Henry VI: July 1455

1455 July

Introduction 1455

Westminster

9 July 1455 -12 March 1456

(PRO C 65/103. RP , v.278-327. SR , ii.369-78)

C 65/103 is a roll of twenty-five membranes, each approximately 310mm in width, sewn together in chancery style and numbered at the head and foot in a later hand in reverse order. The text, written in the small, clear, chancery scripts of several scribes, occupies the rectos of the membranes only. The dorse of the roll is blank apart from the later identification of the parliament - variously 'Parl. 33 H.6', 'anno H.VI XXXIII', '33 H.6 parliament' or 'anno 33 H.6' - on the back of each membrane. In addition, the later heading 'Parliamentum de anno Henrici sexti tricesimo tertio' is to be found on the dorse of membrane 25 and the words 'Resumpcio XXXIII' on the dorse of membrane 8. The roll is in good condition and legible throughout. All headings are contemporary except that for item 40 and those to be found on membranes 13-1. The marginal arabic item numbers in the roll are of later date. No separate membranes of parchment are stitched to the roll, which appears to be complete.

The parliament was summoned by writs of 26 May 1455, four days after the battle of St Albans had brought the duke of York back to power. Henry VI had recovered from his mental collapse around Christmas 1454 and York's protectorate had come to an effective end in the course of the following January, although he was not formally relieved of the office until 9 February (appendix item 28). The circle around the king had proceeded to make it clear that they regarded York's actions over the previous months as partisan. The duke of Somerset had been released from the Tower and restored as captain of Calais. The duke of Exeter, involved in the northern unrest of 1453-4 against the Nevilles, was also released. His actions, which York had construed as treasonable, were tacitly redefined, with his imprisonment blamed on the malice of ill-wishers. Henry's insistence on seeing Exeter as the wronged party had the effect of pushing the junior Nevilles - York's brother in law the earl of Salisbury and Salisbury's son Richard, earl of Warwick - into stronger support for York.

The unpicking of York's actions as protector led York and his allies to believe that more direct steps would be taken against them. Amidst growing political tension they withdrew from court and began raising troops, and their fears can only have been confirmed when they were summoned to attend a great council to be held at Leicester on 21 May 1455. The choice of location was ominous. Leicester was a duchy of Lancaster lordship, and they may well have feared that the summons was a prelude to their arrest. They can hardly have forgotten the precedent of the duke of Gloucester's arrest in 1447. This time York struck first, and intercepted the royal party at St Albans on 22 May. Henry had left London the previous day (the day the council had been due to meet) and a recent flurry of military summonses suggests that his advisers had belatedly realised that the situation was sliding towards outright conflict. Inconclusive negotiations ensued before the Yorkists attacked. The fighting was brief, and has been seen more as a series of political assassinations than an actual battle. It ended with Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford dead and Henry, who had been slightly wounded, in York's control.

The victors showed the king ostentatious deference, insisting, as they had done before the battle, that they were loyal subjects coming to the king's defence against the enemies within. This was also to be the line taken in parliament when it assembled on 9 July. Henry himself opened it and there was a respectable turn-out of lords: thirty-three lords spiritual and twenty-seven lords temporal. Although there were some notable absentees, including the duke of Exeter and Thomas Percy, lord Egremont, who had played leading roles in the Neville / Percy violence and were both in custody, there were some equally striking attenders. Egremont's brother, the new earl of Northumberland, whose father had died at St Albans, was present, and so was John, Viscount Beaumont, who had refused to serve under York in his first protectorate, reminding his colleagues 'that he was with the quene'. (fn. int1455-1) Among the commons, in spite of some well-attested competition for seats in Kent and East Anglia, the general attitude to the parliament appears to have been cautious. On 24 June John Jenney, although labouring on behalf of would-be candidates in the Norfolk and Norwich elections, commented to John Paston I, 'Sum men hold it right straunge to be in this parlement, and me thenkith they be wyse men that soo doo'. (fn. int1455-2)

One hundred and ninety-eight members of the commons have been traced. (fn. int1455-3) The candidate for whom Jenney was 'labouring' in Norfolk, an associate of the duke of Norfolk, Roger Chamberlain, was returned successfully in spite of being based in Suffolk, which did not stop Jenney waxing indignant about the choice of another Suffolk man, John Howard, as the other knight of the shire for Norfolk. He wrote angrily to John Paston that it was 'a evill precedent for the shire that a straunge man shulde be chosyn, and no wurshipp to my lord of Yorke nor to my lord of Norfolk to write for hym; for yf the jentilmen of the shire will suffre such inconvenyens, in good feithe the shire shall noght be called of seche wurshipp as it hathe be'. (fn. int1455-4) In spite of York's successful involvement here, the 1455 parliament should not be characterised as 'Yorkist', although, as was to become apparent, the commons were in no mood to pull their punches in criticising aspects of Henry VI's regime.

The chancellor, Thomas Bourgchier, archbishop of Canterbury, gave an opening address. Space was left for it on the roll, but text and subject matter remain unrecorded. On the second day (before the election of the speaker on the third day) the archbishop offered the lords an agenda of eight items for their attention: the rule and funding of the royal household; payment of the Calais garrison; the defence of Calais and Berwick; the deployment of 13,000 archers granted in the previous parliament; the establishment of 'parfite love and rest' among the lords; the prevention of the export of bullion; the keeping of the sea; and the unrest in Wales (items 7-15).

The question of household finance had been an ongoing issue throughout the reign, but the reference to the need to establish 'an ordinate and a substantiall rule' for the household signalled the reopening of what York must have considered unfinished business from his protectorate. On 13 November 1454 a dramatic reduction in the size of the household had been announced by the council, in order to rescue the country from the financial burden of supporting so large an establishment. There is no way of telling whether this took effect. Henry's recovery soon afterwards probably meant that it did not. Certainly the size and cost of the household remained an issue. Within the extant parliamentary material the emphasis is on funding the household. There was an attempt to assign revenue to meet its cost for the financial year 1455-6 (item 48). The difficulty of the king's maintaining an honourable household was also the justification given for a number of bills not directly concerned with household finances. But in letters patent of March 1457, granting Robert Savage the office of yeoman of the crown in place of William Grimsby, it is noted that parliament had agreed that there should only be twenty-four yeomen of the crown and had listed the individuals who made up the total. The extant council ordinance of November 1454 had listed twenty-three yeomen of the crown, with Grimsby in a separate category as yeoman of the stool. The implication is that a version of the ordinance had received parliamentary confirmation in 1455-6 and that men like Savage, who held the office of yeomen but were not included in the final list, saw their offices resumed in consequence. (fn. int1455-5)

Defence of the realm was also a perennial concern, but had been given an edge by recent problems in Calais. In May 1455 the council had been concerned by French plans to besiege Calais, a threat already under discussion a year earlier and in part, surely, a response to the internal disarray of the fortress. (fn. int1455-6) The financing of Calais had been one of the failures of York's first protectorate. He had inherited the crisis caused by parliament's refusal, in February 1454, to grant £40,000 for the wages of the garrison. York had been forced back onto loans from the Staplers. But before any money could be delivered to the garrison the men mutinied and, early in May that year, seized and sold the stocks of wool in the town. The financial issue was the more intractable because of York's failure to establish his own authority in the town. An early move in his protectorate had been an order that all the Calais fortresses be surrendered into his hands, an obvious prelude to his replacing Somerset as captain of Calais, although this was not formally achieved until 17 July 1454. Even then Somerset's lieutenants remained in effective control. In August York legalised the garrison's seizure of the wool, but the underlying problem of how to meet the garrison's costs remained. It is noticeable that in 1455-6 the most extreme penalties suggested in parliamentary bills were earmarked for the defence of Calais. Although none took effect, the assumption is clearly that anxieties about meeting the cost of the garrison would make palatable otherwise outrageous suggestions such as the proposed penalty of 10,000 marks if John Wood pleaded a royal pardon in response to the charge of evading custom on wool (appendix item 13).

