Lord Bergavenny's illegal retaining revisited, 1501-22
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Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited, 1501–22*
James Ross
University of Winchester, United Kingdom
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Abstract
George Neville, Lord Bergavenny, was fined £70,650 in 1507 for illegal retaining. This is used as
the classic example of early Tudor attitudes towards noble retaining.Yet it is frequently taken out
of the context of the other occasions for which he was prosecuted for this crime over a fifteen-
year period, and for which he escaped punishment. A thorough analysis of the legal records and
other sources shows a much more ambivalent and inconsistent royal attitude towards him; the fine
of 1507 was linked to high politics as much as to retaining. Bergavenny’s motives for his consistent
lawbreaking over twenty years are also examined, as is the essential atypicality of his retaining
compared to others of his class.
In December 1507 George Neville, Lord (A)Bergavenny, was fined £70,650 for illegally
retaining 471 men between 10 June 1504 and 9 December 1506. This notorious incident
has come to be regarded by a number of historians, as well as in popular history and
A-level textbooks, as the example par excellence of Henry VII’s attack on, or control
of, noble power in general and on early Tudor attitudes to illegal retaining in particular.
W. C. Richardson noted that ‘powerful and wealthy nobles were likely to suffer heavy
penalties’ and cited Bergavenny, who ‘was a Yorkist and needed watching’.1 Barbara
Harris used Bergavenny’s punishment as evidence of an early Tudor challenge to ‘the
fundamental right of the nobility to retain followers’.2 Richard Rex argued that as it was
nearly impossible for nobles to avoid breaching the 1504 act on retaining, ‘it became a
happy hunting ground for a regime keen to impose bonds and recognisances’ and offers
as the only example the ‘most notorious bond of the reign, in the sum of £100,000’ on
Neville.3 Bergavenny’s fine is a key example in J. R. Lander’s influential article entitled
‘Bonds, Coercion and Fear’, which still shapes the interpretation of the reign, despite the
important corrective offered by T. B. Pugh, and the fine is cited in a number of other
works on the reign of Henry VII.4 Not all historians have followed this approach. A more
* I am very grateful to Dr. Sean Cunningham for generously sending me a copy of an unpublished article on
Sir Richard Guildford, which was very helpful in composing this article, and to both Dr. Cunningham and Dr.
Gordon McKelvie for reading and commenting on a draft of it, as well as a number of helpful references from both.
I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for the journal for their constructive comments and suggestions.
1
W. C. Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 1485–1547 (Baton Rouge, La., 1952), pp. 148–9.
2
B. J. Harris, Edward Stafford,Third Duke of Buckingham, 1478–1521 (Stanford, Calif., 1986), p. 152.
3
R. Rex, The Tudors (Stroud, 2005), p. 29.
4
J. R. Lander, Crown and Nobility, 1450–1509 (London, 1976), ch. 11 (pp. 267–300, esp. pp. 289–90); and T. B.
Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English nobility’, in The Tudor Nobility, ed. G. W. Bernard (Manchester, 1992), pp. 49–111,
with discussion of Bergavenny at ch. 11 pp. 70–2, 88–9. Pugh in general emphasizes the lack of a policy against
the nobility and argues that many of the key examples of bonds and recognizances imposed were justified by the
behaviour of the nobleman in question. See also W. H. Dunham, Lord Hastings’ Indentured Retainers, 1461–1483: the
Lawfulness of Livery and Retaining Under the Yorkists and Tudors (New Haven, Conn., 1955), pp. 103–5; S. B. Chrimes,
Henry VII (London, 1972), pp. 190, 215 n. 4, where the only references to Bergavenny are to the fine; D. Grummitt,
‘The establishment of the Tudor dynasty’, in A Companion to Tudor Britain, ed. R. Tittler and N. Jones (Oxford,
2004), pp. 13–28, at pp. 18–19; R. Lockyer and A. Trush, Henry VII (3rd edn., Abingdon, 1997), p. 36; and T. D. Penn,
© The Author(s) 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab026 Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Institute of Historical Research.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com676 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
balanced interpretation has been taken by Steven Gunn, who argues Henry VII’s policy
towards retaining was calculatedly divisive: those nobles he trusted were encouraged to
retain, while those he did not trust were spectacularly punished, and he cites Bergavenny
as the key example of the latter.5 Others, most notably George Bernard, have argued
against the idea of antagonistic relations between the early Tudor kings and the nobility
and emphasized a relationship of mutual dependence and general co-operation, the lack
of any generalized attack on noble power, and the continuation of such power and
influence under the Tudors.6 Taking a different approach, Gordon McKelvie’s recent
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study on bastard feudalism and the law should change interpretations of Henry VII
and illegal retaining in the future. McKelvie has shown that while 44 per cent of king’s
bench cases against illegal retaining across the fifteenth century were initiated during
Henry VII’s reign, they were not ‘a weapon with which to break the independent power
of the secular nobility’; just four peers were indicted in Henry’s reign, compared to
nine in Edward IV’s, and it was the gentry who were far more likely to be the subject
of proceedings.7 Nonetheless, there is considerable value in revisiting both the fine of
1507 and the broader context of Bergavenny’s retaining across a twenty-year period, as a
detailed study of this requires historians to change the way they approach this example
in particular and Tudor attitudes to noble retaining more generally, given the importance
of this case to the interpretive framework.
The outlines of Bergavenny’s life have been traced by historians. He succeeded his
father in 1492 and had a turbulent career in national politics, with a number of successes,
such as his recovery of his family’s long-lost lordship of Abergavenny, as well as the
nadir of imprisonment in the Tower during 1521 after the execution of his father-in-law,
Edward, duke of Buckingham, for treason.8 Nonetheless, he died, wealthy and respected,
in his bed in 1535 in his mid sixties. His local rivalry with the Guildford family, at
the centre of his retaining activities and discussed below, has also had attention from
historians.9 It should be noted, however, that there are lacunae in what is known about
Winter King: the Dawn of Tudor England (London, 2011), pp. 130–2, 230–1, 233. Twentieth-century scholarship has
tended to return ambiguous conclusions over methods used by Henry VII against illegal retaining. For discussion,
see A. Cameron, ‘The giving of livery and retaining in Henry VII’s reign’, Renaissance and Modem Studies, xviii
(1974), 17–35, at p. 34; Chrimes, Henry VII, pp. 187–91; D. J. Guth, ‘Exchequer penal law enforcement 1485–1509’
(unpublished University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. thesis, 1967), pp. 271–5; and S. J. Gunn, Early Tudor Government,
1485–1558 (Basingstoke, 1995), pp. 40–1.
