Family and Education

prob. s. of Fulk Sprenghose*. ?Kntd. Aug. 1417.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Salop 29 Nov. 1410-10 Dec. 1411.

J.p. Salop to Feb. 1416-c.1417.

Constable of Beaumaris castle, Anglesey 5 Nov. 1416-d.

Biography

Little is known about Sprenghose, whose active career spanned no more than seven years. As sheriff he held the Shropshire elections to the Parliament of 1411, and three years later he was pardoned the £20 still owing on his account for the shrievalty.1 Like his putative father he was connected with the Talbots, and it was under the command of Gilbert, Lord Talbot, that he fought at the battle of Agincourt. In the following February (1416), about the same time that he was elected to his only known Parliament, he was appointed to the Shropshire bench. After the dissolution, on 30 May, Sprenghose contracted to serve at sea with three men-at-arms and six archers for a term of three months, beginning on 22 June when his men were to be mustered at Southampton. As a reward, Henry V subsequently granted him for life the constableship of Beaumaris castle, calling him in the patent ‘King’s esquire’, and in 1417 Sprenghose undertook to supplement the garrison with ten archers. That year, before he sailed for Normandy with the King’s second expedition, Lord Talbot made enfeoffments of his lordship of Blackmere and other properties in Shropshire, naming Sprenghose as one of the trustees,2 and it seems very likely that he once more enlisted in Talbot’s retinue. Certainly, the chronicles record that an Edmund Sprenghose, having been knighted by the King on the eve of the assault on Caen that August, was in the forefront of the scaling party, only, missing his footing, to fall into a breach in the wall where the defenders flung their fire on him and burned him alive. They also report that Henry V learned of his death with sorrow, but that the sight of his fate spurred the courage of his compatriots who pressed with redoubled vigour to take the town. Whether or not this was in fact Edward Sprenghose, the former MP is not recorded after this date and in January 1418 the constableship of Beaumaris was granted to another man.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Sprencheaux, Sprengeux, Sprynghose.

• 1. C219/10/6; CPR, 1413-16, p. 192; J.H. Wylie, Hen. V, 336.
• 2. E101/69/8/536, 70/2/616; CPR, 1416-22, p. 46; CCR, 1419-22, pp. 24-25; N.H. Nicolas, Agincourt, 345.
• 3. St. Albans Chron. ed. Galbraith, 112; Wylie, iii. 59-60; CPR, 1422-9, p. 54.