The lords responded to the chancellor's agenda by establishing five committees to look into the matters they considered most pressing. The composition of the committees is, uniquely, listed. Most of the lords present were drafted into service and the result was deliberately non-partisan. There was clearly some attempt to match individual expertise to the appropriate committee, and all but one of the committees also had the advice of external members. The committee looking into the household included three former treasurers of the exchequer (the earl of Worcester and Lords Cromwell and Sudeley), one of whom (Sudeley) was the current steward of the household. In addition it could call on the chamberlain of the household, Sir Thomas Stanley, and unspecified household officers. Together with the two named officials of Henry VI's household, it also included Viscount Beaumont, the great chamberlain. The Calais committee was, unsurprisingly, much the strongest. It was also the most politically sensitive, given York's earlier failure to challenge Somerset's control there, and both Salisbury and Warwick (who had been named captain of Calais after St Albans) served on this committee. But even this committee was not exclusively 'Yorkist' and William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, although a kinsman of the Nevilles, had been with Henry VI rather than with York at St Albans. The lords appointed were to be joined in their deliberations by the treasurer and victualler of Calais. The committee was also given responsibility for Berwick, but on the first day of parliament word reached London that the Scottish siege of the town had been lifted and this seems to have taken the northern threat temporarily off the agenda. (fn. int1455-7) There is no indication that anything came of any deliberations on that subject

The safe-keeping of the sea was given its own committee, with the earl of Oxford the senior lay peer. The only trace of its deliberations in the parliamentary record was that on 30 July, the penultimate day of the first session, the earls of Salisbury, Shrewsbury and Worcester, and lord Stourton (none of whom was a member of the committee) were discharged of the keeping of the seas at their own request. They, along with the earl of Wiltshire, had been appointed to guard the seas in the previous parliament, but if their resignation was designed to clear the way for new arrangements these were not formally enrolled. Nor is there any trace within the parliamentary record of any attempt to engage with the habitual anxieties about the shortage of bullion. This committee only included one lay peer, ex-treasurer Worcester. Apart from two unnamed merchants, the professional expertise was primarily administrative, including the prior of St Johns (then keeper of the privy seal), Master Thomas Kent (the clerk of the council) and one of the king's secretaries for the French tongue, Master Gervase le Vulre.

The fifth committee was to look into Wales. The concern here seems to have been less with Wales as a cockpit for political tensions, and rather with the perennial lawlessness of the region, although this is admittedly a blurred distinction in the context of the 1450s. The committee was to consist of unspecified marcher lords, the serjeants at law and the king's attorney general - the most perfunctory definition of any of the committees. As with the committee on bullion, any discussion has left no trace in the parliamentary record, although this is not to say that none took place. One of the most persistent offenders was Somerset's deputy at Carmarthen, Griffith ap Nicholas. At some stage during the parliament, probably in the second session, the king granted the petition of Griffith ap David ap Thomas, who had been imprisoned by Griffith ap Nicholas. As well as releasing his prisoner, Griffith ap Nicholas was also ordered to surrender Carmarthen and Aberystwyth to York (appendix item 30). (fn. int1455-8)

Of the items on the chancellor's agenda, this apparently left three unaccounted for. The urgent matter of paying the Calais garrison was surely the responsibility of the committee 'for Calais' since finance was inseparable from defence. The use to be made of the 13,000 archers may also have fallen within their remit, although there is no sign of any decision being made. Only the establishment of peace between the lords did not fall to the share of any committee. This issue, at least as defined by the Yorkists, was to dominate the first session of parliament. On the roll, the recognition of the loyalty of York, Warwick and Salisbury and an indemnity for acts committed at St Albans follow immediately after the presentation of John Wenlock as speaker on 11 July. All the blame for the events of May was placed on Somerset (now dead) and two lesser figures: the baron of the exchequer Thomas Thorp, who had been speaker in the 1453 parliament until his arrest at the suit of the duke of York, and the household man William Joseph. They were accused of denying the Yorkists all access to the king, whether in writing or in person, culminating in an attempt to block the Yorkists' resort to the king by force. In this account - which is presented in the parliamentary record as the king's narrative of events - the battle of St Albans becomes not an attack on the king but an attempt by Somerset and his cronies to kill York and his supporters. The motivation of the three men is stressed throughout to have been personal malice, a presentation that avoids any explicit characterisation of them as traitors.

The interpretation is, of course, tendentious, although the letters embedded in the narrative are presumably genuine. (fn. int1455-9) It had always, after all, been a central plank of York's platform that he was the loyal subject of the king whose quarrel was with the evil counsellors around Henry. Now events were publicly reformulated to match this reading. The events at St Albans had left York and his followers open to the accusation of treason in making war against the king, and this possibility was very carefully closed down. The parliamentary narrative ends with the king's acknowledgement that their behaviour had demonstrated that their faith and truth to him were beyond question. None of them was to be 'empeched, sued, vexed, hurt or molested in thaire bodies, goodes or landes' as a result of the events of 22 May. Or, as a letter-writer on 19 July summarised it, the bill (which passed on 18 July) affirmed 'all thing doon there [St Albans] well doon, and nothing doon there never after this tyme to be spoken of'. (fn. int1455-10) Nor did the Yorkist rehabilitation stop there. In a bill which received the royal assent but was not enrolled (appendix item 2) the resumption of the royal grants of those present with York when he confronted the king at Dartford in 1452 was rescinded. The act of 1453 had presented Dartford as a battle, and cast York and his allies as 'traitours assembled in the field ayenst youre saide moost roial persoune and estate'. Now the act was revoked on the grounds that it had raised dangerous doubts about 'the feith, trouth and ligeance of many youre true liegemen'. The indictment of Walter Devereux for treason in February 1452 was also over-ridden and Devereux acknowledged to be the king's true liegeman (appendix item 23). York's allies Thomas Young and William Oldhall also received redress for their earlier arrest and attainder respectively (appendix items 14, 26). Oldhall secured an exemplification of his petition in November, but it is likely to have passed in the first session. (fn. int1455-11)

By contrast, a bill was introduced calling for the punishment of Thorp and Joseph by forfeiture of all their royal grants and imprisonment for twelve years, and a fine of £1,000 to be put towards the defence of Calais (appendix item 9). No pardon granted to them previously or (a later insertion in the bill) to be granted in future was to have any force in respect of the penalty. Predictably, given this attempt to over-ride his prerogative of mercy, the king reserved judgement, but he did consent (probably in the second session) (fn. int1455-12) to a bill resuming their royal grants, to take effect from 13 December, the last day of the second session. The bill accused the two men of 'inordinate and presumptuouse malepertenesse [and] unfitting demeanyng in the presence of our said soverain lord' (appendix item 22).

The parliamentary record gives no hint of dissent from this radical rewriting of recent history. But the very care with which York and his followers are redefined as loyal subjects, and all responsibility heaped on Somerset, Thorp and Joseph, is testimony to the extreme sensitivity of the issue, as is the angry clash between Lord Cromwell and Warwick on 17 July over who should bear responsibility for the battle. The letter writer who recorded that episode also noted that followers of York, Warwick and Salisbury 'have stuffed their Lordes barges full of wepon dayly unto Westminster' and that the passing of the bill (on 18 July) exonerating York and his followers from any blame was 'groged full sore' by many. (fn. int1455-13)

The actions of parliament, it is clear, were perceived as partisan - probably within parliament as well as without. It is within that context that one should see the story spread by John Heydon in July that John Paston and others planned to put a bill before parliament laying accusations of treason against him, the bishop of Norwich and Sir Thomas Tuddenham. According to Heydon's version, which Paston indignantly repudiated, if he (Heydon) had been absent from parliament six hours longer than he was, a commission of oyer et terminer would have been appointed to look into the accusations. (fn. int1455-14) But none of these tensions was allowed to surface in the roll. Officially, parliament achieved (as the chancellor had hoped) 'parfite love and rest' among the lords, embodied in the re-assertion of shared loyalty to the crown. On 24 July all the lords present took a formal oath of loyalty to Henry VI (item 25). Each spiritual lord laid his hand upon his breast in taking the oath and every temporal lord, led by York, took the king by the hand. Lords not present were to take the oath on their next arrival. On 31 July parliament was prorogued by the chancellor until 12 November, but before it rose a general pardon was offered for all offences committed before the opening of parliament against the statute of livery, and all treasons, murders and other offences. As far as legal recriminations were concerned, bygones were to be bygones, and York's opponents were among the first to avail themselves of the pardon. (fn. int1455-15)

Contrary to the impression given by the roll, the exoneration of the Yorkists was not the only business accomplished in the first session. The duke of Gloucester, whom York had come to see as his forerunner as a victim of the circle around the king, was rehabilitated, although the act was not enrolled. John Stow, usually well-informed about parliamentary matters, went so far as to put the duke's rehabilitation first in his list of business. The chronicler of St Albans (where Gloucester was buried), John Whethamstede, describes it as something done ' inter alia ' but his discussion gives it pride of place, ahead of the act of indemnity - something he regarded with far less enthusiasm, since it blocked the possibility of those harmed by the battle of St Albans claiming redress. (fn. int1455-16) According to Whethamstede efforts had been made in all the parliaments since Gloucester's death to clear his name, and an extant fragmentary petition to the commons, itemising the dead duke's service to the crown, may be a legacy of one such earlier attempt. (fn. int1455-17) Only now, however, with York's help, was it achieved and the dead duke declared a faithful, indeed the most faithful, liege of the king until the day of his death (appendix item 12). On 31 July, the last day of the session, writs were duly sent to sheriffs and bailiffs ordering them to make public proclamation of the duke's loyalty, and this was apparently done on 16 August. (fn. int1455-18) Attention was also being given to the fate of Gloucester's soul. A further unenrolled bill, about which the king reserved judgement, sought to secure the administration of the duke's will and payment of his debts by authorising the seizure of land purchased by the duke, with reversion to the king once the debts had been met (appendix item 18).

It was probably also in the first session, as B. P. Wolffe suggested, rather than in the third (as Wedgwood assumed), that the commons first petitioned for the resumption of royal grants, in order to finance the royal household without putting an undue burden on the king's subjects (item 47). As was usual practice, the bill and the exemptions from it were recorded on their own membranes, which were sewn into the roll when it was made up at the end of the parliament. Their placing within the roll thus gives no clue to the timing of the various events, and the dating of the initial petition to the first session relies largely on the statement that the resumption was to take effect from Michaelmas. (fn. int1455-19) The version of the petition given by Whethamstede, although undated, does give some clues to the sequence of events. This consists only of the long preamble itemising what was to be included in the resumption and the first five exemptions as enrolled (for the queen, prince Edward, benefactors of fraternities and the like, grants made by the king as feoffee and office holders on the queen's lands). The exemption for John Wenlock (the speaker) which follows on the roll is apparently a later insertion, for the St Albans version of the petition continues with the clause 'saving to each of your lieges his title and interest in any of the things stated, such as they had or ought to have had before the said grants, or afterwards, other than by your grants'. (fn. int1455-20)

It is possible that the petition as originally presented ended at this point. As enrolled, it continues with the request that the commons should see any proposed exemptions 'other than be conteigned in this oure peticion to the ende that we may gife our assentz therto, if it be thought to us expedient'. The request is introduced 'in the most lowely wyse', but the commons were presumably well aware of the radical nature of their demand. They went on to make an even more audacious suggestion: that anyone receiving a grant after the deadline not allowed in the listed exemptions or 'contrarie to this oure desire' be fined a thousand marks: half to go to the king to be applied to the cost of the Calais garrison and half to whoever chose to sue for it. The penalty was not, it was added, to be applied to offices requiring actual exercise and paid at the same rate as on the first day of the reign.

If the commons' demands do represent a later development, designed to give them a greater say in the enforcement of the resumption, it is hard to date this stiffening of their resolve. The following proviso on the roll, exempting any grant of the protectorship to the prince of Wales or to York, and any subsequent grant to the prince of the principality or Wales and the earldom of Chester, must date from parliament's second session. Certainly the bill was under discussion then, for Bale's chronicle dates the commons' agreement to December. (fn. int1455-21) Whatever the exact chronology, it seems clear that the act of resumption, as it appears on the roll, had developed across the life of the parliament. The commons, whether or not encouraged by York, were evidently prepared to take a hard line. They were not unreasonable. They recognised that offices had to be filled and that the queen was entitled to her dower rights. She was allowed an exemption of grants worth 10,000 marks - with the possibility of receiving new grants if the endowment of the prince of Wales had reduced her income below that level. But the commons wanted to close the loophole of unilateral royal exemptions. They seem also to have been unsympathetic to the separation of the duchy of Lancaster lands from the crown estate, and the duchy lands were explicitly brought within the scope of the resumption.

But perhaps the clearest indication that the commons meant business was their willingness to see resumption as the solution to other problems. An unenrolled petition, upon which the king reserved judgement but which the lords rejected (appendix item 1) attempted to use resumption to make the office of sheriff more attractive to 'men of goode and worthy reputacion' such as in the past had 'entreted your people undre the directe order of the lawe without extorcion, and put them in devoir to kepe your peas and to resiste and subdewe the offendours of your lawes'. The problem (as the commons were to reiterate in successive parliaments) was that the county revenues for which the sheriffs were meant to account had been eroded until the sheriffs were liable for more money than they could levy. In 1455-6 the solution was seen as the resumption of all liberties, franchises and the like granted since the beginning of the reign and before 14 February 1456 and not enrolled within three months of that date. This time scale probably implies that the bill was presented in the final session, as does the fact that the verdict was left to the lords.

The bill belongs to an ongoing series of attempts to set the office of sheriff on a more realistic financial footing. Outside parliament, two sheriffs had successfully petitioned the king and council late in 1455 for allowance for those parts of their farm that could no longer be levied, and the allowance granted to the sheriff of Huntingdon and Cambridge in April 1456 was said to be by the authority of parliament. (fn. int1455-22) What is unusual is that resumption was adopted as the alternative to such ad hoc expedients. Later parliamentary bills were to seek other solutions, albeit with no more success. In 1455-6 resumption was the commons' first resort. This can be seen also in their petition to resume grants of wardship and marriage made since Michaelmas 1448 (appendix item 3), which drew the unusually blunt response that the king and all the lords thought it unreasonable.

