RICHARD II's CHESHIRE ARCHERS

BY JAMES L. GILLESPIE, B.A., PH.D.

ICHARD II has been condemned by both his contemporaries Rand modern historians for his utilisation of a bodyguard of Cheshire archers in the final years of his reign. Richard has been seen as the tyrant who attempted to impose his will with the support of a praetorian guard composed of the dregs of Cheshire society. Yet there has been little effort to establish just who these archers were or what Richard's motives were in recruiting them. Both questions should be considered. The latter question must be examined first if the former is to be understood.

GENERAL HISTORY AND COMPOSITION Throughout his reign, Richard II had been faced with the desire of a baronial faction led by his uncle, Gloucester, to control the governance of the realm in an effort to secure pelf and place; Richard's effort to assert his personal will was the natural and traditional response to this baronial challenge which was a recur­ rent theme in English medieval history. Richard may have under­ stood the royal prerogative in terms that differed from his royal predecessors, but he was no more adamant in its defence than the pious and unoriginal Henry III had been. Just as Henry had attempted to employ the military means available to a thirteenth- century monarch in this defence, Richard chose to use the system of bastard feudalism, the primary military vehicle of the four­ teenth century. He attempted to create his own faction within the peerage based upon the Hollands and the earl of Salisbury. In addition, Richard began to build his own retinue centred on his palatinate earldom of Chester. In this vein, he granted a general royal pardon to the inhabitants of the earldom as a token of his affection.1 Richard II was favouring the interests of his earldom, which he raised to a principality, over those of the king­ dom. The dangers of such a policy are obvious. By favouring one 2 Cheshire Archers portion of his realm over all others, Richard, in his attempt to defend the Crown, lost the special status that his regality had given him." He appeared to be no different from a duke of Gloucester, or perhaps a duke of Lancaster. It is ironic and even tragic that a king who was so sensitive to his regality and so advanced in his conceptions of royal prerogative should have been so limited in both his material resources and social vision that the very measures which he chose to adopt in defence of his position were, in fact, counterproductive of their intended goal. Yet, did Richard really have a choice ? Unwilling and unable to lead the magnates in a quest for ransoms and booty across the Channel such as had placated them in the reign of his grand­ father and disinclined by temperament and education to allow the Crown to become a mere cipher in the factional politics of the reign, Richard was compelled to create his own power base. The early stages of the archers' enlistment are quite obscure, but the reason for their recruitment is well known. On 13 July 1397 a writ was sent to the sheriff of Chester to collect 2,000 archers for royal service, and on 19 August a proclamation was issued forbidding any archer to engage himself until 2,300 had entered into agreements with the king. Then a writ was directed on 24 August to the undersheriff of Chester ordering the king's retainers to assemble at Kingston-on-Thames on 15 September.5 There is no doubt that Richard used his Cheshiremen to overawe the high court of parliament which was summoned to West­ minster for 17 September I397-4 Employing a form of strong armed maintenance, the king assured himself that Parliament would yield itself to his personal direction. The merits of the king's case against his baronial rivals, and merits there were, were overshadowed by this manifestly unjust method of procedure. This personalisation of justice was evident in the involvement of the Cheshiremen in the execution of the sentence of death and exile upon the most important victims of this parliamentary coup, the Fitzalan brothers.5 Despite his apparently total victory, Richard did not entirely disband his train of archers. Richard must have understood that by assuming direct leadership of a faction, he had irrevocably exposed himself to the personal animosities that factional politics breeds.6 The king clearly did not continue to employ all the archers who had appeared at Westminster or Shrewsbury in his bodyguard; he rather retained a select force to provide him with immediate security while allowing the majority to return home, still on the royal payroll and subject to recall in the event of a major crisis. Those who remained in the royal bodyguard followed Richard Cheshire Archers 3 and his court everywhere.' The king naturally took a large contingent of Cheshiremen with him when he made his fateful Irish expedition." The Cheshire contingent was dealt with separ­ ately from the remainder of the royal forces, again emphasising its special and private character. The Cheshiremen, including 900 archers, were paid by the chamberlain of Chester, the chief financial officer of the palatinate, not by the keeper of the ward­ robe as the other royal forces were.9 The king also maintained a separate group of 100 Chester archers who must have served as his personal guard on the expedition.10 But while Richard and his Cheshiremen were busy subduing the wild Irish, Henry of Lancaster was in the process of subduing the English. When Richard tardily returned to meet his rival, he was to find that he was betrayed or abandoned by nearly all his supporters. The king, however, was not entirely alone: The above king had seven brave and noble esquires of the county of Chester and around eighty selected household retainers specially assigned to each of them standing guard with great axes outside the king's cham­ ber. The names of these men were John de Legh del Bothes, Thomas Ghelemeley, Ralph Davenport, Adam Bostok, John Downe, Thomas Bestone, Thomas Halford.11 Richard's bodyguard at least had remained loyal to him. It is quite probable that the seven faithful esquires who had charge of Richard's bodyguard were among the small band that remained with him until his capture.12 Cheshire was made to pay for its loyalty to its prince by Lancaster. Henry quickly moved into Cheshire and established his base of operations in Chester itself. The duke made little effort to control the passions of his supporters and may indeed have encouraged their deprecations.13 One Cheshireman, Peter de Legh, felt the particular wrath of Bolingbroke upon the latter's arrival at Chester. Legh was beheaded.14 Legh was one of those retained by the earl at zoos, per year and must thus have worn the livery of the stag.15 His connexion with the Cheshire archers is not documented, yet he was clearly of some importance in their organisation. This is apparent from the vernacular verses which the Kenilworth