Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Northampton Mich. 1423-4.1

Biography

This Member, a glover by trade, was probably related to Henry Buckingham, a distinguished resident of Northampton, who served as escheator of Northamptonshire in 1388 and subsequently played a leading part in the foundation of the fraternity of the Holy Trinity and Virgin Mary in the borough. His own career appears, in comparison, but poorly documented, although we know that he stood surety for the attendance of John Rivell and William Clerk IV in the Parliaments of 1407 and 1417 respectively, and that in 1423 he was officially involved in the local elections as bailiff. Some connexion may well have existed between him and the John Buckingham, citizen and grocer of London, who, together with his wife, Joan, brought a case in Chancery during the early 1440s for the recovery of a messuage in Northampton. This, they claimed, had been in their possession before its confiscation by the Crown in October 1440, and it may well be that the property had originally belonged to the former bailiff.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

• 1. Northampton Recs. ed. Markham and Cox, ii. 557, gives the bailiff’s name as John Rockingham, but it is evident from Northants. RO, Knightley ch. 166 that this is an error of transcription.
• 2. C44/29/2; CPR, 1391-6, p. 173.