Family and Education

m. ?Isabel.1 ?1s. Thomas*.

Offices Held

Commr. of array, Herefs. July 1377, Mar. 1380; to put down rebellions Mar., Dec. 1382; of inquiry Feb. 1389 (lands of Roger Nash), S. Wales Sept. 1394 (appeal against a judgement), Herefs. July, Sept. 1400 (lands of Alice de la Mare), Sept. 1400 (extortions and oppressions at Hereford), Aug. 1402 (trade with Welsh rebels), Jan. 1403 (murder); oyer and terminer, Surr. Feb. 1390, Herefs. Feb. 1398.

J.p. Herefs. 26 May 1380-d.

Steward and constable of Denbigh and Bridgwater castles, and steward of Mortimer estates in N. Wales, Salop, Herefs., Worcs., Staffs. and Som. 16 Jan. 1382-6 Feb. 1384.

Escheator, Herefs. and adjacent march 24 Nov. 1400-8 Nov. 1401.

Biography

Holgot was a busy lawyer, most of whose career was spent in the service of the Mortimers, earls of March. He first appears in the records in 1365, as an attorney for a Herefordshire knight, Sir Richard Baskerville, then going overseas; and in 1369 he did the same for John le Fren, about to sail to Ireland in the company of Edmund, earl of March. In July 1371 he was a trustee when Gilbert, Lord Talbot granted certain Herefordshire estates to Wormsley priory. A few months later he himself took out a lease on a duchy of Lancaster property at Mainstone (Shropshire). At about this time he was also involved, either as mainpernor, trustee or witness, in several other minor transactions relating to his home county.2

Holgot had entered Mortimer service by November 1375, when he was granted power of attorney to hand over certain lands of Edmund, earl of March, to feoffees. He was also connected with Edmund’s mother, the Countess Philippa, and in March following he shared in the grant of an estate at Havering, Essex, with three other members of her household. In November 1378, when the countess made her will, Holgot was appointed an executor, and it may have been at this time that she confirmed to him for life an annuity of £10, which he was later stated to have enjoyed from ‘long before her death’. In February 1379 he was appointed an attorney for Leonard Hakluyt*, a Mortimer retainer going to Ireland to join Earl Edmund, and in the following October he acted as a trustee when the dowager bestowed her manor of Eaton Tregoes, Herefordshire, and lands in Northumberland on Sir John Bromwiche†, another member of the Mortimer affinity. Countess Philippa died on 5 Jan. 1382, a month after her son. Accordingly, the Mortimer estates passed to the Crown during the minority of the infant Roger, the 4th Earl. Eleven days after Philippa’s death, however, Richard II divided the custody of these estates among various Mortimer household officials, Holgot himself being entrusted with the care of most of his late mistress’s dower lands, spread over several English counties and into Wales. However, he was to hold them only until February 1384, when they were handed over to a syndicate of noblemen headed by Richard, earl of Arundel. As Countess Philippa’s executor, Holgot also had responsibility for her dower lands in Ireland,as well as for fulfilling her will regarding the endowment of Bisham abbey, Berkshire, her burial place. This last duty was not accomplished until March 1386, when her brother William, 2nd earl of Salisbury, granted the executors land for the purpose.3

Perhaps as a consequence of his links with the countess, Holgot was associated with a number of other Herefordshire gentry who were also more or less closely attached to the Mortimer family—namely, Sir John Bromwiche, Thomas Oldcastle*, (Sir) Leonard Hakluyt, (Sir) Kynard de la Bere* and, especially, Richard Nash*, a fellow Hereford lawyer. To mention only the most important private transactions, Nash and Holgot were (by 1385) feoffees of Thomas Oldcastle’s lands in Radnorshire and (with Bromwiche) of the Herefordshire estates of his brother, Richard Oldcastle. At some time before 1389, furthermore, Bromwiche, Nash and Holgot shared the farm of the confiscated English lands of the Norman abbey of Caen. In 1390 Holgot and James Nash* (Richard’s illegitimate son) were co-feoffees of the estates of Sir John Eynesford† in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire, and before 1395 Holgot (along with Oldcastle and de la Bere) was a trustee for Richard Nash’s own property in and around Hereford. Finally, in 1400, he and de la Bere were appointed feoffees-to-uses by Hakluyt with regard to land at Stoke Edith.4

Holgot’s own association with the Mortimers continued long after the death of the old countess: in 1389 he was again acting as steward of at least some of the Mortimer lands, and in and 1398 he found employment as attorney for Earl Roger, when the latter was going to Ireland as King’s lieutenant. Apart from this, he was also closely connected with John, Lord Devereux, a Herefordshire peer who was steward of the royal household from 1388 until 1393. In February 1390 (for reasons that are not clear) he was appointed with Devereux and John Wadham*, the judge, to a royal commission investigating an insurrection at Croydon in Surrey; and later, in December 1391, he and Devereux entered into a recognizance with William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, of which the terms are not known, but the penalty for defeasance was £500. Significantly, in 1394, after Lord Devereux’s death, Holgot acted as a guardian of his son.5

Very little is known of the more private aspects of Philip Holgot’s life, such as his links with Thomas Chippenham I*, William Jonet* and other fellow inhabitants of Hereford. Thomas Holgot, the shire knight, was a close relation, possibly his son. Philip died at some point between January 1403 and April 1404, not long after he sat in Parliament for the only time.6

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

Variants: Holcote, Holgoyt, Holkod, Hulcote.

• 1. W.R. Williams, Parl. Hist. Herefs. 29.
• 2. CPR, 1364-7, p. 167; 1367-70, p. 214; 1370-4, p. 120; Reg. Gaunt 1371-5, i. 160; CCR, 1369-74, pp. 75, 76, 319, 346, 433, 554; 1374-7, p. 258; 1377-81, p. 286; CFR, viii. 335.
• 3. Harl. 1240, f. 47; CCR, 1374-7, p. 341; CPR, 1377-81, pp. 391, 409, 445; 1381-5, pp. 65, 222, 352, 377; 1385-9, pp. 50, 129; CIPM, xv. 565; Lambeth Pal. Lib. Reg. Courtenay, ff. 188-90; CP, viii. 444-8; xi. 386-9; G.A. Holmes, Estates of Higher Nobility, 60.
• 4. CPR, 1377-81, p. 528; 1385-9, p. 52; 1389-92, pp. 101, 330; 1396-9, p. 318; 1401-5, p. 100; 1416-22, p. 547; CCR, 1392-6, p. 470; Cal. Hereford Cathedral Muns. (NLW 1955), iii. 301, 1715, 1921, 2631.
• 5. CPR, 1388-92, pp. 215, 525; 1391-6, pp. 491, 500; 1396-9, p. 344; UCNW, Whitney and Clifford ms, 316.
• 6. CPR, 1399-1401, p. 347; CCR, 1401-5, p. 363.