chronicler assigned to the king's bodyguard reassuring Richard that he is as safe in their hands as if he had married Peter's daughter.16 It is quite probable that Peter fulfilled the functions of a recruiting agent on the scene. Henry made Chester and its inhabitants pay for their loyalty to their earl. This loyalty continued even after Henry had imprisoned Richard. Only two of Richard's yeoman archers are recorded as having offered a formal submission to Bolingbroke. John Donne, one of the leaders of the bodyguard, also gave Henry a pledge for his good conduct.17 The rest of the force remained stubborn in 4 Cheshire Archers their allegiance to their defeated master. An attempt to harass Henry and rescue Richard during their journey to London was organised by the inhabitants of the palatinate."1 The attempt was a failure, but the Cheshiremen had demonstrated, for not the last time, their personal loyalty to their deposed leader. The attempt to capture Henry and his sons at Windsor castle during the Christmas festivities of 1399, and the subsequent capture of its perpetrators may have directly involved some of Richard's Cheshire archers. 19 There was also a Cheshire rising in support of Richard at this time.20 Indeed the Cheshiremen were to pay more heavily than the other rebels against the new king since the council excluded them from a general pardon for insur­ rections against the king.21 Henry did finally issue a pardon, probably spurred by the need for troops to combat the Scots, to his lieges of the county of Cheshire. This pardon excluded 114 men who had to sue for special charters and eight men who were to be utterly excluded from its terms.22 Among these 114 men were two of the commanders of Richard's archers, approximately thirty-eight men who had been granted the livery of the Crown, and five or six others who had been retained in various capacities by the ex-king. Two more watch captains are found among the eight names placed totally beyond the pale of royal grace. In fact, most of these men were able none the less to make their peace with Henry including the two captains whom Henry had totally excluded from the general pardon.23 Loyalty to their former prince was, however, not yet exhausted in the hearts of the inhabi­ tants of the palatinate. Henry Percy marched to Cheshire where he had earlier been appointed as justice by Henry IV. He hoped to augment his retinue by drawing on the latent loyalty to Richard II still present in the palatinate. Hotspur was not disappointed as Cheshiremen flocked to his banner and followed him to his ill-fated encounter with the usurper at Shrewsbury. The Cheshiremen played a pro­ minent role in the battle that ensued, and many paid for their loyalty to Richard's cause with their lives.24 The knights and esquires retained by the former king, figure prominently in the lists of forfeitures by Cheshiremen resulting from Shrewsbury pre­ served in the British Museum.25 Thirteen of the thirty-four men listed were retained by Richard in some capacity. Included among these thirteen are six of the seven captains of Richard's watches, one of whom probably died on the field of battle, and one man who may have served Richard as a yeoman archer. It also appears that at least nine of Richard's archers forfeited their worldly goods and probably their lives in an effort to avenge their former Cheshire Archers 5 Having briefly surveyed the historical role played by Richard IFs retinue, it is necessary now to analyse the composition of this force. The employment by an English king of a private badge such as the white hart was an innovation. There is no record of the distribution of the stag livery prior to the great Smithfield tournament of I39O.2T The livery of the stag was distributed to a group of knights and esquires throughout the realm, al­ though Chester supplied a disproportionate number of these retainers. The white hart was not, however, the only badge employed by the king. Prior to the Radcot campaign of 1387, Richard was active, like any magnate of his day, recruiting retainers who were given silver and golden crowns to wear.28 This distribution of silver and golden crowns is significant when the case of Richard's yeomen archers is considered. Modern scholarship has always assumed that Richard's archers wore the livery of the stag.29 There is indeed some evidence to support such a view. The first official notice of an archer of the livery of the Crown does not occur until 1390, the year in which the white hart was intro­ duced. 30 The Dieulacres Chronicle lends some support to the notion that Richard's Cheshire archers also wore the white hart when, having recorded that Richard returned from Ireland with seven named esquires each of whom commanded eighty men, it proceeds in the next sentence: 'These (Isti) indeed bore the royal insignia on their shoulders, the white stag posed as if it were rising.'31 The isti, however, may quite logically be seen to refer only to loyal esquires enumerated in the previous sentence without any reference to their subordinates. This same chronicle, indeed, provides evidence that the livery of the stag and the livery of the Crown were not interchangeable terms. After he had described the capture of Richard II by Henry IV, the author remarked: 'Then indeed were the royal insignia (signa) both (tarn) of the stag as (quani) of the crown placed under wraps.'32 The tarn . . . quam construction and the use of the plural, signa, certainly imply two different entities. Likewise, the enrollments of Cheshire and the patent rolls never speak of anything but the livery of the Crown in connexion with archers, but when they refer to the knights and esquires they specify the livery of the stag. If archers wore the gilded crown, the provenance of the royal partisanship on behalf of Richard's earldom, and their obedience to captains wearing the king's private livery of the stag would serve as a visual reminder of the subordination of the Crown to factional politics. It was the archers of Richard's retinue who were the most conspicuous and objectionable section of the king's retinue. This 6 Cheshire Archers group comprised the bulk of Richard's private army, and they composed his personal bodyguard. These men were of lower social and economic status than the knights and esquires of the livery of the stag, and they were, therefore, the sort of men who were not likely to be subtle in their abuses of the royal favour shown to them. It was the liveryman of low rank who was the primary object of complaint in the parliaments of the period. 33 The Cheshire archers had their origins in a group known as the archers of the duchy or principality of Chester. It would appear that they were the men recruited in the course of the summer of 1397 in pursuance of the writ and the proclamation cited earlier. The only real evidence of this group's existence is found among the Cheshire enrollments; even here the references are only casual. The archers of the duchy or principality are noted only when one of their members happened to receive some other grant in which his association with the group was noted in passing. The rather hurried calendar of these enrollments further confuses the issue by substituting the phrase ' archer of the princi­ pality of Wales' where the original reads 'Chester', thus creating the illustion of another separate category of Richard's yeoman retainers.34 It is even possible that this phrase is purely descriptive of the individual rather than a designation of an organised paramilitary force.35 The mass distribution of livery of the Crown to Cheshire archers was coterminous with the adjournment of the first session of the parliament that had seen Richard triumph over his rivals. The distribution of the livery of the Crown at this moment was both a reward for good service during the course of this assembly and a form of insurance for future support. The conclusion of this parliament also saw the retirement of Sir Baldwin Radding- ton as controller of the wardrobe, an office of great martial sig­ nificance within the household and his replacement by Sir John Stanley, a military man who was a native of Cheshire.36 The Cheshire archers who received the livery of the Crown from Richard during the final years of his reign received their patents from the palatinate's exchequer which was also named in the patents as the place where they were to collect their wages. This association with the administrative machinery of Richard's private lordship served to emphasise the special and personal nature of this group of royal retainers. A handful of Richard's archers were rewarded with a patent from the English Chancery as an archer of the Crown.37 These were early grants which represent a transitional phase in the evolution of the Cheshire archers. The force of archers of the Crown which included other men from Cheshire had existed Cheshire Archers J throughout the reign, and these men had served on similar terms. Yet, they were either paid at the English exchequer or from the revenues collected by sheriffs which were destined for delivery at the receipt of the exchequer. Furthermore, the personal re­ lationship between the king and his Chester archers was empha­ sised by the fact that while about half of this other group of archers with English patents had their grants confirmed by the house of Lancaster, only one archer with a Chester patent ever had his grant ratified, and that ratification was delayed until I450.38 The entries among the Chester enrollments granting livery of the Crown are essentially the same on the roll, and the large number of such entries apparently caused Mr Peter Turner, the compiler, to lose interest rapidly. Not surprisingly, errors abounded in the resulting calendar. The cavalier treatment of the marginalia, 'archer of the Crown', by the calendar is particularly misleading. The original roll employs the entry regularly in noting grants of the livery of the Crown save for a nearly contiguous series of early entries where its omission is best explained by clerical sloth or confusion.39 The calendar is much more confused, sometimes omitting the entry and at other points varying the form in which it is noted. This tends to convey a false impression of significance to this marginal notation as if it somehow marked off Richard's bodyguard of archers from other grantees. This lack of concern for accuracy is also evident in the calendar's approach to recording the terms by which the grantees were designated. There is perhaps some justification for this indifference in the fact that the designations, 'livery of the Crown', 'yeoman of the livery of the Crown', 'archer of the livery of the Crown' are indifferently and apparently interchangeably employed in the originals.40 Men designated in these fashions served among Richard's personal guard, and the same man was on different occasions identified in varying fashion. The compiler's sin is not in this case cardinal, but it again serves as a cautionary note about the value of his calendar. Having noted the problems encountered in the utilisation of the Chester enrollments, it becomes necessary to consult the manner and terms of these enrollments more carefully. Those facets of a Cheshire archer's patent which are standard include the grant of livery of the Crown, the rate of wages, and the place where payment is to be received. In addition, whenever the patent notes the agent responsible for making such payments, it is the chamberlain of Chester.41 The rate of pay was equivalent to that granted to those archers of the Crown who had secured their patents under the great seal. 8 Cheshire Archers Six pence a day was a highly attractive wage in an era when the average daily wage for a mason was 5-5/8d. and for a carpenter 5/8d.; indeed the archer's annual income of £9 as. 6d. was greater than the income produced by many a smaller manor at that time.112 The rate of wages in fact made the grant livery of the Crown an object for petition, and a total of eight men were admitted to Richard's retinue in that fashion rather than through recruitment. At least five of the petitions were endorsed by the justice of Chester, the earl of Wiltshire, who was one of Richard's factional supporters within the peerage.43 The endorsed petition replaced the privy seal writ as a warrant for the grant. Employ­ ment in Richard's retinue was thus something to be desired. The total cost of Richard's private faction was considerable. An account for Michaelmas 1398 of the wages and annuities distributed by Richard to his Cheshire supporters survives, and it notes payments in excess of £5,000 a year to the knights, esquires and archers of Richard's retinue. Just over £4,000 of this figure was accounted for by the wages of the Cheshire archers.44 The exchequer of Chester was the place of payment stipulated in the grants of wages and annuities to the king's palatinate re­ tainers. The only exception to this rule among the archers, William de Tattenhall, was to draw his wages from the issues of the castle of Holt.45 This, however, was a very early patent, and since he is listed with the others in the Michaelmas 1398 account, it must be assumed that in practice William received his wages with his comrades. The chamberlain of Chester's account for the year 1397-8 revealed a total income of only £917, and the net revenue of the earldom after local expenses and grants had been met was just about nil. The vast sums expended on the annuities and wages of Richard's retinue are nowhere present in these accounts; it is most doubtful that the resources of the palatinate could have met them.46 Neither the exchequer nor the wardrobe seem to have directly provided subsidies as the issue rolls, the accounts of the keeper of the wardrobe, and even those