5
S. J. Gunn, The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2018), p. 56.
6
G.W. Bernard, The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: a Study of the Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury (Brighton,
1985), ch. 6; G. W. Bernard, ‘The Tudor nobility in perspective’, in Bernard, Tudor Nobility, pp. 1–48; G. W. Bernard,
Power and Politics in Tudor England (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 20–50; and J. Ross, ‘A governing elite? The higher nobility
in the Yorkist and early Tudor period’, in The Yorkist Age, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer (Harlaxton Medieval Studies,
xxiii, Donington, 2013), pp. 95–115.The subject will also be explored in some depth in S. Cunningham and J. Ross,
Kingship and Political Society in England, 1485–1529: the Projection and Reception of Royal Authority Under Henry VII and
Henry VIII, forthcoming (Oxford, 2022).
7
G. McKelvie, Bastard Feudalism, English Society and the Law: the Statutes of Livery, 1390–1520 (Woodbridge,
2020), pp. 70–8, 108–14 (quote on p. 109).
8
The most detailed study of Bergavenny is A. Dunn, ‘Inheritance and lordship in pre-Reformation England:
George Neville, Lord Bergavenny (c.1470–1535)’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, xlviii (2004), 116–39. See also
A. Hawkyard, ‘Neville, George, third Baron Bergavenny (c. 1469–1535)’, O.D.N.B. [accessed 20 July 2021].
Bergavenny had taken as his third wife Mary, daughter of the duke of Buckingham, in June 1519 and had received
a dowry of 2,000 marks.
9
Notably in S. Cunningham, Henry VII (Abingdon, 2007), pp. 176–80; and M. Mercer, ‘Kent and national
politics, 1437–1534: the royal affinity and a county elite’ (unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1994),
ch. 5 and 6.
© 2021 Institute of Historical Research Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited 677
Bergavenny, in particular regarding his wealth and landowning, and the subject of this
article, the full story of his retaining.
A few historians have offered more nuanced interpretations of the retaining fine and the
local rivalries that provoked it, and one or two have even noted the fact that Bergavenny
was in trouble a few years earlier than the notorious fine over his illegal retaining.10 Yet
it is only when one puts Bergavenny’s interaction with the illegal retaining statutes into
its full context that it becomes apparent that his career is an important corrective to a
number of misconceptions about the nobility under the early Tudors. Bergavenny was
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prosecuted in king’s bench for illegal retaining not once but three times (1503, 1507 and
1516), just once successfully, as well as being the defendant in one private case in star
chamber in 1516 related in part to his retaining, and a further prosecution, in what court
is unclear, that resulted in a small fine in 1504 for the same crime. Several of his retainers
were also simultaneously prosecuted in king’s bench and star chamber in 1505 in a case
very close to Bergavenny’s interests, even if he was not a defendant. It is in the context
of what happened in 1503–5 and the national politics of the first decade of the sixteenth
century that the fine of 1507 should be understood; moreover, whatever it was intended
to achieve – whether fiscal or exemplary – it did not succeed. Bergavenny continued
his activities in defiance of the retaining statutes, clearly prioritizing his local position
over the consequences of breaking the national law, and nor did the fine seriously affect
his finances. What follows will not trace Bergavenny’s career in full but will look at
his interactions with the law over illegal retaining, and with a particular focus on the
prosecutions of 1503 and 1516, as these have been much less studied than that of 1507.That
of 1503 in particular is an excellent example of how to stage-manage local proceedings
to produce exemplary indictments against a rival and is worthy of attention in its own
right, while noble retaining during Henry VIII’s reign and later is rarely studied.11
Bergavenny’s retaining was in pursuance of a rivalry with the Guildford family,
Kentish landowners as well as courtiers; Sir Richard Guildford was favoured by Henry
VII because of his early association with Margaret Beaufort and Henry Tudor himself
before Bosworth, and he held several major offices, including that of controller of
the royal household by 1494.12 Alastair Dunn has suggested that Bergavenny was the
dominant figure in West Kent and that the up-thrusting gentry family of the Guildfords
showed him ‘none of the respect that a late medieval nobleman would have expected
in his “country”’ and placed that within a tradition of such upwardly mobile gentry
families causing disruption.13 Malcolm Mercer, however, has argued that Kent had
been dominated for the preceding decades by a royal affinity and that this affinity was
headed by Sir Richard Guildford, ‘who directed affairs in Kent for most of the reign’.14
10
Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English nobility’, p. 71; Cunningham, Henry VII, pp. 176–80; and Mercer, ‘Kent and
national politics, 1437–1534’, pp. 165–8, 172–4. Perhaps only Cameron (‘Giving of livery and retaining’, pp. 31–4)
has made the essential point that Henry VII was reluctant to proceed against Bergavenny.
11
With some notable exceptions, including J. P. Cooper, ‘Retainers in Tudor England’, in Cooper, Land, Men
and Beliefs: Studies in Early-Modern History, ed. G. E. Aylmer and J. S. Morrill (London, 1983), pp. 78–96; S. J. Gunn,
‘Henry Bourgchier, earl of Essex (1472–1540)’, in Bernard, Tudor Nobility, pp. 158–66; and S. Adams, ‘Baronial
contexts? Continuity and change in the noble affinity, 1400–1600’, in The End of the Middle Ages?, ed. J. L. Watts
(Stroud, 1998), pp. 155–98.
12
S. Cunningham, ‘Guildford, Sir Richard (c. 1450–1506)’, O.D.N.B. [accessed 20 July 2021]; and
Mercer, ‘Kent and national politics, 1437–1534’, pp. 150–8.
13
Dunn, ‘Inheritance and lordship’, pp. 122–3.
14
Mercer,‘Kent and national politics, 1437–1534’, pp. 155 (quote), 158–65; see also M. Mercer,‘Kent and national
politics, 1461–1509’, in Later Medieval Kent, ed. S. Sweetinburgh (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 251–71.
Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021) © 2021 Institute of Historical Research678 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
It was thus Bergavenny who was the intruding aggressor in a settled political landscape.