Behind this faith in resumption was real anxiety about the state of the king's finances. This surfaced elsewhere in parliamentary business, notably in the bills attacking the licensing of shipments of wool to ports other than Calais (appendix items 4 and 13). (fn. int1455-23) It is likely that the Staplers' concern to maintain their monopoly was somewhere at the back of the agitation - and hence, indirectly, the question of the financing of Calais - but there was a clear appeal to the commons' financial concerns in the assertion that such licences facilitated the evasion of customs duty.

The commons were also much concerned with law and order. Again, this can be seen not only in petitions directly concerned with enforcing the law but in the way in which the issue was used to make out a case for other demands. Thus the justification for sorting out the financial position of the sheriffs was that it would facilitate the maintenance of law. Most of these petitions cannot be dated to a particular session, and, indeed, lawlessness was an ongoing concern of the commons in this period. But a sense of an inexorable slide into violence, especially at the margins of the realm, coloured much of the business of the second session.

Parliament had been prorogued by the chancellor on 31 July because of the need to get the harvest in and the unhealthy air in London (item 28). It met again, as planned, on 12 November. No list of those attending is extant, but two days after this session was prorogued on 13 December writs of privy seal were sent out ordering absentees among the lords spiritual and temporal to turn up for the next session which was to start on 14 January. The writ not only threatened the king's displeasure but 'like paynes or gretter as have ben in oure afore this tyme and leide upon suche as have absented theim and forborn to come to oure Parlement for the tyme beyng'. (fn. int1455-24) On this showing, of the temporal lords who had taken the oath to Henry in July, two earls (Pembroke and Shrewsbury) and seven lords had not returned for the second session. One of the lords, Cromwell, was probably already ill; he died in January 1456. Among the lords spiritual the tailing off is more marked. Six bishops and fourteen abbots who had attended the first session did not return, and a further ten spiritual lords did not attend either session.

On the day before the second session opened York had been authorised to resume and prorogue parliament because the king 'for certain just and reasonable causes' could not be present (item 30). The most likely explanation is that the king's health had broken down again. A Paston correspondent had reported in late October that 'summe men ar a-ferd that he is seek ageyn'. (fn. int1455-25) Whatever the reason, Henry's ceding of authority to York provided the justification for the main item of business of this session: the appointment of a protector. On the second day of the session (13 November), William Burley, in the name of the commons and accompanied by many of them, came before York and the lords and requested that given that the king had found it necessary to designate a lieutenant to proceed with the parliament, a suitable person should also be appointed for the defence of the land, and that the commons should be notified as speedily as possible of whom that was to be. The absence of the speaker, John Wenlock, from the delegation is striking, as is the fact that Burley was one of York's councillors. But although the whole affair was presumably (and predictably) stage-managed, it does not seem to have been particularly divisive. There is no evidence that Wenlock forfeited York's trust and, more to the point, no suggestion that the lords had qualms about accepting Burley as the commons' spokesman. Burley was an experienced member of the commons (he had first sat in 1417), and had stepped in as speaker in 1437 on the illness of Thomas Tyrell. He may well have been regarded as what in later centuries would be called the father of the house.

In his appeal for effective leadership, Burley drew particular attention to the disorder in the south west, where the dispute between the earl of Devon and Lord Bonville had flared up again. (fn. int1455-26) The murder of Nicholas Radford on 23 October 1455 has been regarded as the most notorious crime of the decade, if not the century, but proved to be only the first stage in the escalation of the hostility between the two lords to the point of outright war. On 15 December, two days after the second session ended, the two sides would confront each other at the 'battle' of Clyst. Parliament resumed under the shadow of that mounting violence. At some point, the violence became a matter of parliamentary business, with the presentation of a petition from Radford's executor and the commons' demand for the imprisonment of Bonville and Courtenay until commissions of oyer et terminer could be appointed (appendix items 8, 32). There may even have been some form of judicial process, for the commission issued in July 1456 to arrest named Courtenay associates described them as attainted of felony in this parliament (appendix item 33). But Burley's deployment of the violence in support of his demand for a protector are the only references to it in the roll.

The chancellor agreed that the lords would discuss the matter of a protector and give the commons an answer. Two days later Burley, again 'accompanied in grete nombre of the communes, in name of all theire felawes' reappeared before York and the lords and reiterated their demand, adding, in an apparent reference to the king's health, that it seemed to them that the resolution of current problems would be 'overe grevous and tedious' to the king (item 32). This second appearance spurred the lords into action, the chancellor claiming, although it is nowhere stated in the enrolled version of Burley's speeches, that the commons were refusing to proceed with parliamentary business until the matter was settled. It was agreed that a protector should be appointed and that it should be the duke of York. After a token disclaimer York agreed to consider the matter further. The resulting delay prompted another appearance by Burley on the following Monday (17 November) and a further restatement of the problem, to which the chancellor replied that York had been requested to take on the role and that it was hoped he would agree. The duke then set out his conditions, most of which were agreed in principle by the lords, although they obviously had doubts about how money could be found to pay the annuity of 2,000 marks and expenses unpaid from York's last term of office as well as the costs of his latest appointment.

The whole episode, unusually in parliaments of this period, is presented on the roll as a single, sustained narrative. But this is not to say that it is a neutral description of events. There is an obvious attempt to maintain that York's assumption of office was not only for the king's benefit but at the king's desire. The duke's statement began with a reminder that the commons had requested the lords to be a mean to the king in appointing a protector, and he insisted throughout that it was only his obedience to the king that had led him to agree to taking on the office. The chancellor, in reporting developments to the commons, presented it as a royal appointment. But (in contrast to the negotiations of 1460) there is no record of consultation with the king. The deal is presented as a matter for negotiation between York and the lords. Indeed, in the fine-tuning of the agreement which took place on Tuesday 18 November the limit of York's appointment was specifically amended from 'during our pleasure' (which had been the phrase used in his first protectorate) to 'until [he] shall be discharged ... by us in parliament, by the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal being in parliament' (item 37).

The issue of letters of appointment under the great seal was duly authorised on 19 November, the justification being explicitly the lawlessness in the realm and the king's inability to deal with it due to 'the impediment of the present infirmity which it has pleased Our Most High Saviour to visit on his person' (item 39). As in York's first protectorate, the right of the prince of Wales to take up the office on attaining years of discretion was asserted - a remote contingency given that the prince was only two years old, but symptomatic of the lords' desire to underline their continuing loyalty to Henry and his issue. That loyalty was also asserted in parliament's willingness to recognise the young Edward of Lancaster as his father's heir; a willingness embodied in a series of entries on the roll which contrast dramatically with the apparently artless narrative of York's assumption of the protectorate.

The entries relating to the prince's grants as heir begin a new membrane [19], which immediately raises questions of how they relate chronologically to York's appointment. The enrolled material relating to the protectorship flows without a break from the prorogation of parliament and York's appointment as lieutenant to open the second session. There is a long gap after item 38 (the negotiations leading to York's assumption of the office) and item 39, which is the formal grant of the protectorship, begins a new membrane [20]. The last item (41) on this membrane is dated 22 November and is the appointment of a council to lift the labour of government ('full tedious and grete to suffre and bere') from the king's shoulders. The appointment is couched in general terms, but it is possible that it also had a specifically parliamentary application and that from this point decisions on bills were delegated from the king to the lords as some of the endorsements on unenrolled items (discussed below) would suggest.