of the keeper of the great wardrobe mention no such outlay. Likewise, the accounts of the chamberlain of North Wales are silent.47 Richard apparently drew some of this money from the hoard which he had established at Holt. Thus, William Tattenhall's patent may reveal the true source of the archer's wages more accurately than do those of his comrades. There is a record of 2,000 marks being set aside for annuities to Cheshire retainers from this source in October 1398. Yet, even this sum is not sufficient to meet the entire obligation; the rest may have come from Richard's Welsh revenues or his private resources. Its exact provenance has not been discovered.48 What is clear is that Cheshire Archers 9 Richard chose to employ the fiscal machinery of his private liberty to pay his archers. The date upon which a man was granted a patent for wages is not really adequate evidence of the date of his first service as a private archer of the king. There was apparently covert recruit­ ment of liverymen of the Crown before the autumn session of parliament, perhaps in conjunction with the archers of the princi­ pality. Laurence de Bentley's warrant of i October states that he 'has had for a long time passed our livery of the Crown without receiving from us fees or wages for that reason', and John Walkeden's warrant of 30 September records that he had been recruited as a yeoman of the livery of the Crown on the king's last visit to Chester but that he had not until now been granted any wages.49 Several archers received rewards for past service prior to the date of their patents, and some obtained their patents for livery and 6d. only after having previously obtained grants for lesser wages.50 The patents themselves vary. Some include a clause stating that the grant was made in consideration of service rendered; others omit this clause and note the grant is the result of special grace. These variations are of no help, however, in determining prior service as the service phrase is a formulaic one which appears to have been included or excluded at whim. Thus, for example, it is omitted in the grant to Richard del Green who had earlier received a grant of 4d. a day which had included the phrase.51 The patents are, therefore, not an infallible guide to the original date of an archer's entry into Richard's service, but they do provide a valuable indication of the pace and extent of the organisation of Richard's Cheshire retinue. There were three periods of peak activity in the distribution of livery of the Crown. Two of these coincided with the two sessions of Richard's final parliament. The first period from 14 September to 3 October saw the distribution of livery to fifty-four men, twenty-five of whom received their patents on i October. There was sporadic activity from mid-October until mid- December during which forty-three men were enrolled, including ten on 12 November. These men were probably being tardily rewarded for their service at the autumn parliament. Windsor castle was the scene of a mass distribution of livery of forty-four archers from 14-17 December. 15 December also saw the intro­ duction of the mass warrant in which several archers were named, each of whom received a separate patent rather than the issuance of separate warrants for each patent. 52 These grants and those made at Coventry in January were probably preparatory to the assemblage of the Shrewsbury parliament. At Shrewsbury one hundred and thirteen patents were distributed from 30 January 10 Cheshire Archers to 3 February. Following this massive grant of livery, there was complete inactivity save for six grants in response to petitions in late March until 20 May when a flurry of activity which extended until 3 June saw one hundred and sixteen men added to the ranks of Cheshire archers. July 1-4 provided an additional one hundred and eighteen men enrolled at Nottingham castle and the process continued intermittently throughout the summer.53 It may be that after the impasse in the Hereford-Norfolk case had been found insoluble through peaceful means by the parlia­ mentary committee in its Windsor session at the end of April, Richard felt himself in danger of a factional attack by one of the parties (most likely Hereford) and wished to increase further his own retinue to withstand such a threat.54 This explanation of course fails to explain fully why there was a delay until 20 May before such recruitment occurred, but the alternative hypothesis that Richard was simply attempting to solidify his tyranny after Shrewsbury is equally unsatisfactory as an answer to this question. In addition, it fails to solve the problem of why such recruitment ceased in the autumn of 1398 when the lists at Coventry had seen a final solution to the Hereford-Norfolk feud. The peak periods of Richard's enlistment of liveried archers thus bear some correspondence with the major political crises of his final years. The final phase of enlistment saw an alteration in the terms upon which the wages and livery of the Crown were granted. The grant for life was replaced by a grant during pleasure. The warrants for such grants were not enrolled, and it even became rare to enroll the patent, except in the case of those men who were included within the active watches of Richard's bodyguard. 55 There was a return to the older practice on i and 2 July, but the 4 July grants are all for pleasure. Since those who received the life grants at this time all served under two of the esquires who were in charge of special watches, it may be that these were men with previous service who were the recipients of a belated grant.50 The enlistment of the new archers for pleasure only and the failure of the Chester enrollments to record their enlistment would seem to imply that Richard was simply trying to bolster his private military power to meet the temporary crisis which the Hereford-Norfolk confrontation forebode.57 This same impulse moved him to strengthen his more permanent company of livery­ men who guarded his person through the distribution of more life grants and the inclusion of some of those archers recruited for pleasure within its ranks. The most intimate group of retainers were those who attended the king's person and who kept watch while he slept. It is this Cheshire Archers 11 group that attracted the greatest attention from chroniclers and subsequent historians of Richard II. They were the men who travelled about with the king and became a special source of grievance to the realm. The account of Michaelmas 1398 lists seven watches of archers, four of forty-four men, two of forty-five men and one of forty-six archers.58 Each watch was under the command of an esquire, and these seven men correspond to the seven mentioned by the Dieulacres chronicle as loyal leaders of the king's archers. The seven-fold division of the bodyguard would seem to suggest that each watch stood guard all night