Both Mercer and Sean Cunningham suggest that the king acquiesced in Bergavenny’s
attempts to assert his lordship in the county; if so, his political judgement on this issue
can be questioned given the disturbances that arose.15 It might also be noted, however,
that Guildford himself had a limited landed base and serious financial difficulties and was
reliant on royal favour for his position as the leading member of the Kentish gentry. This
vulnerability was not conducive to stability.16
Resolving these differing pictures of dominant lord defending his influence or
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aggressive, assertive baron must rest on an assessment of Bergavenny’s landholding;
however, this is a very difficult exercise, given that both his own and his father’s inquisitions
post-mortem are no longer extant and there are very few surviving accounts from his
own administration.17 Yet more can be done than has been attempted. His grandfather’s
inquisition post-mortem in 1476 noted lands in fifteen counties and Westminster, but
recorded income was just £389, while a subsidy assessment of 1524 recorded income
of £500.18 Both were clearly substantial underestimates, as a partial list of Neville’s
lands in 1521 noted an annual income of £1,622.19 However, it can be said with some
certainty that the Lords Bergavenny were not dominant Kentish landowners. Various
sources record only the manors of Birling, Mereworth (including Old Hay), Ryarsh,
Luddesdown, Yalding and West Peckham in the county.20 Birling, surveyed at a clear
value of just over £65 in 1522, was Bergavenny’s primary seat and boasted two parks and
a substantial residence.21 Michael Zell has noted that the majority of the Neville estate
lay outside the county – though that should be amended to the vast majority.22
This is germane to understanding why Bergavenny broke the retaining laws so
frequently but has not been discussed by historians. After the statute of 1468 it was lawful
15
Mercer, ‘Kent and national politics, 1437–1534’, p. 165; and Cunningham, Henry VII, p. 180.
16
Cunningham, ‘Guildford, Sir Richard’; and S. J. Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England
(Oxford, 2016), pp. 216, 256, 285–6, 297. P. Clark, English Provincial Society From the Reformation to the Revolution:
Religion, Politics and Society in Kent, 1500–1640 (Hassocks, 1977), pp. 12–16, notes the increasing prosperity of West
Kent and the opportunities it offered (in contrast to East Kent, dominated by the archbishopric of Canterbury).
17
Only returns of Bergavenny’s inquisition in Warwickshire survive (The National Archives of the U.K. (here-
after T.N.A.), C142/82/76).
18
T.N.A., C140/58/66, E179/69/26. For the (lack of) reliability in recorded valuations in inquisitions post-mor-
tem, see M. L. Holford, ‘“Notoriously unreliable”: the valuations and extents’, in The Fifteenth-Century Inquisitions
‘Post Mortem’: a Companion, ed. M. A. Hicks (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 117–44.
19
T.N.A., SP1/22, fos. 164–166, summarized in Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. iii, p. 1291. The list dates from
after Bergavenny’s arrest in connection with the fall of the duke of Buckingham, for which he was eventually pun-
ished for misprision of treason. It records lands in twelve English counties, as well as lands in Wales including the
lordship of Abergavenny. However, it is clearly incomplete, given the absence from it, among other properties, of
several Kentish manors, as noted in the text above, and other properties such as the marcher Lordships of Bromfield
and Yale, and the manor of Swannes and Combes in Suffolk, granted to him in 1507, as discussed below. For other
partial estate accounts during the minority of his son, see T.N.A., SC6/HENVIII/5712–5.
20
T.N.A., C140/58/66; L. & P.. iii, p. 1291; and T.N.A., PROB11/25/546. E. Hasted (The History and Topographical
Survey of the County of Kent [12 vols., Canterbury, 1797], ii. 475–93) suggests he also held a moiety of the manor
of Maplescombe before alienating it at a date not specified, and that he acquired and then alienated the manor of
Shorne (Hasted, History and Topographical Survey, iii. 443–56). For Old Hay in Mereworth, see Hasted, History and
Topographical Survey, v. 70–90. For knights’ fees, see British Library, Additional MS. 15666, p. 51.
21
T.N.A., SC12/9/4, by Sir John Daunce, the king’s general surveyor; the document includes a description
of the substantial new lodging there. Daunce may have overestimated the value; other documents suggest annual
revenues of £40–50 (T.N.A., SC12/9/4 [later accounts appended to the survey], SC6/HENVIII/6055–6, SC6/
HENVIII/750).
22
M. Zell, ‘Landholding and the land market in early modern Kent’, in Early Modern Kent, 1540–1640, ed.
M. Zell (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 39–74, at p. 48. For an overview of the Kentish landholding classes, see P. Fleming,
‘The landed elite, 1300–1500’, in Sweetinburgh, Later Medieval Kent, pp. 209–33.
© 2021 Institute of Historical Research Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited 679
to retain only members of a household, (estate) officers and legal counsel by any grant
of livery or contract. In practice, not only were the rules irregularly obeyed, but it was
easy enough for lords to recruit large followings through expansion of the membership
of the household and multiplication of estate offices, as well as through loopholes in the
legislation, little emphasized by scholars, such as a grant of an annuity without conditions
of service attached or, in fact, being a tenant on a lord’s manor.23 Normally, lords did
not need to resort to such methods as mass distribution of livery badges, cash handouts
or verbal oaths for service, as they had sufficient lands within an area to use their own
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tenants if they needed large numbers of men or they had significant numbers of gentry
associates who could raise the manpower. Lordship could rarely be extended in regions
where lords had few or no estates or compensatory territorial offices, such as major royal
or monastic stewardships.24 Bergavenny had few estates in Kent, yet, resident primarily at
Birling in the centre of the county, he found it necessary to try and extend his lordship
well beyond what its territorial basis would normally allow.25 Whether this was because
of a personal dislike of Sir Richard Guildford, a belief that his superior social status
entitled him to local dominance or another motive cannot now be constructed in the
absence of any direct evidence of his reasons. It might be noted, though, that Bergavenny’s
grandfather, Edward, was bound over to the king for the considerable sum of 4,000
marks in 1476 on condition that he and his servants do no damage to William Culpeper
of Aylesford, Kent, esquire.26 Clearly, the issue was not new for the Bergavenny family
in the first few years of the sixteenth century, and nor were the methods used by the
family to try and overcome the problem. In the imposition of a substantial recognizance
to enforce good behaviour, Edward IV’s actions in 1476 also show the continuity of one
type of response by the crown to such disorderly actions, both with Lancastrian kings
and with Henry VII’s regime.
