Family and Education

b. by 1494, s. of John Warnecombe of Hereford. m. (1) Margaret, da. of Richard Phillips of Hereford; Hereford, wid. of Richard Jones of Bullinghope, 3s. inc. James and John 6da.1

Offices Held

Town clerk, Hereford by 1518, alderman by 1525-d., mayor 1525-6, 1540-1; commr. subsidy, Herefs. 1515, musters 1539, 1542; other commissions 1538-d.; servant of bp. of Hereford by 1528, dep. steward in 1535; escheator, Herefs. and the marches 1532-3, 1543-Jan. 1545; j.p. Herefs. 1538-d.; custos rot. c.1547.2

Biography

Richard Warnecombe combined civic office in Hereford with service to the bishopric and, in his later years, to the crown. Both his marriages were within the civic circle: his father-in-law by the first of them served at least six terms as mayor and his brother-in-law by the second was to do so in 1546-7.3

Warnecombe’s parliamentary career was almost certainly longer than is conveyed by his two known attendances at Westminster. It may be taken that both he and Thomas Havard were re-elected in the spring of 1536, when the King asked for the return of all Members of the previous Parliament, and their reappearance in 1542 makes it likely that they had both sat in 1539 and were to do so again in 1545, two Parliaments for which the names of the city’s representatives are lost: these were the years of Warnecombe’s entry into county administration and of his consequent increase in local stature. By the time of the election to the Parliament of 1547, however, Warnecombe was a sick man, and he died within two weeks of its opening. Of his role in the House of Commons nothing is known, but whereas Thomas Havard, a staunch Catholic, may have been troubled by the Henrician Reformation, Warnecombe’s association with the bishopric perhaps kept him more easily in step with royal policy.

Warnecombe’s importance in the episcopal administration is illustrated by the part he played in the successive transmissions of the bishopric: when Edward Fox was appointed in 1535 it was through Warnecombe and John Scudamore that he arranged the business side of the matter, and on his death in 1538 Warnecombe and Archdeacon Richard Sparkford (later to be an overseer of Warnecombe’s will) were commissioned to make the survey. Warnecombe doubtless prospered in this service, receiving several leases of episcopal lands at Shelwick, Warham and elsewhere, and it may have been his profits as ‘steward in fee’ that in 1540 enabled him to purchase from Sir John Brydges the manor of Lugwardine, a few miles from Hereford. He was also by 1542 seised of half the manor of Bradbury.4

Warnecombe died on 17 Nov. 1547. By his will, made on the previous 28 Sept., he had asked to be buried in Hereford cathedral. Of his three sons the youngest, Richard, was still under age, and of his six daughters three were married (Alice to James Croft) and one was under age. Warnecombe named as his executors all three of his sons, and as overseers John Scudamore, the dean of Hereford Hugh Curwen, the mayor Thomas Bromwich, and the archdeacon of Shropshire Richard Sparkford. The will, which was proved on 9 Feb. 1548, bears a note that on 26 Feb.1593, the executors being dead, administration was granted to Thomas Wigmore^†, Alice Warnecombe’s son by her first husband.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: L. M. Kirk / M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from second marriage. Vis. Herefs. ed. Weaver, 71; PCC 3 Populwell; Reg. Ricardi Mayew (Cant. and York Soc. xxvii), 220; Duncumb, Herefs. i. 567.
• 2. C1/414/28; 193/12/1; Duncumb, i. 366; Statutes, iii. 171; LP Hen, VIII, xiii-xviii, xx, xxi; CPR, 1547-8, pp. 75, 77; Reg. Caroli Bothe (Cant. and York Soc. xxviii), pp. xiii, 201, 240.
• 3. Duncumb, i. 366.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, ix, xiii, xv; Duncumb, i. 502-13; Reg. Caroli Bothe, 242, 284, 377; Wards 7/6/113.
• 5. C142/86/94; PCC 3 Populwell; CPR, 1547-8, p. 266.