According to the roll, on the very first day of the session (12 November), before the issue of protector had been raised, the king, with parliament's approval, had confirmed Prince Edward's creation as prince of Wales and earl of Chester on 15 March 1454. This was followed by a whole raft of actions in the prince's favour, all formally dated 12 November and all couched as actions by the king with the advice and assent of parliament. Letters patent were authorised granting the prince the lands of the principality and earldom, and of the duchy of Cornwall. A stated amount of the revenue from them was to fund the prince's household, at this stage still a department of the king's household.

Although it is credible that protection of the prince's interests was under discussion alongside the establishment of a protectorate, there are obvious problems with its presentation on the roll. The dating of all the grants to 12 November is clearly fictitious, given that Henry was not present for the opening of the second session. The likelihood that York's appointment as protector was formalised first is supported by the exemption for York and the prince added to the bill of resumption. This must be later than the grant of the protectorship, but it implies that the grants to the prince of the principality and earldom, although planned, were yet to be made. The choice of 12 November as the nominal date for the grants probably does locate them somewhere within the second session, although additions to the series of provisos which follow the grants may have been made as late as the third session. The provisos are followed immediately by material relating to Calais (item 45). This had evidently been under discussion by the lords in the second session, to judge by a royal letter of 13 December rebuking the garrison for not replying to an earlier communication and assuring them that an act made for them in the current parliament was to be engrossed in as full a form as seemed appropriate to 'the lords to whom auctorite is committed'. (fn. int1455-27) But the final settlement must indeed, as the letter implies, date from the third session because its enrolment is prefaced by a petition of the Staplers concerning an indenture made on 19 December 1455. The ensuing deal with the merchants to secure their repayment was to be effective from 1 March 1456.

As this analysis suggests, the organisation of the roll after York's appointment as protector says little about the chronology of events. The Calais material is followed by the ten membranes comprising the act of resumption and its exemptions, which span all three sessions. After this block, the assignments for the royal household (item 48) begin a new membrane [4]. They are followed immediately by the prorogation of the second session from 13 December until 14 January, which allows them to be located with some confidence within the second session. But then the roll ceases to be of much help in establishing the course of events. The only other item on this membrane is the discharge of York as protector on 25 February 1456. There is no reference to the resumption of parliament, which presumably took place, as planned, on 14 January or to its dissolution, which Bale's chronicle dates to 12 March. (fn. int1455-28) The final three membranes record the common petitions.

The place of the household assignments within the roll, coupled with the insistence that a share of the revenues from the prince's endowment should go to the household, suggests that household finances were a major item of business in what remained of the second session after York's appointment. It seems to have been an issue to which he felt committed and upon which (as discussed above) more action was perhaps taken than appears from the roll. If so, York had reason to feel as parliament adjourned for Christmas that things were progressing as he wished. The submission of Bonville and Devon over the Christmas recess was another advance. Perhaps it was over-confidence that led York to take up the commons' demands for resumption when parliament reassembled. It is abundantly clear that the lords were not happy with the bill as it had left the commons, or with their other attempts to resume royal grants. By early February observers regarded the fate of the bill and of the protectorate as linked. (fn. int1455-29) The exact sequence of subsequent events is unclear but Benet's version of events, in which the lords wheeled out Henry to block the act and York resigned, seems plausible. (fn. int1455-30) The duke was formally discharged as protector on 25 February and withdrew from parliament before the end of the session. Some efforts were made to retain his good will. King and parliament agreed that he should be paid the wages still owing from his first protectorate (nothing was said about the second) and letters patent to that effect were issued on 9 March. (fn. int1455-31)

The bill of resumption was not abandoned, but its sting was drawn by the king's reply that he understood the thinking behind the petition but that he would accept exemptions submitted in writing during the lifetime of the parliament and endorsed by the lords. This opened the floodgates. Prudent observers, like the abbot of St Albans, had no doubt been organising their petitions for exemption ever since the bill was first mooted - coping with such acts must already have become second nature for beneficiaries of royal favour. But it was probably only now that individual exemptions began to be made to the act. Very few of the extant petitions are endorsed with the date of their acceptance, so it is impossible to be sure that none had been agreed in principle earlier, but the handful that are dated all come from the period after York's dismissal. (fn. int1455-32)

The commons' efforts to ensure that the act had teeth were swept aside. Henry's readiness to accept petitions endorsed by the lords (only) was a tacit rejection of the commons' plea for some say in the process. He explicitly rejected the penalty they had sought to impose on anyone receiving a subsequent grant within the scope of the act, which meant that there was no assurance that resumed grants would remain in the king's hands to swell the royal coffers. But this is not to imply that individual petitions were nodded through without scrutiny. Selby abbey had sought exemption for the abbot and his successors. This was amended to exemption for the lifetime of the present abbot, and an endorsement spelled out that upon the present incumbent's death all royal grants to the abbey would be resumed. William Lawshull, groom of the chamber, was struck out of a joint petition with William Neel. In some cases an endorsement gave reasons for the acceptance of the petition. Sir Thomas Tyrell's petition for the advowson of East Thorndon was endorsed with a note that it had been agreed because the church was of little value and Tyrell planned to augment its endowment - information which then found its way into the enrolled proviso. (fn. int1455-33)

That scrutiny continued at a later stage. It was not until 19 July that writs went out to the sheriffs and escheators ordering them to seize grants for which no exemption had been obtained, which could be taken as showing a certain lack of urgency. (fn. int1455-34) But it is clear that the exchequer (which was presumably sympathetic to the aims of the resumption) did then take a rigorous line in assessing exemptions. St Albans abbey discovered that their exemption was inadequate and it was not until November 1457 that they managed to get their exemption confirmed in letters patent. (fn. int1455-35)

As this survey has made clear, it is the high profile 'political' issues which dominate the roll. No private petitions are enrolled (other than individual petitions for exemption from various acts), and just seven common petitions. But it is clear that a great deal more was going on than the roll reveals. An unusually large amount of unenrolled material is extant for this parliament. There are the apparent remains of a whole file of it in PRO C49/30 as well as more scattered survivals among the Ancient Petitions (SC 8).

It is now well-accepted that not all parliamentary business was ever enrolled. The roll was the king's record of business and was consequently selective. It was usual to omit petitions which had been rejected outright. Indeed a major difficulty in studying medieval parliamentary business is the almost complete silence on issues which were raised but then thrown out. Business reserved for further consideration was also unlikely to appear. Of the matters which received the royal assent, private petitions (what contemporaries called 'particular petitions') were always likely candidates for omission. But petitions from the commons which did not result in statutes might also be left off the roll. There are examples of both categories among the unenrolled 1455 material, with endorsements suggesting that the petitions had been bundled up and stored by category. A petition from the duke of York (appendix item 25) is endorsed 'particulares petitiones lecte et expedite anno xxxiij ^o ', while the commons' request for the repeal of the 1453 act of resumption (appendix item 2) is endorsed 'communes peticiones lecte et response anno xxxiij ^o '.

Much the greater part of the unenrolled material from 1455, however, relates to unresolved or rejected business. Material, in other words, which one would not expect to be enrolled. The question raised by the additional 1455 material is thus not so much why it is not on the roll, as why so much unresolved business survives at all. The value of keeping copies of material that had been agreed, but not enrolled, is obvious. It is less obvious why rejected material might be kept, and there is relatively little evidence that it was. The 1455 material is unusual in yielding an example of what looks like the deliberate archiving of petitions without the royal assent, with the endorsement 'communes peticiones non concesse de anno xxxiij ^o ' made to appendix item 4a. This could imply that the high survival rate is explained by the good practice of the clerk of the parliament, John Fawkes, and his clerks. But the other parliaments for which Fawkes was responsible do not show a similar survival rate for unresolved or rejected material, which suggests that some other explanation is needed.