It is important to note that other kings besides Henry VII were prepared to act against
members of the nobility if significant disorder or violence occurred as a result of illegal
retaining. Edward IV’s 1468 retaining statute was probably in response to the murder of
Roger Vernon of Haddon, Derbyshire, in which the retainers of peers were implicated,
and it was used to indict the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1469.27 Henry VIII and
Cardinal Wolsey acted to contain the serious disturbances between Lord Hastings and
the marquess of Dorset in Leicestershire in 1525 through the use of the statutes.28 Such
decisions were political, as was the extent to which a verdict was pushed through. Edward
IV did not do so against the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, as both fought for him in the
23
For lawful service, see McKelvie, Bastard Feudalism, ch. 3; M. Hicks, Bastard Feudalism (Harlow, 1995), pp. 124–
33; and Cameron, ‘Giving of livery and retaining’, pp. 17–35.
24
For some discussion for the earlier period, see R. R. Davies, Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Late
Middle Ages, ed. B. Smith (Oxford, 1999), ch. 6 and 8. An important case study that makes the point regarding
land and lordship is C. Carpenter, ‘The Beauchamp affinity: a study of bastard feudalism at work’, English Historical
Review, xcv (1980), 514–33.
25
Bergavenny’s extensive Sussex estates, most notably his secondary residence at Eridge, just over the border
from Kent, would have only partially compensated for this territorial weakness. While county boundaries were
administrative rather than territorial or tenurial demarcations, Bergavenny’s scattered manors in the two counties
could not have led to territorial dominance in Kent.
26
Calendar of Close Rolls 1476–85, no. 44. Ironically,William Culpeper’s son, Edward, was retained by Bergavenny
in 1503.
27
C. Carpenter, ‘Law, justice and landowners in late medieval England’, Law and History Review, i (1983), 205–37,
at p. 227; and M. A. Hicks, ‘The 1468 Statute of Livery’, Historical Research, lxiv (1991), 15–28.
28
For the background, see M. L. Robertson, ‘Court careers and county quarrels: George, Lord Hastings, and
Leicestershire unrest, 1509–1529’, in State, Sovereigns and Society in Early Modern England, ed. C. Carlton (Stroud,
1998), pp. 153–69. Robertson does not use the king’s bench proceedings in this case.
Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021) © 2021 Institute of Historical Research680 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
civil war of 1469–71. Henry VIII took a surprisingly lenient line with both Leicestershire
peers in 1525. Henry VII has the reputation of not being so lenient, given Bergavenny’s
fine and the equally spectacular one imposed on James Stanley, bishop of Ely, in 1506; yet
these were just as political and, as will be seen with the former case, leniency was also
applied.29
The legal processes begun against Bergavenny in the early summer of 1503 were
complex and carefully orchestrated. They were also initiated and carried forward, it
should be noted, by his local rivals, the Guildford family, albeit in co-operation with
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others, and thus need to be treated with some caution. They followed a warning in the
form of a royal proclamation against retaining sent to the sheriffs of Kent and Sussex,
Sir Richard Guildford and Thomas Iden, and the bailiff of the hundreds of Milton and
Marden in Kent in March 1502.30 There survives in the king’s bench indictment file
for the Trinity term of 1503 a total of twenty-two documents relating to Bergavenny’s
alleged illegal retaining, comprising one writ ordering the indictments to be sent to
king’s bench, one precept to the sheriff by the justices of the peace (J.P.s), six jury panels
and fourteen indictments.31 All fourteen indictments were, highly unusually, signed by
the presiding J.P.s, headed by Sir Richard Guildford and also including his son, Edward
Guildford, and William Fyneux, brother of Sir John Fyneux, chief justice of king’s bench
since 1495, as well as a Kentish J.P. and landowner.32
The orchestrated nature of the proceedings is evident in that Sir John Fyneux was
initially omitted from the list of J.P.s to whom the writ ordering return of indictments
was sent and who were said to have held sessions at Goudhurst in Kent on 16 June
1503. He was then added in an interlineation as the first named J.P; this was because
he witnessed the writ, issued on 21 June at Westminster, as well as endorsing it as the
responding J.P.33 However, Fyneux was not named as being present at the sessions in
any of the other documents in the file. It may well be that there was communication
between William Fyneux and/or Richard Guildford and the chief justice about how to
proceed, and that the rather unusual nature of the indictments and the process followed
was a result of consultation with him. One of the jury panels contains a note that certain
jurors were to be amerced, subject to the discretion of the J.P.s and the agreement of
Fyneux and Sir Robert Rede, another justice of king’s bench.34 Fyneux may thus have
been consulted on the amercement officially and perhaps the form of the indictments
unofficially. While Fyneux was a Kentish landowner, his residence and estates were in
East Kent, and his interests focused on Canterbury. He seems to have been acting here
on behalf of the king rather than because of a direct connection with the Guildfords.35
The sessions at Goudhurst on 16 June 1503 were complicated. Four presenting
juries were summoned to sit on the one day. One dealt with an alleged concealment
29
For James Stanley and the crown’s attitude towards the Stanleys in the first decade of the sixteenth century,
see Cunningham, Henry VII, pp. 180–6; and S. Cunningham, ‘Henry VII, Sir Thomas Butler and the Stanley family’,
in Social Attitudes and Political Structures in the Fifteenth Century, ed. T. Thornton (Stroud, 2000), pp. 220–42.
30
Calendar of Patent Rolls 1494–1509, pp. 286–7; Tudor Royal Proclamations, i: the Early Tudors (1485–1553), ed. P. L.
Hughes and J. F. Larkin (London, 1964), pp. 55–6; and Cameron, ‘Giving of livery and retaining’, p. 32.
31
T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 48–69.
32
For William (d. 1534), of Hougham, near Dover, see Hasted, History and Topographical Survey, ix. 451–62.
For Sir John, see J. H. Baker, ‘Fyneux [Fenex], Sir John (d. 1525)’, O.D.N.B. [accessed 20 July 2021].
33
T.N.A., KB9/430, no. 48.
34
T.N.A., KB9/430, no. 69.
