Family and Education

m. Margaret, da. and h. of Robert Bullock^† (d.1405/6) of Arborfield, Berks. by Margaret, yr. da. of Sir John Foxley^†.

Offices Held

Biography

Nothing is known about Hartington save in connexion with his marriage to the only child of Robert Bullock, who had sat for Berkshire in 1382. The marriage presumably took place before Bullock died, but in his will, dated 29 Dec. 1405, no mention is made either of his daughter or her husband, no doubt because, as this brief document notes, the testator had already transferred all his goods to Laurence Drew* ‘and other’, to carry out his wishes as ‘wryten in a prest of parchemyns that begynnys Hec est voluntas Roberti Bulloke’. Then, in the summer of 1407, apparently following the instructions of the deceased, Bullock’s widow, together with Hartington and his wife, conveyed to his executor Drew the manor of Arborfield and land at Hartley and Southcote. Margaret Hartington was in possession of a life interest in Arborfield in 1418, when Drew’s eldest son and heir, Thomas^†, transferred the manor in reversion to her kinsman, Thomas Bullock, but Hartington himself is nowhere recorded after 1407.

An explanation as to why this obscure figure should have been returned for Berkshire to the Parliament of September 1397 may be sought in the fact that his father-in-law’s friend, Laurence Drew, was at that time a prominent member of Richard II’s council. Indeed, the presence in the Commons of an unusual number of nonentities of Hartington’s kind probably played a useful part in easing the path for the King’s sweeping proscription of his enemies, the former Lords Appellant.

PCC 11 Marche; Ll. C.W. B[ullock], Mems. Fam. Bullock, 12-13, 111; VCH Berks. iii. 201; CP25(1)12/80/2, 13/81/34.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes