Family and Education

s. of Sir William Hankford, c.j.KB, of Hankford in Bulkworthy, Devon by his w. Christine. m. bef. 1396, Thomasina, da. and h. of Sir Richard Stapleton of Norton and Nonnington, Som. and Hewish, 1s. 3da.1 2s. illegit.

Offices Held

Commr. of array, Devon July 1402, Apr. 1418, Mar. 1419; oyer and terminer Sept. 1402; inquiry Mar. 1418 (piracy).

Biography

Hankford, the son of Henry V’s chief justice, died nearly five years before his father and therefore never inherited the family’s property. He did hold some of the Hankford lands, however, by virtue of settlements made by his father, and was, in any case, adequately provided for by his marriage to Thomasina Stapleton, who brought him Norton and Nonnington in Somerset and Hewish and Broad Harford in Devon, as well as lands in Cornwall, property in Exeter and four advowsons including that of Roborough. His wife was the great-niece of Walter Stapleton, bishop of Exeter from 1307 to 1326, who had founded Exeter college, Oxford. Hankford was involved in transactions relating to other properties in Somerset in 1406 and 1414-15, but these were no longer in his possession by 1419. In 1412 income from his own holdings was assessed at £80, and the estimated value of his estates provided at his post mortem came to over £107. A lawsuit in 1409-10 failed to secure the manor of Coombe-in-Teignhead, for which his son was still suing in 1425. For a brief while he enjoyed additional profits from the lands late of Walter Cornu which were held of the heir of the Fitzwaryn estates, and these later passed to Hankford’s own son, Richard, who married the Fitzwaryn heiress.2

Hankford’s public career was short. Apart from service in Parliament and on royal commissions, the only other reference to his activities yet traced is of his association with Thomas Archdeacon* in the delivery, in July 1418, of 18 masts and several anchors and cables from Ilfracombe to Southampton for use on the King’s ships.3

Hankford died on 27 Apr. 1419. In his will made four years later his father, the chief justice, left generous bequests to Richard’s children, even making provision for the education of his illegitimate sons, born after a liaison with Elizabeth Were. His legitimate heir and namesake was later to serve in France under Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury, and then marry the earl’s sister, Anne, as his second wife.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Notes

• 1. Reg. Brantingham ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 679; Reg. Chichele, ii. 290-3; CP, v. 504-5.
• 2. CP, v. 505; Feudal Aids, vi. 417, 514; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 20-21, 176; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 259-60, 322; Yr. Bk. Mich. 11 Hen. IV, 14-15; C138/42/70; CFR, xiv. 50-51, 280-1; Trans. Devon Assoc. lxxxiii. 250-1.
• 3. CPR, 1416-22, p. 204.
• 4. C138/42/70; CP, v. 210, 505; CCR, 1419-22, p. 5; CFR, xiv. 273, 285; Peds. Plea Rolls, 338; Reg. Chichele, ii. 290-3.