35
There are no obvious connections to the Guildfords mentioned by Baker (‘Fyenux [Fenex], Sir John’), nor
in Fyneux’s will (T.N.A., PROB11/21/21).
© 2021 Institute of Historical Research Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited 681
by a previous jury, while three, representing groups of hundreds, endorsed as billa vera
(true bills) duplicate sets of four or five indictments each.36 Each of the latter group of
indictments dealt with a different set of accusations of retaining, varying in the retainers
named, the length of time they had been retained (some for four months but mostly for
seventeen months) and who swore them into the lord’s service, with Bergavenny himself
doing so at Birling, while his brother, John Neville, and the former’s servant William
Smith did so at Goudhurst.37 The seventy-eight named men were mainly of yeomen
status from West Kent villages, though there were also three gentlemen, including Edward
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Culpeper of Aylesford and Robert Gaynesford of Addington, both of whom are named
in later sources in connection with Bergavenny.The groups of bills are generally identical
to each other, with only very occasional differences in the contents. Each indictment
was signed by the J.P.s. There are minor variations in who signed which indictment for
reasons that are not clear, though the key players, such as the two knights, Guildford and
Sir John Darell, as well as Edward Guildford and William Fyneux, signed all.38
The remaining material in the bundle was an indictment of a jury that had been
sworn in at a session at Yalding in Kent – a manor owned by Bergavenny – on 23 May
1503 before John, Lord Clinton, Sir Edward Poynings and William Head (the only J.P. to
preside at both this session and the indictments of Bergavenny at Goudhurst).39 The jury
at Yalding were indicted for returning a false verdict regarding Robert Tykhill, gentleman,
and nineteen others of Goudhurst and Horsmonden, who had riotously assembled and
lain in wait to attack the king’s subjects on his highway; they were also said to have been
illegally retained by Bergavenny.40 The Yalding jurors were amerced for concealing the
crime under the statute of the 1487 Westminster parliament, which is better known as
the Star Chamber Act, but which, somewhat incongruously, included provision that J.P.s
could inquire into concealments and amerce at their discretion.41
The proceedings at Goudhurst achieved their initial aim with some alacrity. Just five
days later, as noted above, a writ was issued from Westminster, witnessed by Sir John
Fyneux, ordering copies to be sent into king’s bench, and the same term summaries were
written onto the king’s bench controlment roll, the record of crown pleas in the court.42
To summarize this process, we have a singularly detailed set of indictments, triplicated
by use of multiple juries, initiated by well-connected courtiers, facilitated (probably) by
36
The precept to the sheriff (T.N.A., KB9/430, no. 68) grouped the hundreds into three. Each jury panel noted
the number of bills (indictments) each jury presented, and these total fourteen for the three main juries; only
twelve now survive in the king’s bench file.
37
The indictments are grouped by accusation as: (1) T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 51, 60; (2) T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 52,
62; (3) T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 53, 57, 61; and (4) T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 54, 56, 63.
38
T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 62, 66 are signed by all. No. 56 does not have Walter
Roberts’ signature, nos. 61 and 64 do not have John Hales’s, and no. 63 is not signed by William Head or Roberts.
These variations may even represent J.P.s taking short breaks from the lengthy and perhaps tedious proceedings.
39
The indictment of the jurors is T.N.A., KB9/430, no. 49, while no. 50 is a jury panel for that indictment at
Goudhurst on 16 June before the justices specifically in their discretionary capacity to enquire of concealments
under the Star Chamber Act. A list of fifteen men from the Yalding inquest is no. 69, with the note regarding their
amercement.
40
T.N.A., KB9/430, nos. 49, 58, 64, 66.
41
Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275–1504, ed. C. Given Wilson and others (17 vols., Woodbridge,
2005), xv. 371–2. Cameron (‘Giving of livery and retaining’, p. 32) alleges that the jurors were then retained by
Bergavenny’s servant William Smith, but this is not mentioned in any of the indictments or on the King’s Bench
Coram Rege or controlment rolls (T.N.A., KB27/975, rex rot. 14 ff.; KB29/133, rot. 127–8). Cameron also states
they all compounded with the attorney general, but none of the references given (‘Giving of livery and retaining’,
p. 32 n. 5) are accurate.
42
T.N.A., KB29/133, rex rot. 27–28.
Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021) © 2021 Institute of Historical Research682 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
the chief justice of king’s bench, against a lord who was not in particular favour at court,
in the reign of a king who is usually said to have been suspicious of noble power. All
this should have led to an exemplary prosecution. Instead, despite all these advantages,
the prosecution failed utterly. The next step in the process would normally have been
a hearing in king’s bench, probably in the Michaelmas term of 1503. But there was no
hearing in king’s bench until Easter term 1505, when Bergavenny appeared and produced
a pardon dated 6 December 1503; all the others accused were also released sine die,
without further process, that same term.43 The reasons for the failure of this prosecution
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are bound up in two further prosecutions of Bergavenny and his men in 1503–4.
Another case was initiated by the Guildfords against Bergavenny’s servants in the
spring of 1503, in both star chamber and king’s bench simultaneously; the former has
been printed in full.44 This was initiated by a bill by George Guildford, son of Sir Richard,
against a number of servants of Bergavenny and unnamed others, ‘all which Riotouse
persons with many other lyke be unlawfully reteignyd by the seid lorde & at his pleasur
& comaundment’.45 There was some overlap with those named in king’s bench, notably
Robert Gainsford, gentleman, Robert Tykhill, gentleman, and William Smith, yeoman,
who was named as Bergavenny’s retaining agent in several of the indictments. George
Guildford alleged that he had been holding the manorial court at Aylesford in Kent,
where he was steward, on 14 April, when Gainsford and twenty-six others entered the
court, attacked Guildford and his servants – Guildford alleged he was saved from death
only by the bar of the court, while one of his servants was grievously wounded – and
the court was broken up. They also alleged that a week later Bergavenny’s retainers to
the number of one hundred disrupted the fair at Maidstone. The defendants in response
alleged that in fact Guildford and his servants had attacked them as they passed the court
house, noted earlier incidents and generally threw the blame back onto the Guildford
faction. Guildford’s replication restated his position, and there were a number of
depositions submitted providing detailed testimony to support the original accusations.