once each week outside the royal bedchamber. The king thus kept a force of about three hundred private Cheshire retainers in his household for the last two years of his reign to protect his person from his enemies and no doubt to intimidate these rivals as well. Being a Cheshire archer, however, did not necessarily entail being a member of the king's personal bodyguard. Among those archers of the livery of the Crown recruited for life, there were over ninety men who were not included within the watches of Richard's bodyguard. All but a handful of these men received their patents at the time of one of the two sessions of Richard's last parliament when Richard utilised all the force at his com­ mand to overawe the assemblage. These men were apparently granted the livery of the Crown with its accompanying wage as a reward for past service, and in order to create a reserve force of liveried yeomen for future use. They received their wages in semi-annual installments of £4 us. 3d. rather than payment by the day as was the case with those included in the watches of the bodyguard.59 Their mode of payment would suggest an annuity or a retainer fee rather than a wage for active service. The form of payment was purely dependent upon the type of service per­ formed since there were variations in the wages of men who were included in the same warrant and hence who received identical patents. This is clearly illustrated by the case of two brothers, John and William de Massey of Hale; John, a member of one of the watches received £4 8s. as his daily wages from Easter to Michaelmas 1398 while William who was not so employed collected £4 i is. 3d. though they were both included in a single 2 February 1398 privy seal warrant.60 There was also a contingent of over one hundred and eighty- five men who were paid during pleasure and excluded from the watches as these were established by Michaelmas 1398.61 Whether these men were on active service with Richard is not clear; their wages offer no clue to their position. They may have been employed to afforce the royal bodyguard or they may have added to Richard's residual military strength. It is quite possible that 12 Cheshire Archers the men of one or both of these groups were incorporated into the royal bodyguard at a date after Michaelmas 1398, most probably during the ill-starred Irish expedition, since the Dieul- acres chronicle records that during the final encounter with Bolingbroke each of the seven commanders of Richard's watches had about eighty men with him."2 This figure can be approxi­ mated if one incorporates those men serving during pleasure with the men retained for life but beyond the watches. An alternative to the inclusion of the later group is to view the one hundred archers for whom the commanders of the king's bodyguard received wages at the exchequer in May 1399 as a new and separate accretion to the king's forces.03 What is clear is that all the men who received the livery of the Crown were not in con­ stant attendance upon the body of the king from the moment they were so engaged. The size of Richard's retinue must be considered further. Contemporary accounts on this subject vary greatly. Adam of Usk claims a force of four thousand archers attended the first session of the 1397 parliament. The Monk of Evesham halves this figure which Froissart then adopts in his estimate of the size of Richard's full time bodyguard. The full time bodyguard of the king was placed at four hundred archers by Usk and by the author of the Annales at three hundred men.04 Aside from the indifference of medieval chroniclers to numerical accuracy, the variations in the figures arose from a failure to define clearly what forces were being discussed. Usk's figure of four thousand men may have been approached by the total factional force at Richard's disposal in the fall of 1397. This force would include Richard's archers of the principality of Chester, his knights and esquires of the livery of the stag, as well as the retinue of his baro­ nial supporters. The two thousand archers noted by Evesham probably correspond to the archers of the principality of Chester. Froissart's repetition of this figure in connexion with the king's permanent bodyguard can be dismissed as the result of confusion on the part of a foreign observer. The information provided by the Annales on the size of Richard's bodyguard corresponds to that provided by the account of Michaelmas 1398, and thus, the figure of three hundred archers would appear to be a reliable estimate of the actual strength of the king's permanent Cheshire retinue. Usk's estimate of four hundred archers may have been either a Lancastrian exaggeration, or it may have been based upon some period in the final months of Richard's reign. In any event, all the evidence is in agreement on the fact that Richard's full time bodyguard was to be numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands. Cheshire Archers 13 The organisation of the special watches of Richard's bodyguard proceeded apace with the general programme of the enrollment of the king's private liveried yeomen. It would thus appear that Anthony Steel's assertion that Richard organised his bodyguard at the time of the summons to Kingston-on-Thames is in need of modification."'"' That Richard employed some and possibly all of the archers summoned there to guard his person is quite likely, and the gift of 2os. to the archer Richard de Helegh 'yeoman assigned for the body of the lord king', found in the Chester chamberlain's accounts for 20-21 Richard seems to confirm the early creation of such a group.0" The Annales further strengthen this assumption by noting that Richard began to surround himself with a guard at the time of Arundel's execution."7 The fact remains, however, that 'archers of our watches' continued to be among recipients of grants of livery of the Crown in large numbers until July I398.08 Some of the men recruited in July of 1398 had served in guarding Richard's person long before that date. Thus William Donne de Kelsall who received his patent on i July was noted in a warrant for a grant of 4d. a day on 20 November 1397 as being one of 'our archers assigned to attend our person among other archers of our principality of Chester'."9 Six other men who had been receiving lesser wages also secured livery of the Crown at this time. The large number of life grants distributed to archers commanded by John Donne and Richard de Cholmondeley on i and 2 July 1398, respectively, suggest both the prior service of these archers and that these two watches were not fully organised until this date. 70 The bodyguard was thus not the result of any preconceived masterplan for absolutist rule that burst full grown from the head of the king, but rather a pragmatic attempt to employ liveried retainers in the defence of a master who was none too secure about his strength or his popularity.

