuage in Scarcroft.21 E199/50/36, 37. This property remained in the King’s hands until his death on 1 Oct. 1440, little more than a year after his mother had died, although the jurors in his inquisition post mortem recorded that he died seised of all the family’s lands.22 CIPM, xxv. 479-80.

Soon after Sir William’s death, his son, describing himself as an esquire of the Household, petitioned the King about his father’s failure to account. This he blamed on the under sheriff, Roger Bryne, whom Ryther had entrusted with the task of accounting on his behalf. Bryne had fled, leaving our MP chargeable at the Exchequer in as much as £1,700. Ryther’s son had been able to find cash and discharges worth only £1,252, and feared that he was ‘like to lye’ in prison for the residue. He complained that he had already lost issues worth more than £40 through the seizures made by Tempest, a sum that did not go to a reduction of the amount owed. He asked for a pardon of £200, but was rewarded with only £140.23 E28/70/29. The later history of the family illustrates its closeness to the Percys. Our MP’s son, knighted at the coronation of Queen Margaret on 30 May 1445, was indicted for supporting the Percys at Heworth on 24 Aug. 1453, and his grandson, Sir Ralph, married a daughter of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (d.1489).24 Arnold, 133, 257, 271. Our MP’s son was knighted between 5 May and 15 June 1445: CCR, 1441-7, p. 305; CPR, 1441-6, p. 348. Given his service in the Household, there can be no doubt that the coronation was the occasion of his knighthood.