What has not been noticed is that there was a simultaneous king’s bench case launched
for the same alleged assaults at Aylesford by Gaynesford et al.46 Bergavenny was not a
defendant or directly accused in either court. It is highly likely that the star chamber case
did not reach a conclusion because the king’s bench case did. In the latter court, both
sides pleaded just as in the star chamber bill, answer and replication, though rendered
into the formulaic Latin of the common law, and damages of £100 were claimed by
George Guildford.47 An initial guilty verdict was passed by a jury in Kent, presumably
under a nisi prius. This was then overturned and the jurors found guilty of taking a false
oath, while George Guildford was found guilty of embracery. He was bound over in
December 1505 alongside Alexander Culpeper, John Gage and William Cromer to pay
800 marks ‘for the fine made for the [in]quest peruired in Kentt’.48 Given almost all of
the prosecutions against Bergavenny were by the Guildford family or based on their
43
T.N.A., KB29/133, rex rot. 27–28; KB27/975, rex rot. 14 ff. I am grateful to Dr. Hannes Kleineke for this latter
reference, as well as several others.
44
Select Cases in the Council of Henry VII, ed. C. G. Bayne and W. H. Dunham (Selden Society, lxxv, London,
1958), pp. cxlii–iii, 138–49 (from T.N.A., STAC1/2/75). Guildford’s bill is endorsed with the notation of Easter
term 18 Henry VII, which is the only date in the documents to include a year.
45
Bayne and Dunham, Select Cases, p. 138.
46
T.N.A., KB9/429, nos. 36–7.
47
T.N.A., KB27/968, rot. 69 contains the pleadings of both sides but does not note the conclusion. See also
T.N.A., KB29/433, rot. 49d; KB27/967, rot. 59d & fines rot.; KB27/968, rot. 4; and KB27/969, rot. 39.
48
T.N.A., E36/214, fo. 190v; and Cal. Pat. Rolls 1494–1509, pp. 468–9.These references are from Dr. Cunningham’s
unpublished paper on Sir Richard Guildford.
© 2021 Institute of Historical Research Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited 683
information it is tempting but misleading to see them as the innocent or injured party
throughout their rivalry with Bergavenny; the fine for embracery clearly demonstrates
that the Guildfords were just as capable of illegal behaviour.
There was, however, action taken against Lord Bergavenny in autumn 1503, just not for
any of the actions for which he had been indicted in king’s bench.The obligation section of
Henry VII’s chamber book records that ‘lorde Bergeyveney & Edward Ferys er bounden in ij
obligacions to pay l li at Ester & l li at halotide for his Retynder’.49 The entry is not precisely
dated, but the nearest heading in the main text, 1 November 1503, is a couple of folios earlier,
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and the entry relating to Bergavenny is likely to have been made within a few weeks of this.50
The wording does not give complete clarity, but ‘retainder’ here is likely to be the giving of a
token or badge to signify the agreement to retain and be retained, though it might also relate
to an oath or the payment of a fee, and that both the lord giving a badge or fee and the person
who accepted it were fined. A marginal notation in the chamber book notes that the two
payments of £50 were received on 16 May and 3 November 1504, respectively.
Edward Ferrers was the son and heir of Sir Henry Ferrers, sheriff of Kent in 1487–8
and a Kentish landowner. Henry died in 1500, and Edward was in his mid thirties at the
date of the offence. Edward’s early interests were Kentish, and he held land in Brenchley,
close to the epicentre of the Bergavenny/Guildford dispute.51 Ferrers was a much more
substantial member of the gentry than any of the gentlemen named in the king’s bench
indictment. He was also by this stage in the crown’s service. As early as September
1500 he was among the witnesses to the surrender of the great seal by the executors of
Cardinal Morton and he was an esquire in the royal household by early 1503, having
robes provided to him for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.52 From early in 1503 to March 1504
he was, alongside Richard Empson, James Hobart, Edward Poynings and others, involved
in transactions by which Bergavenny sold land in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire
to Westminster Abbey for the endowment of Henry VII’s chapel there.53 The fact that
Edward Ferrers was a member of the royal household would explain the substantial fine
– Henry VII had issued a number of statutes and ordinances forbidding the retaining of
49
Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 59899, fo. 156r, in The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485–1521, ed. M. M.
Condon, S. P. Harper, L. Liddy, S. Cunningham and J. Ross . A duplicate
entry can be found in Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 21480, fo. 98r.
50
Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 59899, fo. 155r.
51
S. J. Thorpe, ‘Ferrers, Sir Edward (by 1468–1535), of Baddesley Clinton, Warws.’, in The History of Parliament:
the House of Commons 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff (3 vols.,Woodbridge, 1982), ii. 128–9 . His mother held the manor of East
Peckham, adjacent to Bergavenny’s manor of West Peckham, and in 1506 Edward was described as ‘of East Peckham’
(Cal. Cl. Rolls 1500–9, p. 242). The estate, however, later descended to his half-brother from his mother’s first mar-
riage. Nevertheless, the fact they were neighbours in the years around 1500 might explain the initial connection.
52
Cal. Cl. Rolls 1500–9, p. 21; and T.N.A., LC2/1, fo. 60r.
53
T.N.A., CP40/963, rot. 459, common recovery against Bergavenny, Hilary term 1503; Cal. Cl. Rolls 1500–9,
p. 114, release and quitclaim, January 1504; Cal. Pat. Rolls 1494–1509, p. 350, licence of March 1504; and B. Harvey,
Westminster Abbey and Its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), pp. 201–2, 425. M. M. Condon, ‘God save the
King! Piety, propaganda and the perpetual memorial’, in Westminster Abbey: the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, ed.
T. Tatton Brown and R. Mortimer (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 82–4, notes that the manors were initially part of a
complex exchange with Maurice Lord Berkeley, the crown and the abbey and that the grant was originally made
in 1502. Bergavenny also sold the manor of Mapledurwell in Hampshire for £180 in 1513 to William Frost, founder
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to whom it was passed (T.N.A., CP40/1002, rot. cart. 1d–2; Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, 6 Cap 13(1), 13, 14, 16, 17; and J. Hare, J. Morrin and S. Waight, The Victoria History of Hampshire:
Mapledurwell (London, 2012), p. 17). I am very grateful to the college archivist Julian Reid for his help on this matter.
Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021) © 2021 Institute of Historical Research684 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
royal tenants by anyone other than a member of the royal family, and the retaining of a
member of his household would have been more serious and not to be tolerated.54
Ferrers was not named in the king’s bench indictments of summer 1503. It seems likely
that his connection with Bergavenny was not known at this stage by the Guildfords. It was
also handled in a different way.There was no king’s bench prosecution against either Ferrers
or Bergavenny, nor indeed can any extant legal prosecution in any form be located. It is
most likely that, given the household connection, it was heard before the royal council or
the council learned, whose records have survived extremely patchily for this date.55 While it
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may have been equally illegal, Ferrers was in a different category to the Kentish gentlemen,
yeomen and labourers and was treated differently. The fine did not end the connection
between the two men: Bergavenny’s servant received money on Ferrers’ behalf during the
French campaign of 1513 and they were both jointly seized of property in Kent in 1530.56
It seems most likely that in paying his fine of £100 in relation to the Ferrers case
Bergavenny and Henry VII agreed that this would suffice to end both the king’s bench
case against him. Certainly, the pardon he pleaded in king’s bench dated 6 December
1503 covered all retaining offences against the statute before 2 December and is very
close in date to the Ferrers fine of the previous month.57 The hanaper account merely
notes a payment of 16s 4d for a special pardon.58 There is no evidence at all of any
other payment by him around this date, and the evidence of punitive fines, secured by
obligations and recognizances, survives very fully at this date in the records of the king’s
chamber, the close rolls and other supporting material.59 Historians have assumed he
was fined as a result of the star chamber case and have linked the sale of his lands in
Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire to Westminster Abbey as either a way to clear a debt
to the king or as a way of regaining his favour.60 Yet given that he was not a defendant in
the star chamber or the king’s bench case initiated by George Guilford, that there is no
evidence of a verdict, let alone a fine, in the star chamber case, and the sale of lands was
on generous terms – Bergavenny probably received in the region of £1,300 for lands
sold worth £64 p.a., that is, at least twenty years’ purchase price61 – this is highly unlikely.
The idea of a fine can clearly be ruled out on other evidence as well: the initial grant of
the manors by Bergavenny to the abbey was in 1502 and legal process in the sale began in
Hilary term 1503, before either the star chamber or king’s bench cases had been initiated.
Given they were outlying estates the sale might well have been entirely voluntary. The
evidence suggests very strongly that for two cases in two different courts in 1503–5, and
another case pursued in one of these and one other court at the same time, Bergavenny
54
McKelvie, Bastard Feudalism, pp. 72–3, 215–16. Henry VIII threw a tantrum because one of his household
knights, Sir William Bulmer, wore the duke of Buckingham’s livery in the royal presence in 1520 (E. Hall, Hall’s
Chronicle, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1809), pp. 599–600; P. Vergil, Anglica Historia, ed. D. Hay (Camden Society, 3rd
ser., lxxiv, London, 1950), p. 263; and J. A. Guy, The Cardinal’s Court: the Impact of Thomas Wolsey in Star Chamber
(Hassocks, 1977), p. 74).
55
What is left of the council learned’s registers are now T.N.A., DL5/2–5.The Council material more generally
is discussed in Bayne and Dunham, Select Cases, pp. xi–xviii.
56
T.N.A., E101/56/25, fo. 40; and PROB11/22/35.
57
T.N.A., KB27/975, unnumbered rot. following rex rot. 13 for the pardon.
58
T.N.A., E101/219/6.
59
For discussion and utilization of the source material, see S. Cunningham, ‘Loyalty and the usurper: recogni-
zances, the council and allegiance under Henry VII’, Historical Research, lxxxii (2009), 459–81.
60
Cameron, ‘Giving of livery and retaining’, pp. 32–3; and Mercer, ‘Kent and national politics, 1461–1509’,
p. 269.
61
Harvey, Westminster Abbey, p. 202.
© 2021 Institute of Historical Research Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021)Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited 685
received just a £100 fine: this should be categorized as a minor sanction by the king.
One might also imagine a warning not to continue with these activities. It shows a
considerable degree of leniency of behalf of the king, who effectively condoned all
illegal retaining activities except the retaining of an esquire of the royal household. It also
explains – in part – why the sequel in 1507 was so different.
Bergavenny’s position was strengthened during 1505–6 by the collapse in the position
of his local rival, Sir Richard Guildford. Guildford was chronically impecunious and was
arrested in June 1505 for a debt owed to one of Bergavenny’s servants. The following
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month he was investigated for his failure to account as master of the ordnance and the
armoury between 1486 and 1492. Proceedings were initiated by Edmund Dudley, and
it is not impossible that Bergavenny colluded with the king’s agent in this.62 Guildford
lost his household offices (other than his position as knight of the body) and while he
was pardoned in April 1506, this was the end of his public career; he obtained licence to
undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and died there in September 1506.63
Despite the fine of 1503 for retaining Ferrers, Bergavenny remained in favour with
the king, who stayed with him at Birling on 29–30 July 1504.64 However, problems were
brewing for him too, not as a result of what was happening in Kent but because of national,
dynastic politics. The leading Yorkist claimant to the throne, Edmund de la Pole, earl of
Suffolk, was handed over to Henry in April 1506 by representatives of Archduke Philip, as
a result of his fortuitous shipwreck in England in January 1506, which allowed Henry VII
to impose terms. Polydore Vergil stated that on evidence provided by the interrogation of
Edmund, Bergavenny was imprisoned – although he was later released as the evidence had
proved unreliable. It is not clear whether this related to recent connections between Neville
and de la Pole or, perhaps more likely, to events in 1497. In June 1506 an Oxfordshire jury
recited a story rich in improbable detail concerning a conversation and actions between
Suffolk and Bergavenny on 13 June 1497, a few days before the battle of Blackheath, when
the royal army defeated the Cornish rebellion. A royal messenger allegedly disturbed Suffolk
and Bergavenny in bed together at Suffolk’s residence of Ewelme, Oxfordshire. Bergavenny
hid under the covers, and when the messenger was gone, Bergavenny allegedly asked Suffolk
the potentially treasonous words ‘yf a man will doo aught what will ye doo now it ys tyme?’
Suffolk’s response was to hide Bergavenny’s shoes to ensure he did not join the rebels, while
he rode off to join the king.65 Shoes notwithstanding, Bergavenny served in the king’s army
at Blackheath against the rebels on 17 June, and indeed it would be surprising if he had
not been with the king by 13 June.The indictment of 1506 seems to have been thoroughly
62
Mercer, ‘Kent and national politics, 1437–1534’, p. 170; and Cunningham, Henry VII, p. 178.
