Family and Education

?s. of Geoffrey le Yonge. m. ?Beatrice, da. and h. of William Caynton^† of Caynton, Salop, 2s. 1da.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Salop May 1379, Mar. 1404.

Commr. of array, Salop Apr. 1385, Mar. 1392, Dec. 1399, Sept. 1403; inquiry Sept. 1387 (offices at Wenlock priory), Salop, Staffs. Mar. 1395 (false weights), Salop Feb. 1410 (ownership of Farlow), Feb. 1410, Dec. 1411 (goods of a felon), Mar. 1410, Jan. 1412 (rights of Lord and Lady Beauchamp of Abergavenny in Morfe forest), July 1410 (wastes in lordship of Caus), Jan. 1414 (lollards); to supervise musters of the prince of Wales’s army, Salop, Chester Mar. 1405; of arrest, Salop May 1407; to assess contributions to a subsidy Jan. 1412.

Escheator, Salop, Staffs. and the marches 30 Nov. 1387-15 Jan. 1388.

J.p. Salop 24 Dec. 1390-c. Feb. 1416.

Biography

The pedigrees of the Young family give conflicting evidence as to Thomas’s parentage, although it seems clear that his mother was a member of the Cheshire family of St. Pierre. He himself held property in Sibdon and Guilden in Shropshire.1 Probably a lawyer by profession, he is first mentioned, in 1379, in connexion with the Talbots of Goodrich castle, then standing surety for the payment of a fine of 100 marks imposed after Joan, widow of John, Lord Charlton of Powis, had married Gilbert, Lord Talbot, without royal licence. Among the other landowners of Shropshire with whom he was later associated were the Corbets of Leigh and their distant kinsmen the Corbets of Moreton, and he was party to the dispute between Sir Roger Corbet* and his niece, which, having led to outbreaks of violence, resulted in a summons for the principals to appear before the King’s Council in June 1390. Young also acted as a feoffee of the manors of Bolas and Isombridge (Shropshire) and Brimfield (Herefordshire), for the purpose of a settlement on Isabel, widow of Sir John Eylesford and later wife of Richard de la Mare.2

Young’s most important connexion and the one which undoubtedly did most to influence his elections to Parliament, was that established with Richard, earl of Arundel, from whom he held much of his Shropshire property. The earl employed him as steward of the lordships of Chirk and Oswestry from about 1387 to 1390; and when he made his will on 4 Mar. 1393 he named him among the executors, chosen ‘sur le graund affiaunce qe jay en eux et en chescun de eux’, and left him ‘un hanap d’argent en remembraunce de moy’. When, in February 1395, during Young’s third Parliament, Arundel obtained a royal licence to entail his castles and lordships of Chirk and Chirkland, the trustees involved in the transaction included Young and two other Shropshire lawyers, John Burley I* and David Holbache*. In the following year he was party to the formal undertaking made by the earl’s kinswoman, Philippa, widow of Sir Richard Cergeaux*, that she would never lay claim to lands once belonging to her grandfather (the previous earl). Young’s career with regard to royal service was superficially unaffected by Earl Richard’s execution in 1397, for, having obtained a royal pardon in June 1398 he was re-appointed to the Shropshire bench in the following autumn. However, he was certainly quick to join the earl’s son and heir, Thomas Fitzalan, as soon as he returned to England from exile with Henry of Bolingbroke in the summer of 1399. Even before his accession to the throne, Bolingbroke, as duke of Lancaster, granted permission for Young, Archbishop Arundel and two others of the late earl’s executors, to receive the issues of the Fitzalan estates forfeited by Act of the Parliament of 1397-8, and retain them for the young earl’s use. Our MP then accompanied another Fitzalan retainer, John Burley, to Henry IV’s first Parliament, the two of them doubtless assisting in the process whereby the judgements of the previous assembly were annulled and Earl Thomas was granted leave to enter into his inheritance, although still a minor, and to receive the profits from his estates as collected by Young and the rest.3

On 14 Feb. 1400, Henry of Monmouth, the new prince of Wales, granted Young a life annuity of five marks charged on the exchequer at Chester. Although he was never, so far as is known, returned to Parliament again, he did receive a summons to the great council of August 1401. Young was kept busy during Henry IV’s reign serving on royal commissions and conscientiously fulfilling his duties as a j.p. He was often associated with John Burley in an official capacity, and it was with him and Sir John Cornwall* that in 1405 he was commissioned to supervise musters of the prince of Wales’s army for an offensive operation against Glendower in North Wales, and on his behalf that, five years later, he witnessed the presentation of an incumbent to Munslow church. Young’s connexion with Thomas, earl of Arundel, long continued: in 1407 he was party with the earl and his uncle, Archbishop Arundel, to transactions regarding the estates of his sister, Joan, Lady Beauchamp of Abergavenny; and at some point before 1414 the earl granted him the wardship and marriage of Walter, son and heir of Walter Hopton. Young attended the Shropshire elections to the Parliament of 1413 (May), at which two others of Arundel’s affinity were returned. It is, therefore, surprising to find him heading the grand jury of 36 men who, at Shrewsbury before the King’s bench in the Trinity term of 1414, brought serious indictments against these same men (Robert Corbet* and Richard Lacon*) and their fellow retainers of the earl, including John Burley’s son John, Roger Corbet*, John Wele* and John Wynnesbury*. After making their indictments, Young and his fellows knelt before the King and begged that those whom they had charged would not be set at liberty without first offering a sufficient undertaking not to molest their accusers.4 He is not recorded thereafter.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 425, 517-18; CIMisc. vi. 234. He may well have been related to the Youngs of Shelvock who held office under the earls of Arundel as stewards of Ruyton at intervals between 1354 and 1427: Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), i. 78; ii. 108-10, 127-8.
• 2. CPR, 1377-81, p. 403; 1388-92, p. 340; 1396-9, p. 318; 1401-5, pp. 100, 352; 1405-8, p. 315; CCR, 1389-92, pp. 143, 199; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), ii. 152-3.
• 3. CPR, 1391-6, p. 548; 1399-1401, p. 134; CCR, 1396-9, pp. 72, 84; C67/30 m. 17; L.O.W. Smith, ‘Lordships of Chirk and Oswestry’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1970), 443.
• 4. DKR, xxxvi. 547; Sel. Cases King’s Bench (Selden Soc. lxxxviii), 114, 228, 235; Salop Peace Roll ed. Kimball, 27, 30, 80; PPC, i. 162; Reg. Mascall (Canterbury and York Soc. xxi), 175; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), ii. 158; C219/11/2.
• 5. According to the Salop Visitations one of Young’s sons became Somerset Herald. His da. Margaret was contracted in 1405 to marry Hugh, s. and h. of John Stapleton of Dormington, Herefs.: Shrewsbury Lib. deed 2837.