THE CAPTAINS OF THE WATCHES The same lack of any preconceived plan is apparent in the recruitment of the men who were to command the seven watches of the royal bodyguard. The names of these seven esquires were recorded by the Dieulacres chronicle in the passage quoted above as well as by the payroll of Michaelmas 1398. Thus, their identity is easily established; they were John de Legh del Boothes, Richard de Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley, Ralph de Davenport, Adam de Bostok, John Donne of Utkinton, Thomas de Beeston, and Thomas de Holford. These seven men cannot, however, be identified with Richard's Cheshire archers at any one moment in time. None of them was specifically recruited into the royal 14 Cheshire Archers service to command a watch nor did they enter royal service either at the same time or in the same manner. Five of the esquires, Legh, Bostok, Cholmondeley, Donne, and Beeston did enter Richard's service in October 1397. On 10 October, Legh and Bostok were retained for life and granted annuities of iocs, per year from the Chester exchequer. 71 This was the typical patent of an esquire of the livery of the stag who were being organised coterminously with the archers of the Crown. There is no indication that Legh or Bostok had been selected for any special service at this point. It is doubtful that these two esquires attended Richard's person at this time. In January of 1398, two men were compensated for providing John de Legh with horses for his ride to Chester from Boothes and back again, a ride which probably was necessitated by preparations for the Shrewsbury parliament.72 Legh was thus at home at this tune. John Donne and Richard de Cholmondeley were also retained for life on 9 October, but they were apparently marked for special duty. Donne received an annuity of £10 from the Chester exchequer while Cholmondeley was granted £20 a year from the toll of Wrexham in Wales which had come to the king through the forfeiture of the earl of Arundel.73 Thomas de Beeston also shared in the Arundel spoils on the same date. 74 Beeston is the only one of the seven commanders who may have been in royal service previously. In 1383, a Thomas Beeston was among those who were named to seize carts for the carriage of the rolls of the king's bench, but if this is the same man, he did not remain with the court since he, his father and the future archer, Robert Torfoot, were commissioned to arrest disturbers of the peace within the lordship of Frodsham in I39i.75 Beeston and Cholmondeley had grants from the English Chancery in 1397, the other three grants were based upon Chester patents. Finally, it is interesting to note that although Donne was one of the first esquires selected for special service, the men of his watch were among the last to receive their patents as archers of the livery of the Crown. During the period in which the men of Donne and Holford's watches were being formally organised, three of the esquire commanders received annuities of £20 and two of the others eventually secured similar grants. Ralph de Davenport makes his first appearance in Richard's service on 12 June 1398 when he was granted an annuity of £20 which was to be received at the exchequer of Chester. This grant was the result of a joint privy seal warrant that also encompassed a grant of the livery of the Crown for Walter de Washington, one of the archers whom Ralph commanded.76 The other two esquires, Beeston and Cheshire Archers 15 Bostok, rewarded at this time had been retained previously." On i December 1398, John de Legh was granted the town of Sutton in Macclesfield forest for life to the value of £20 per annum, and it also appears that John Donne had been granted the firthmote and customs of Delamere forest to the yearly value of £21 os. 4d. 7K Only Thomas de Holford certainly failed to secure an annuity of £20 from the king. Holford first appears in royal service on 24 July 1398 when Thomas de Holford, esquire of the county of Chester, sent into northern parts to arrest a man, received 66s. 8d. for his wages. 79 The king's esquire, Thomas de Holford, was appointed customer of the petty custom in the city of London as a reward for his loyal service on 23 November I3g8.80 This appointment must have obviated the necessity of granting an annuity. The recruitment of the commanders of the watches exhibits once again the lack of a blueprint for the organi­ sation of the Cheshire archers. Having joined Richard's service, the commanders continued to enjoy the royal bounty, often at the expense of Richard's enemies. Beeston was granted offices in Arundel's lands and Cholmondeley shared in the goods of the earl of Warwick. Holford collected a debt owed to Lord Cobham, and John de Legh was given offices in former Lancastrian estates.81 Legh, Bostok, Cholmondeley, Davenport, and Donne also profited from legal forfeitures granted to them by Richard. Adam de Bostok for example shared a 15 October 1398 grant of a moiety of £200 due from the mainpernor of a man who had escaped.82 Richard II did his best to keep his commanders happy and loyal. Richard's efforts were not in vain. His watch commanders remained loyal to his cause after his fall. Their loyalty to Richard at the time of his confrontation with Bolingbroke has already been touched upon. John Donne alone seemed ambiguous in his actions at this time. The Dieulacres chronicle notes his presence in the final meeting with Henry of Lancaster, yet he was the only commander omitted by the issue roll in recording a payment of wages for the king's bodyguard prior to its departure for Ire­ land.83 The issue is further confused by the fact that he was the only one of the commanders whose submission to the usurper is formally recorded: 23 August 1399, John son of John de Donne, late in the retinue of the king, submits to the mercy of Henry of Lancaster, steward of England, and Roger and John le Bruyn, John Massey of Kelsale, and William de Overton are sureties in £40 for John.84 Massey and Overton, however, had served under Donne in the king's bodyguard, and thus they are strange sureties in this matter. The idea that Donne was a defector from Richard's cause is |6 Cheshire Archers vitiated further by his implication in the subsequent attempts to rescue and restore Richard II. John Donne with Thomas de Beeston were among those exempted from the 22 May 1400 pardon to the men of Chester. Legh and Holford were even more active in the plots of Henry IV's first year. Both were denied any benefit from the general pardon to the men of Chester, and both had their lands confiscated as a result.85 Ralph de Davenport also engaged in the disturbances against Henry. He received indemnity for his actions, and he fortified it by a pardon of 6 May 1401. The escheator was directed to take surety from Davenport for the offices held by him from the earl of Chester in an effort to insure his loyalty to the new dynasty.86 Indeed all the commanders who were implicated in these disturbances soon managed to restore their position since Henry IV also had need of experienced servants.87 Yet, when Henry Percy raised the standard of revolt again, Richard's commanders were found under his banner at Shrews­ bury. When Henry IV pardoned the men of Chester on 27 September 1493 for their part in the revolt, five of Richard's former commanders, Legh, Cholmondeley, Bostok, Donne, and Holford were among those excluded from its benefits. These five were required to make special arrangements with the prince of Wales.88 To encourage them to do so, the