It is likely that parliament's attention to business was faltering in its final session. Aside from the possibility that the king was no longer an active force, the tensions over York's role and the related matter of the act of resumption must have dominated, if not monopolised, meetings. John Bocking's letter of 9 February 1456, which interupts its account of the debate about York's survival as protector with the comment that the lords had that day spoken much of the great star seen recently and 'merveilous in apperyng', confirms rather than challenges this one-track-mindedness. (fn. int1455-36) Once York's resignation resolved that issue, attention concentrated instead on the scramble to secure exemption from the act of resumption before parliament rose. Assuming that the king's assertion of his willingness to receive petitions for exemption was only made at around the time York lost the protectorship on 25 February, there was barely a fortnight before the session ended on 12 March for those concerned to submit their petitions and have them agreed. This is not to suggest that no other business was settled. At least two private petitions are known to have received the king's agreement (appendix items 19, 34). But two other bills known to have been under discussion in the final session went unanswered. One, put in by Philip Wentworth, was under active consideration in the second and third sessions, but had to be brought back to the next parliament. The other, put in by the recorder of London at the instigation of the Mercers' company, involved the seizure of Flemish ships by William, Lord Bonville. (fn. int1455-37)

Neither bill, perhaps significantly, survives. Those which do had got as far as receiving an answer. In the great majority of cases this was 'le roy s'advisera'. A few of these then received a further, formal, answer from the lords: 'Huic bille domini non concenserunt'. This seems to confirm the suggestion that the king was handing on a large share of the business to the lords for decision. It further suggests that they failed to reach an answer on much of it. Perhaps this was why more petitions than usual were preserved: they were still, at least in theory, under consideration when parliament ended. In practice, the probability is that they then fell. The petition endorsed 'communes peticiones non concesse de anno xxxiij ^o ', does not bear a note of any answer from the lords after the king reserved judgement. It was not just that parliament ran out of steam. York's fall from power rendered many, although not all, of the bills redundant. By the time of the next parliament this reversal of political fortune was to be even more marked.

Text and translation

Appendix: 1455

1

Source : RP , v, 328; PRO C49/30/7

Petition from the commons rehearsing that the charge on sheriffs is now so burdensome (because the county revenues have been diminished by the franchises and liberties granted by the king) that men of good will are not prepared to take on the office, to the detriment of keeping the law and the peace. All liberties, franchises, privileges, hundreds, leets, views of frankpledge, fines, issues and amercements and wapentakes granted since the beginning of the reign should be resumed. Any letters patent granted before 14 February 1456 and not enrolled within three months should be void and also any letters granted after the same day and not enrolled within a month. A number of standard exemptions follow, and the petition is also not to extend to the exceptions contained within the other petition of resumption passed by the commons [item 47 on the roll].

Address: To the kyng our soverain lord

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

Endorsement: Huic bille domini non concenserunt

2

Source : RP , v, 329-30; PRO C49/30/8

Petition from the commons to repeal the act of resumption passed in the Reading parliament, 6 March 1453, which is rehearsed, on the grounds that it raises doubts about the loyalty of many of the king's true liegemen.

Address: Prayen the Communes in this youre present parlement assembled

Answer: Le roy le voet

Endorsement [not printed in RP ]: Communes peticiones lecte et response anno xxxiij ^o

3

Source : RP , v, 330; PRO C49/30/9

Petition from the commons to resume grants of wardship and marriage made since Michaelmas 1448 including those made during the lifetime of an ancestor of the heir, because many were granted as a result of improper pressure and the king has lost the revenues which might have come to him and which might be used to support his household. Exemptions for the queen, and for the earls of Richmond and Pembroke concerning the wardship and marriage of Margaret Beaufort.

Address: To the kyng our soverain lord

Answer: Le roy s'avysera

Endorsement: Memorandum that is thought to the kyng and to all the lordes that this bille is unresonable and therfore the kyng woll that it be leyd a parte

4a

Source : RP , v, 330-1; PRO C49/30/10

Petition from the commons rehearsing that various people have sued to the king and his officers for licence to ship wool to places other than Calais, sometimes without the payment of duty. Those licensed from 1 September 1450 should pay 4m for every sack of wool and for every 240 wool fells, and likewise those trading in the king's name. Anyone pleading a pardon or royal letters to halt proceedings for the recovery of the money should be fined 2,000 marks. Exemptions for those granted such licences to recover money lent by them to the king, and for Lord Fauconbridge and William Beaufitz.

Address: To the kyng oure soveraigne lord

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

Endorsement [not printed in RP ]: Communes peticiones non concesse de anno xxxiij ^o

4b

Source : PRO C49/30/21

Petition from the commons rehearsing that by improper means many licences have been granted to ship wool elsewhere than to Calais, or people avoid payment of duty by shipping secretly by night or openly by might. From next Easter wool should be shipped only from ports where there are collectors of customs and only to Calais. Everyone shipping wool after that date should find surety that it is going only to Calais and receive a certificate from the appropriate official at Calais, upon pain of forfeiting the wool - half to the expenses of the royal household and half to whoever sues the case. Exemptions for wool taken at sea and for wool produced between Tees and Tweed and in Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and the bishopric of Durham. Letters patent to the earl of Shrewsbury to remain in force with certain exceptions.

Address: To the kyng oure soveraigne lord

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

Endorsement: Communes peticiones [erasure] anno xxxiij ^o

5

Source : RP , v, 331; PRO C49/30/11

Petition from the commons rehearsing that the parliament at Reading granted poundage and a wool subsidy to the king but exempted all denizen merchants from all the subsidy on cloth and 10s on every sack of wool and 240 woolfells for certain years. Denizen merchants, the king's liegemen born, should also be quit during the same term of the 12d in the pound on all their woollen cloth exported from the country.

Address: To the kyng oure soverain lorde

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

Endorsement: Huic bille domini non concenserunt

6

Source : RP , v, 331-2; PRO C49/30/12

Petition from the commons rehearsing that by the contrivance of merchant strangers and English wool packers who buy wool for the said strangers, wool has become dangerously under-priced. Wool packers ought to act as judges between buyer and seller, identifying different qualities of wool, and cannot be both buyer and judge. Henceforth no wool packer should buy more than four sacks of wool a year, to make cloth for his household, on pain of forfeiting any sacks over that limit and imprisonment for a year. Anyone buying extra sacks on behalf of the wool packer to be fined £5 and imprisoned for a year. This for the common weal of your liege people and by way of charity.

Address: To the king our souverain lord

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

7

Source : RP , v, 332; PRO C49/30/13

Petition from the commons rehearsing that many subjects are arrested on suspicion of felony and kept in prison without bail in spite of being of good name, because justices of the peace have no power to make a supersedeas in that matter. They should be given that power, so that those arrested may appear at the next sessions of the peace; and justices of the peace should have power of gaol delivery.

Address: Pray the communes in this your present parlement assembled.

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

8

Source : RP , v, 332; PRO C49/30/14 [see also appendix items 32-33]

Petition from the commons that because many great riots have been committed in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset by the earl of Devon and Lord Bonville and their supporters, the earl and the lord should be arrested and held in prison without bail until a commission of oyer et terminer is issued to impartial commissioners. And because the sheriff is thought to favour Bonville he should play no part in the process.