63
Cunningham, ‘Guildford, Sir Richard’; Cunningham, Henry VII, pp. 176–9; and Mercer, ‘Kent and national
politics, 1437–1534’, pp. 170–2.
64
See L. L. Ford’s itinerary of Henry VII (Ford, ‘Conciliar politics and administration in the reign of Henry
VII’ (unpublished University of St. Andrews Ph.D. thesis, 2001), p. 268, citing T.N.A., E101/415/12, fo. 25v and
C82/260), though the name is mistranscribed as ‘Pirling’. This is presumably the visit by the king and his mother
referred to in T.N.A., SP 46/123, fo. 116A, a list of memoranda, perhaps in Bergavenny’s own hand, which can oth-
erwise be dated only to between 1503 and 1509.
65
T.N.A., KB9/441, no. 6; and Vergil, Anglica Historia, p. 141. No supporting documentary evidence has yet
been found to verify Vergil’s statement regarding Bergavenny’s imprisonment.Vergil does not discuss Bergavenny’s
retaining activities at all. Hall, following Vergil, notes Bergavenny’s imprisonment, but adds – probably rather opti-
mistically – that after his release, ‘for hys modestie, wyt and probity (because the kynge founde hym lyke hym selfe)
always true, faithfull and constant, was of his souereigne lorde more esteemed, fauoured and regarded then he was
before’ (Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, p. 502). In contrast, but rather ambiguously, Robert Fabyan stated, after mentioning de
la Pole’s handover to Henry VII, that in May 1506 ‘was the lord of Burgeueny commyteth to the Towre, for a certayn
displeasure whych concerned no treason’ (Fabyan, New Chronicles of England and France, ed. H. Ellis [London, 1811],
p. 689). This may be a reference to retaining, though the fine was not imposed until December 1507.
Historical Research, vol. 94, no. 266 (November 2021) © 2021 Institute of Historical Research686 Lord Bergavenny’s illegal retaining revisited
orchestrated. The presenting jury in this case was exclusively made up of gentry – two
knights, eight esquires and six gentlemen – which was extremely unusual. It may have
been this rather than Bergavenny’s 1507 retaining fine that Edmund Dudley referred to in
his petition of 1509 rehearsing the victims of Henry VII’s injustice of which he had been
one of the chief agents. Item fourteen in Dudley’s list noted that ‘the Lord Abergeny had a
very sore end, for any prooffe that was against him to my knowledge’.66 Henry had already
effectively condoned Bergavenny’s illegal retaining before 1506 and his activities on this
front for which he was prosecuted in the following year did not suffer from a lack of proof.
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That it related to these stories regarding potential treason – far more lacking in proof – can
be conjectured from further circumstantial evidence, a number of bonds taken in December
1507 that related to Bergavenny’s allegiance and not the payment of the fine for retaining.67
Bergavenny was also one of the few nobles bound over in 1492 after the end of the French
campaign to return to the king’s allegiance, in his case for £400, which suggests some
concern rather earlier, though why is unclear.68 There was not that great a chronological gap
between the summer of 1506, when the indictment regarding Bergavenny’s conversations
with Suffolk was made, any subsequent imprisonment and December 1506, the date at
which process probably started against Bergavenny’s mass retaining.69 Concerns regarding
Bergavenny’s loyalty may well have remained in the mind of the king or his advisors while
they ordered evidence to be gathered relating to a crime that could be more easily proved
in court than a decade-old conversation. Obviously, the linking of the fine and Dudley’s
admission regarding lack of proof to treason rather than illegal retaining is speculative but it
is certainly feasible.70
Thus, the enormous fine, for which Bergavenny is as famous as a second rank late
medieval nobleman can be, came at the end of four years of legal processes, all of which
had ceased, treasonable accusations and obscure political manoeuvrings. It was certainly
not part of a consistent crackdown on illegal retaining. The proceedings that ended
in the fine began with two indictments made by the same jury on 13 January 1507 at
Maidstone, both before Sir John Fyneux, Sir Robert Rede, Sir Thomas Bourgchier, Sir
Edward Poynings, Edward Guildford,William Fyneux and eleven other J.P.s, a significant
proportion of a very large county bench.71 These two indictments were summoned
into king’s bench by writs witnessed by Sir John Fyneux on 30 January and 3 February,
66
C. J. Harrison, ‘The petition of Edmund Dudley’, English Historical Review, lxxxvii (1972), 82–99, at p. 88. It
has traditionally been linked to the fine, following Harrison, ‘Petition’, pp. 91–2.
67
Brit. Libr., Lansdowne MS. 127, fo. 53r; and Cal. Cl. Rolls 1500–9, nos. 825(i), in which twenty-seven men
submitted bonds worth £3,333 for Bergavenny’s allegiance and not the payment of the fine, and 825 (ii), where
Bergavenny bound himself over in £5,000 for his allegiance. Only 825 (iv) relates to the fine of £5,000.
68
T.N.A., C255/8/5, no. 6. I am very grateful to Sean Cunningham for this reference.
69
T.N.A., KB9/443, nos. 1–4 contains indictments for the mass retaining offences presented at a hearing on 13
January. However, the date that the retaining offences were calculated to was 6 December 1506, which suggests the
start of process was that month, and some time must have been needed to gather evidence.
70
A few historians have noted the juxtaposition of the treason indictment and the retaining fine, such as
Hawkyard, ‘Neville, George’; Cameron, ‘Giving of livery and retaining’, p. 33; and Penn, Winter King, pp. 230–1,
233. Perhaps only Dunham (Hastings’ Indentured Retainers, p. 103) and Pugh (‘Henry VII and the English nobility’,
pp. 71–2) really link the 1506 indictment with the 1507 fine, though not as strongly as is done here.
71
T.N.A., KB9/443, nos. 2, 4. Poynings seems to have inherited Guildford’s leading position among the Kentish
gentry and was close to the king (S. G. Ellis, ‘Poynings, Sir Edward (1459–1521)’, O.D.N.B. [accessed 21
July 2021]; and Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men, passim). For the Kentish J.P.s in 1507, see Cal. Pat. Rolls 1494–1509,
pp. 644–5.
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