escheator was com­ manded to seize their lands. Writs to this effect were issued in regard to Cholmondeley and Bostok on 7 October, and on 10 October a writ was issued for Legh's lands. Donne's lands were also subject to forfeiture, and the writ of 18 September 1403 which cancelled a lease of the lands of William de Frodsham granted to Donne may also have been related to the younger Donne's activities on behalf of his former master.89 Ormerod speculated that Ralph de Davenport also took part in the revolt of the Percys, but there is no firm evidence to confirm this hypo­ thesis. Davenport was serving as a commissioner of array for Macclesfield on 11 October 1403. He was also appointed to make inquisition within the hundred concerning the spread of false rumours, no doubt the rumours that his former master was alive which Hotspur had revived.90 This task and the early date of the commission of array make Ralph's participation in the affray at Shrewsbury questionable. Thomas de Beeston, on the other hand, made the supreme sacrifice at Shrewsbury. His writ de diem clausit extremum was dated 3 August 1403, and on 12 September 1403 Margaret, late wife of Thomas de Beeston, was granted a yearly rent of £20 from the issues of his lands in the county of Chester for the maintenance of herself and her children. Margaret had shown that these lands, worth £40 a year, and Thomas' Cheshire Archers 1 7 goods to the value of £20 were forfeited to the king because he had ridden in the company of Henry de Percy le filz.91 Richard's commanders thus remained loyal to their fallen master as long as there was any chance for revenge on the usurper. In spite of their close association with Richard II, Henry IV hoped to employ these experienced commanders in his own service both as soldiers and in the administration of the palatinate. Thus, when the commons petitioned in the first parliament of Henry IV's reign: that the great sums of gold and silver given by the last king to the esquires masters of the watch of Cheshire should be repaid to the present king Henry responded: Because the king understands that they are unable to pay the sum com­ prised in this petition, he wishes that they should provide him with service for a certain time at their own cost.92 The commanders had clearly enriched themselves from the personal favour of the old king at the expense of the realm, but the new king did not want to avenge himself upon them. Richard's commanders despite occasional early lapses from favour as a result of their attempts to restore their old master continued to prosper under the house of Lancaster. Bostok who had not been involved in the early efforts to discomfort Henry IV, was rewarded by a notification of Richard's patent for his £20 annuity, and John de Legh had regained 20 marks of his £20 grant in 1401. Legh's grant was, however, later cancelled as a result of Shrewsbury only to be renewed again in I4o6.93 Cholmondeley was one of the hereditary gentlemen and yeomen of Broxton selected by Richard II and retained by Henry IV in a writ of 21 November 1399 as a conservator of the peace for that hundred.91 Davenport had managed to retain his hereditary share of the serjeancy of the peace in Macclesfield hundred, and he and Cholmondeley were selected to command units of archers for the Scottish expedition of Henry IV's first year.95 The martial experience of Richard's esquires was also utilised in connexion with the unrest in Wales. Cholmondeley, Donne and Bostok all were named to commissions of array in the period 1403-6, and the first two as well as Legh were also appointed to related com­ missions during the period.90 In the latter year, John de Legh indented to serve the prince of Wales in peace and in war. Legh continued to serve the Prince after his accession, and he became sheriff of the county of Chester in I4I4-97 Henry V's quest for the French crown allowed Donne, who had continued his family's service in Delamere forest, to resume his military career. He commanded a contingent of archers in France which included 18 Cheshire Archers four men who had served in Richard's bodyguard albeit under Beeston's command.98 The financial requirements of the Hundred Years War led in 1416 to Cholmondeley's service as a subsidy collector, a job which Davenport had undertaken in 1402.°° It is possible that Cholmondeley and probable that Donne were among the prominent inhabitants of the palatinate summoned to a council of 1436 at Chester to approve another subsidy.100 These esquires had established themselves among the influential men of the earldom under the house of Lancaster. Richard II's commanders thus appear to have been drawn from the stable gentry of Cheshire whose service was also re­ quired by his supplanter. Only Beeston and Holford failed to find favour with the new dynasty. Beeston had fallen at Shrewsbury, and Holford also probably died early in the reign. Thus, the service of Richard's commanders to the house of Lancaster suggests the importance of their families. A study of their families and private lives'tends to confirm this picture. These esquires were indeed prominent members of the palati­ nate's gentry. John de Legh del Boothes was the head of the senior branch of the Legh family which held, in addition to the manor of Boothes in Knutsford, a sixth part of Ollerton, half of Rostherne and lands in Rostherne, Mobberley, Bollington and Torkington.101 Richard de Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley had inherited two parts of the manor of Cholmondeley, and he may have increased this holding through a second marriage to Richard de Henhull's heiress.102 The Bostok family dated from the conquest, and they had been established on the Northwich lands to which Adam had fallen heir upon reaching his majority in 1384 since the time of Henry III. Bostok increased the family's holdings as he fell heir to a moiety of Wettenhall manor as well as other lands which had belonged to his maternal uncles.103 At his death, Adam held the moiety of Wettenhall, the manor of Bostok and Huxley and lands in Tattenhall, Row Christleton, Newton juxta Tattenhall, Tetton, Eccleston and Monks Coppenhall.104 Thomas de Beeston was the heir of a moderate Edisbury landholder with lands in Huxley, Kingsley, Norley, Onston, Stoke, Arrow, Coddington and Picton. With the exception of Huxley, his holdings were derived from the shares of his mother and his grandmother in the complicated Thornton inheritance.105 Since he was born on i May 1378, Ralph de Davenport was a ward until 14 June i39g.10" His father who had died in Richard II's sixth year had held a fourth part of the serjeancy of the peace in Macclesfield hundred, the manors of Davenport, Withington and Marton, and lands in Somerford, . Church Holme and Swettenham.107 Davenport's own inquisition post mortem of 1415 mentions only the serjeancy of the peace.108 Cheshire Archers 19 John Donne of Utkinton was the son of the master forester of Delamere who bore the same name, and his family was an off-shoot of the baronial house of Kinder ton. 109 In 1435, Donne who must have just come of age at the close of Richard's reign since he was then in his fifties, inherited his father's estate which consisted of the manor of Utkinton, parts of the manors of Alpraham, Glotton and Kingsley including the bailiwick of Delamere forest and appurtenances in Kingsley, Norley and Coddington which pertained to this part of Kingsley as well as lands in Newton juxta Kingsley, Bradley juxta Kingsley, Tarpor- ley, Barnton and Frodsham and a salt house