COLLINGBOURNE, Richard (d.1418), of Great Bedwyn, Wilts

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

Family and Education

m. bef. 1408, Joan,1 1s. Robert†.

Offices Held

Clerk of the peace, Wilts. July 1390-c.1413.2

Escheator, Wilts. 18 Jan.-12 Nov. 1403.

Tax collector, Wilts. July 1413, Dec. 1417.

Biography

Possibly a relation of Thomas Collingbourne of Marlborough, a farmer who paid 1s. poll tax there in 1379, Richard was apparently the founder of a family of minor gentry which rose in status during the 15th century, mainly through service to their social superiors. Clerk to the county j.p.s by 1390, his 23-year tenure of this office brought him continually into contact with the Wiltshire gentry, with several of whom he had private connexions. In October 1400, for instance, he witnessed a deed whereby his powerful neighbour, Sir William Sturmy* of Wolf Hall, transferred lands in Hampshire and the Bedwyn area to Sir William Hankford, j.c.p. and others, and at the same time Sturmy appointed him attorney to deliver seisin. It is perhaps worth noting that Collingbourne’s fellow MP in 1402, John Bird, was also connected with Sturmy. Meanwhile, in February 1401, Collingbourne had stood surety with one Richard Haberville for two clerks accused of trespass by a Hungerford man, and in the following October he and Haberville were the recipients of a recognizance by John Rous III*, the penalty for defeasance being £100. Having served as escheator for most of 1403, he was present at the county court at Wilton in 1407 for the election of the knights of the shire. In 1408 he obtained a royal pardon for all offences committed by him while escheator.3

By this time Collingbourne was connected with another great family, the Lovells: in November 1408 he stood surety for Maud, widow of John, Lord Lovell, in connexion with her keepership of the alien priory of Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire, and in May 1415 he performed a similar service when she received custody of her late husband’s lands in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. Meanwhile, in 1412 he had been involved in the complicated transactions whereby Thomas Calston* acquired back from the Lovells the manor of Knighton, Wiltshire, and was among those trustees who conveyed to Calston some land in Marlborough. He had also acted as a feoffee of Calston’s manor of Littlecote, not far from Bedwyn, where he himself lived.4

In 1408 Collingbourne had obtained a licence from Bishop Hallum of Salisbury to have mass said privately at his house at Great Bedwyn. Some time before his death, which occurred on 8 Mar. 1418, he settled his lands in Great and Little Bedwyn and at Collingbourne on Walter Metford (prebendary of Bedwyn, dean of Wells and brother of the late bishop of Salisbury) and others. Metford’s will, made in December 1421, provided for the bequest of a silver standing cup and 12 silver spoons to Collingbourne’s widow. Collingbourne was succeeded by his son Robert, who sat in Parliament for Great Bedwyn in 1431 and 1432 and for Marlborough in 1435.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

  • 1. Reg. Hallum (Canterbury and York Soc. lxxii), 715.
  • 2. E. Stephens, Clerks of Counties, 178; E101/593/67, 594/4.
  • 3. E179/196/44; CCR, 1399-1402, pp. 313, 474; 1402-5, pp. 498, 504; CPR, 1408-13, p. 27; C219/10/4.
  • 4. CFR, xiii. 130; xiv. 107-8; CAD, ii. C2381, 2492.
  • 5. Reg. Hallum, 715; CCR, 1441-7, p. 43; Reg. Chichele, ii. 253-4; Bodl. Mus. 2, f. 519. Robert died 27 Feb. 1459: e Mus. 2, f. 518.