Address: To the kyng oure soverain lord

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

9

Source : RP , v, 332-3; PRO C49/30/15

Petition from the commons that because Edmund duke of Somerset, Thomas Thorp and William Joseph estranged the king from the duke of York and the earls of Warwick and Salisbury, the king should resume all royal grants made to Thorp and Joseph and they should hold no office within the royal households, and be imprisoned for twelve years and fined £1,000 to be paid to the treasurer of Calais. No pardon granted or to be granted to them is to be effective in this respect.

Address: Prayen the communes in this present parlement assembled

Answer: Le roy s'advysera

10

Source : RP , v, 333-4; PRO C49/30/16

Petition from the commons that because many felonies are committed by clerics, any cleric once convicted of felony who is accused of or confesses to a further felony should be judged to have committed high treason. And if any person who claims benefit of clergy for such felonies is disowned by their ordinary then the justices should have power to award execution, and this to be retrospective. Justices should keep a record of persons handed over to the ordinary, and if anyone is brought before them a second time and this can be proved, have power to hear the case.

Address: To the kyng oure soverain lorde

Reply: Le roy s'advisera

11

Source : RP , v, 334-5; PRO C49/30/17

Petition from the commons rehearsing that because many Italian merchants travel round the county to buy woollen cloth, wool, wool fells and tin they are able to see the poverty of the people and, by offering to pay for the goods with ready cash, keep prices low. From 21 February 1456 they should be allowed to buy those goods only in the ports of London, Southampton and Sandwich, upon pain of forfeiting the goods bought. And the said merchants should sell all their imported goods to the king's lieges within four months, and if they fail to sell them may export them without paying custom. But if they do not sell to the king's lieges and do not depart as soon as weather permits after four months they should forfeit all their goods. If they are storm driven to another port they may buy woollen cloth there.

Address: To the kyng oure soveraigne lord

Reply: Le roy s'advisera

12

Source : RP , v, 335; PRO C49/30/18

The commons petition for the rehabilitation of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and for proclamation to be made that he was the king's true liegeman until his death.

Address: Praieth the commons.

Reply: Soit fait come il est desire

The king's sign manual

13

Source : RP , v, 335-6; PRO C49/30/20

Petition from the commons that John Wood, clerk to the treasurer of England, be made to answer to the charge that he shipped 1226 sacks of wool in the king's name to a port other than Calais and ensured that the king's factors did not interfere in the transaction. If Wood tries to plead a royal pardon he is to forfeit 10,000 marks.

Address: Prayn the commons

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

Endorsement: Huic bille domini non concenserunt

14

Source : RP , v, 337; PRO SC8/28/1387

Petition of Thomas Young, knight of the shire for Bristol in various parliaments, for recompense for his imprisonment in the Tower for things said by him in the house of commons, notwithstanding the commons' old liberty to say what they wish without challenge, charge or punishment.

Address: To the right wise and discreet commons in this present parlement assembled

Answer: The kyng wolle that the lordes of his counseill do and provyde in this partie for the seid suppliant as by theire discrecions shal be thought convenyent and resonable

15

Source : RP , v, 337-8; PRO SC8/28/1388

Petition of the mayor and burgesses of Oxford that, because the inhabitants of the town cannot meet the charges upon it or serve the members of the university, every burgess of the town may take apprentices in the same manner as the citizens of London, even though the fathers of the apprentices do not have freehold possessions within the realm, contrary to statute. Saving the privileges of the chancellor of the university.

Address: To the right wise and discret communes of this present parlement

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

16

Source : RP , v, 338; PRO SC 8/115/5704

Petition of the bailiffs and commonalty of the town of Gloucester for authority to order property holders within the town to repair the pavement in front of their properties and, if they fail, to distrain them for the cost of the necessary repairs.

Address: To the right wyse and discrete communes in this present parlement assemblid

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

17

Source : RP , v, 338-9; PRO SC8/109/5422

Petition that, as was the case in the past, the king's sworn officers in the exchequer should not be removed unless proved to have offended against the king or his people, and that all persons removed since Easter 1454 should be reinstated. Provided that the act shall not extend to Thomas Thorp.

Address: To the right wise and discrete commons of this present parlement

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

18

Source : RP , v, 339; PRO SC8/28/1389

Petition to the commons to consider the impoverishment of various creditors of Humphrey late duke of Gloucester because no one dares to administer his will and to pray the king to ordain that the archbishop of Canterbury arrange for the administration of the duke's goods and chattels. And because this will not suffice to meet the duke's debts, to ordain the archbishop and others to enter specified land purchased by the duke and apply the revenues to settling the duke's debts; the land to revert to the king once the debts are met.

Address: Please it unto the right wise and discrete comons in this present parlament assembled

Answer: Le roy s'advisera

19

Source : RP , v, 339-40; PRO SC8/28/1390; CPR 1452-61, p. 278 (dated 3 March 1456 and warranted by king and council in parliament)

Petition of Alice, widow of Sir William Lovell, for the issue of letters patent licensing her to enter all the land of her deceased sister Margaret, late wife of Ralph lord Cromwell.

Address: To the king our soverain lord

Answer: Memorandum quod dominus rex, tercio die Marcii, anno regni sui tricesimo quarto, de avisamento et assensu dominorum spiritualium et temporalium in presenti parliamento existentium concessit istam billa prout petitur

Endorsement: diversi memoranda et actus parliamenti

20

Source : RP , v, 340-1; PRO SC8/28/1391

Petition of Henry Wodhous rehearsing that his father's feoffees enfeoffed Thomas Danyell and John Dowevebiggyng with four Norfolk manors to the use of Henry's mother for life, with reversion to Henry, who was to marry Danyell's sister Elizabeth. Henry wooed her, unaware that she was already married, and enfeoffed Danyell and Dowevebiggyng with other land. The enfeofments and other agreements should be revoked, and the petitioner hold all his land as if his father's enfeofments had not been made.

Address: To the right wise and discriet communes in this present parlement assembled

Answer: The kyng havyng consideracion that the said Herry, the tyme of the makyng of the said alienacions, reconysances by fyne and other sueretees, was accombred and blynded with unsad trust and promysse of mariage, so that for lak of discrecion that the said Herry shuld have had at that tyme was not able to make suche alienacions and reconysances, wil therfor and graunteth that this peticion and all the contenue therof be had and doon in maner and fourme as it is desired by the same. Provided alwey that neyther the said Thomas Danyell nor John Dowevebyggyng, nor eny othir theire cofeffees, or eny of theire heires or assignees, be bounde by this acte to answere to the said Herry of any issues or profittes resceyved of these premisses before the first day of this present parlement.

21

Source : RP , v, 341; PRO SC8/28/1392

Petition of Richard earl of Warwick, who has agreed with the king to be captain of Calais and Ruysbank for seven years from 4 August 1455, and is now prevented from entering, that he shall not be held responsible for anything that happens while he is excluded.

Address: To the wise and discrete comunes of the roialme of Englond in this present parliament assembled

Answer: Soit fait come il est desire

22

Source : RP , v, 343; PRO C49/30/22

Petition that all offices, fees and annuities granted by the king to Thomas Thorp and William Joseph be resumed.

