HORDE, William (d.1435), of Shrewsbury, Salop.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Nov. 1414
Mar. 1416
Oct. 1416
Dec. 1421

Family and Education

s. of Richard Horde of Walford and Shrewsbury by his w. Margaret. m. (1) 1s. John; (2) bef. Nov. 1430, Katherine Coyne.1

Offices Held

Assessor, Shrewsbury Sept. 1410-11, bailiff 1411-12, 1418-19, 1427-8, 1431-2; coroner 1412-13.2

Escheator, Salop and the adjacent march 14 Dec. 1415-8 Dec. 1416, 16 Nov. 1420-13 Nov. 1423.

Steward of the lordship of Oswestry by Oct. 1421.3

Biography

William’s father was a tailor, and possibly a younger brother of Roger Horde of Stanwardine, sheriff of Shropshire in 1380-1, who held the manor of Walford (some six miles from Shrewsbury) where Richard came from. The latter, admitted as a burgess of Shrewsbury in 1372, was still alive at the time of the foundation of the tailors’ chantry in St. Chad’s church in 1401.4 William himself, who perhaps trained as a lawyer, is first heard of in April 1398 when he took out a royal pardon for unspecified offences. Much later, in June 1408, he was indicted before the j.p.s along with Thomas Glace (with whom he had been recently associated as mainpernor for a servant of Sir Roger Acton, then facing charges of stealing a horse and cattle from his master), for having assaulted Thomas Willaboy, the sub-bailiff of Shrewsbury, at the stone bridge there. It was also alleged that, in May, Horde had hit Thomas Cholmondeley of Chester over the head with a truncheon in Butcher’s Row. In the meantime, on 22 May, John Wele* then captain of Oswestry, had ridden to Shrewsbury to bring about a love-day between Horde and Willaboy, and later that year there was a similar attempt at arbitration between Horde and Cholmondeley. Apparently neither was entirely successful, but it was not until July 1415 that Horde took out a royal pardon for his offences.5

From 1411, for more than 20 years, Horde regularly held office in Shrewsbury and was returned to Parliament on as many as ten occasions, twice (in 1427 and 1432) when bailiff. He was often required to witness local conveyances in this period. He frequently acted, too, away from home, on behalf of the borough: for example, in 1419-20 he was made responsible for paying lawyers in London for their advice in the town’s dispute with the burgesses of Montgomery, receiving a fee of 20s.pro bono consilio suo’; and in 1426-7 he travelled to Gloucester on community business. Less creditably, he was later mentioned as a former bailiff in connexion with a royal commission authorized, in November 1434, to audit the murage accounts of the borough and hear from the overseer, the abbot of Shrewsbury, all allegations regarding the bailiffs’ misappropriation of the fund to their own use.6

For no fewer than four annual terms (including three in succession) Horde held the royal escheatorship in Shropshire, and it was during his periods in office that he was returned to three of his Parliaments for Shrewsbury (in 1416 and 1421). He was one of the 20 men selected by the Shropshire j.p.s in the winter of 1419-20, as being best able for military service in the defence of the realm. In 1421 Horde also acted for a short time as royal steward of the former Fitzalan lordship of Oswestry. He was already connected with this area as a result of his nomination as one of the trustees of David Holbache’s* estate for the foundation of a school. It was to a fellow trustee, William Burley* of Broncroft, that, in 1430, Horde and his second wife, Katherine, conveyed Katherine’s landed holdings, situated in Henley, Whittingslow and Acton Scott. Horde’s main property interests, however, were in Shrewsbury itself, where, in the following year, they were estimated to be worth £5 annually. They included Horde’s Hall in Barker Street.7

According to a coroner’s inquest, Horde was murdered in ‘Jonesfeld’, just outside Shrewsbury, on 23 June 1435, by Thomas Mytton of Shrewsbury, assisted by his mother, Alice, and one of the servants of Richard Bentley*, all of whom immediately fled into Wales. Their motives are not revealed. Two years after this event, Horde’s son and heir, John, complained in a petition to the chancellor that his stepmother, Katherine (who had since married Richard Burley), had ‘contreved, feyned and subteley imagined an untrewe testament’ of his father’s, and had also forged deeds of enfeoffment, the effect of which had been to put his inheritance in Shrewsbury and elsewhere in the county into the possession of her brother, Robert Coyne, her brother-in-law, Hugh Cresset, and John Wynnesbury*, conditional upon their settling the same on the widow for life with remainder after her death to her right heirs, thus permanently disinheriting the plaintiff.8

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. CPR, 1401-5, p. 4; CP25(1)195/22/9; C1/9/296.
  • 2. Shrewsbury Guildhall, box II, 67, f. 12d; JUST 2/145 mm. 9, 13; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 1), iii. 243-4.
  • 3. Shrewsbury Lib. deeds 7132, 7155.
  • 4. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), iii. 369-70; iv. 207-11, 232; (ser. 4), xii. 161-2; CPR, 1401-5, p. 4.
  • 5. C67/30 m. 28, 37 m. 30; Shrewsbury Guildhall, box II, 67, f. 38; box VIII, 355; Salop Peace Roll ed. Kimball, 83-84; KB27/613 mm. 9, 13; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), iv. 205.
  • 6. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 1), v. 4; Shrewsbury Guildhall, box VIII, 359, 363; CPR, 1429-36, p. 470.
  • 7. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), iv. 185-216; vii. 332; CP25(1)195/22/9; Feudal Aids, iv. 260; E28/97/33.
  • 8. KB9/227/1 m. 41, 228/2 m. 1; C1/9/296.