Address: [none]

Answer: Le roy le voet, et a commencer d'apprendre sa force et effect le xiij iour de Decembre proschein venaunt

23

Source : RP , v, 342; PRO SC8/105/5239

Petition of Sir Walter Devereux, indicted of treason before Edmund late duke of Somerset and others on 9 August 1452 and arraigned before the justices at Hereford on 20 July 1453, where he pleaded a royal pardon which was allowed, to be reputed the king's true liegeman and the indictment voided.

Address: To the right wise and discreet commons in this present parlement assembled

Answer: Soit faite come il est desire

24

Source : RP , v, 342-3; PRO SC8/28/1393

Petition of Richard Forde rehearsing that he was put out of the office of treasurer's remembrancer in the exchequer by Thomas Thorp and only regained it by paying an annuity of 40 marks to William Fallan, the third baron, in return for his vacating his office in favour of Thorp. The obligation to pay the annuity should be annulled.

Address: To the right wyse, notable and discrete commons of this present parlement assembled

Answer: Soit fait come il est desire

25

Source : RP , v, 343-4; PRO SC8/152/7597

Petition of Richard duke of York and others to reach a settlement with the abbot of Kirkstall, involving inter alia the appropriation of the church of Middleton in Pickeringlithe.

Address: To the kyng our soveraygn lord

Answer: Soit faite come il este desire en la peticion

Endorsement [not printed in RP ]: particulares peticiones lecte & expedite anno xxxiij ^o

26

Source : RP , v, 451-3 (printed from the patent roll); CPR 1452-61, p. 282 (dated 21 November 1455) The patent roll version is an inspeximus of two documents, described there as a petition and a schedule. The former is now PRO SC8/29/1409. The latter, originally attached to the petition, is the commons' petition from the 1453 parliament calling for Oldhall's attainder, now PRO C49/29/11.

Petition of Sir William Oldhall to the commons, rehearsing his loyalty to the king, his father and grandfather and his service to them in France. Instead of enjoying his old age he was maliciously reputed a traitor by an act in the Reading parliament (the tenor of which is annexed in the attached schedule) for giving counsel to Cade and others, whereupon he was indicted of treason and outlawed. The outlawry has been reversed and he has been acquitted of treason in king's bench. He petitions for the act to be voided and for him to be restored to his good name and to be able to enjoy all his lands and to sue in all legal actions.

Address: To the right wise and discrete comons in this present parlement assembled

Answer: Soit fait come il est desire

27

Source : PRO SC8/152/7596; CCR 1454-61, pp. 108-9 (dated 2 February 1456)

Petition of Richard duke of York rehearsing that Thomas Thorp owed him £210 and delivered an obligation for that amount which proved invalid; he prays that the chancellor may execute the bond on the bodies of Thomas and his fellow surety William Benyngton, plus damages and costs.

Address: To the kyng oure souverain lord

Answer: Soit fait come il est desire

28

Source : PRO C49/69/4; CPR 1452-61 p. 278 (dated 9 March 1456 and warranted by king and council in parliament)

Richard duke of York rehearses his appointment as protector by letters patent on 3 April 1454 and requests payment of his wages from that day until 9 February 1455.

Address: none [the bill is the text of the desired grant, with a proviso added in a different hand before the Teste clause]

Endorsed: Memorandum quod dominus rex ix ^o die Marcij anno regni sui xxxiiij ^o de avisamento et assensu dominorum spiritualium et temporalium in presenti parliamento existentum ac communitatis eiusdem parliamenti necnon auctoritate eiusdem concessit istam billam prout petitur.

29

Source : PRO SC8/96/4766A; CPR 1452-61, p. 288 (grant dated 9 March 1456 and warranted by the king and council in parliament). PRO SC8/96/4765 is another petition from Burton for an exemption of his grant of £5 on the terms agreed by the lords.

Petition of William Burton for exemption from the act of resumption made in the present parliament in respect of his grant of £5 p.a. from a rent of £15 called Chokes Fee, which he had recovered for the king after the grant had been made on 5 June 1453. The grant was his only reward for this good service to the king, queen and prince.

Address: To the king oure souverain lorde

Marginal note beside the required wording of the proviso: respectuatur et inquiratur

Endorsed: Md that the lordes spirituelx and temperelx in consideracion that William Burton by his laboure and at his grete costes gate in to the kynges handes as he surmytteth by this bille the fee of Chokes in the counties of Northt, Bed, Buk, Lincoln and Leyc' to the yerely value of xv li wherof the kyng was not answerd of a peny as the saide William also surmytteth with in this bill is aggreed that the same William have the seid fee to ferme if he wyll, yeldyng to the kyng xv li by yer and to reteyn in his awn handes C s yerly, fyndyng to the kyng sufficient suertee to pay to hym yerly x li, and if the said William wilnot so take the said fee to ferme that the C s desired to be provyded for be resumed in to the kynges handes.

30

Source : PRO SC8/115/5703; abstracted by W. Rees, Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales (Cardiff, 1975) pp. 184-6

Petition of Griffith ap David ap Thomas rehearsing that Griffith ap Nicholas has unlawfully imprisoned him in the castle of Carmarthen and does other great injuries to the king's lieges in south Wales; he prays that Griffith be ordered to deliver him before 12 January next and if he defaults to be barred forever from holding office in Wales or the marches on pain of £1000, half to go to the treasurer of Calais; and that Griffith also be ordered to deliver Carmarthen and Aberyswyth to the duke of York.

Address: To the right wise and discret comons in this present parlement assembled

Answer: Le roy ad graunte cest peticion en maner et fourme si come il est desire purveu tousfortz que proclamacion de ceo soit fait devaunt le dit xij ^e iour de janvrier en le dit countee de Hereford.

31

Source : PRO SC8/96/4769 [undated, but this is the most probable parliament]

Petition of William Bykton and Roger Pountesbury of Shrewsbury rehearsing their ill-treatment in Lancashire at the hands of Robert Bolde and others in autumn 1454. They pray that they may have writs out of chancery directed to the sheriff of Derbyshire, as being the county adjoining Lancashire, commanding him to make proclamation that the malefactors appear in king's bench on 25 June.

Address: To the right wise & discreet commons of this present parlement

Answer: Soit fait come il est desire

Endorsement: particulares petitiones lecte & response etc

32

Source : PRO SC8/138/6864; printed by G. H. Radford, 'Nicholas Radford 1385(?)-1455', Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 35 (1903), 264-8 [the resulting writ was dated 23 January 1456: ibid ., 278]

Petition of John Radford, executor of Nicholas Radford, rehearsing the murder of the latter by Thomas Courtenay of Tiverton, son of the earl of Devon, and others on the night of 23 October 1455 and seeking justice on the murderers.

Address: To the kyng oure soverain lorde

Answer: Soit faite come il est desire

33

Source : CPR 1452-61, pp. 310-11

A

commission dated 20 July 1456 to arrest thirty-eight men, predominantly from the estates of the earl of Devon in the south west, who are described as attainted of certain felonies by the authority of parliament.

34

Source : PRO SC8/141/7012; CPR 1452-61 p. 283 (grant dated 21 February 1456 and warranted by king and council in parliament)

Petition of Thomas Smyth, vicar of St Clement's, Sandwich, who does not have a vicarage house and seeks a licence to acquire land and rents in mortmain to the value of 4m in Sandwich and its suburbs.

Address: To the kyng our soverain lord

Note at foot: per Ricardum ducem Ebor' xxiiij ^o Januarij

Answer: The kyng by thavice of the lordes spirituelx and temporelx beyng in this present parlement the xxj day of Feverer the yer of his reigne xxxiiij graunted this bille as it is desyred