in Northwich.110 These six esquires were thus by no means upstarts out to make their fortune in Richard's service. The identity of Thomas de Holford, the last of Richard's commanders, presents something of a mystery. The only Thomas noted in the Holford pedigree is Thomas son of John, but all the pedigrees agree that this Thomas predeceased his father in 12 Richard II.111 There is, however, considerable evidence that this surmise is in error. A Thomas son of John de Holford who had been imprisoned in the Tower by command of the king was ordered to be released on 24 October 1390, and on 31 October, his father was ordered to be delivered to two mainpernors and then returned to the Tower. The two Holfords had apparently been imprisoned as a result of a feud.112 This Thomas son of John was a disorderly fellow, and he appears to have been indicted twice in 15 Richard II for trespass in his native shire, on each occasion with men who were to serve under Holford's command in Richard II's bodyguard. In 22 Richard II Thomas son of John de Holford was to be at the next county and meanwhile to keep the peace toward the inhabitants of Chester. Peter de Legh had been a surety in a similar pledge in i3<34.113 Thomas and his father had served in the retinue of John of Gaunt, and Thomas was employed as steward of Halton in I399-114 The connexion of this Thomas son of John de Holford with royal service can be established through a superscription noting him as a servant of the king which cancelled one of a long series of mainprises for him. Indeed this servant of the king had once been indicted for obstructing a royal minister from the perfor­ mance of his mandate.115 Thomas did die some time before his father whose inquisition taken at Chester in 9 Henry IV stated that he had held the manor of Plumley, and lands in Rudheath and Lachedenys which passed to his heir William, son of Thomas de Holford, the son of the aforesaid John who was then twenty- four years old.116 Holford was not alone among Richard's commanders when it 20 Cheshire Archers came to running foul of the law. Like most gentry of their age, these esquires were not averse to taking the law into their own hands to further their interests or avenge their passions. Adam de Bostok became involved in a serious family feud with the abbot of Vale Royal which resulted in his indictment as an accessory to murder." 7 He was allowed to acquit himself of the charge by his own oath, but the king's favour was not all encompassing as a list of jurors survives for Richard's last years concerning a case involving Adam and the Cheshire archer, John son of William de Aldercroft.118 Thomas de Beeston and another future archer, Robert de Tiverton, were fined in 8 Richard II for an attack with sword and staff upon the bailiff of Edisbury. Later in the reign, Beeston was involved in a trespass and a novel disseisin case.119 John de Legh was also indicted in a trespass in Richard's fifteenth year, and he was involved in an illegal land occupation in the next reign. John was also involved in what appears to be a family feud while he was in Richard's service and again in 1420 i.120 Ralph de Davenport was involved in a feud with the man who had held his wardship which resulted in a recognizance to keep the peace and may have been behind the indictment of Ralph and his servants by the hundred of Northwich in Richard's twenty-second year.121 Although he appears to have enjoyed a clean record under Richard, John Donne had his problems later. In 1414, he had to give a recognizance to keep the peace, and the next year he secured a general pardon. Donne must have got into trouble again quickly and decided to embark upon a martial career to cleanse his escutcheon since on 17 March 1418 while he was being detained in Chester castle, John gave a recognizance to go to France on the king's service and to stay until the king's return from there.122 This last case again points up the difficulty of separating the soldier and the criminal in the late Middle Ages. Richard's commanders were no saints, but by the standards of their age, they were not real sinners either. This brief examination of the careers of the seven commanders of Richard's Cheshire bodyguard makes it possible to note certain attributes which all these men shared. They were all descended from well established manorial families in the palatinate, and they were either the heads of their respective houses or the heir. They often sprang from houses in which others had or were to pursue a military career. Davenport and Legh's fathers had served under the Black Prince, and Legh's grandson was to fall along with Donne's son fighting for the house of Lancaster at Blore Heath. Bostok's son was knighted for his service in France.123 Richard's commanders were prominent local gentry, but they were not members of the first families of the earldom. Thus, they had some Cheshire Archers 21 social status, yet they were small enough fry for Richard to con­ trol easily. Since they were clearly subordinate to the king, little effort seems to have been made to recruit them upon the basis of a distribution of territorial influence throughout the shire. Indeed Donne and Beeston were neighbours while none of the esquires had much to do with Wirral. The commanders were a rather young group. This may be viewed as a substantiation of the charge that Richard II relied upon young men to the detri­ ment of himself and his realm. It is, however, natural to employ young men in a military capacity. Bostok in any case was over thirty at the time of his enlistment. Most of these esquires had some record of criminal disorder, but most of them also had a record of service in local administration. Those commanders who survived became valued servants to the house of Lancaster.

THE CAPTAINS AND THE WATCHES The question remains of the relationship of the seven com­ manders to the archers under their direction; were the men under their command recruited by or through the commanders or were they directly loyal to their royal master? There were, not surpri­ singly, signs of nepotism within the watches. The most flagrant example of this practice was found in the watch of Adam de Bostok which included Adam's uncle, brother, nephew, two cousins and one unidentified Bostok.124 Only Thomas de Holford failed to have someone within his watch who bore his name. It was, however, not unknown for a member of a commander's family to serve under another leader; for example David de Bostok served under Thomas de Holford. In addition to family members, the personal servants or retainers of these esquires are found in the ranks of the archers under their command. Thus, William Baker and William de Barton who were named as servants of John de Legh and John Donne in 1400 were to be found in the watches of their respective masters in 1398, while Thomas de Bradshaw, servant of John de Holford, served under the command of Thomas de Holford.125 It is also probable that some of the archers were tenants of the men who led them; the two Richard de Heleghs and William de Haselhurst may well have been tenants of John de Legh. There were various other indications of a special relationship between the commanders and some of their charges. The archer and his leader were sometimes parties to the same recognizance, as in the case of Adam de Arlondes and John de Legh in 1397, or they were indicted together for the same crime as were Robert Wybbe and Thomas de Holford, Richard Page and Randle Rowley 22 Cheshire Archers served as jurors at the inquisitions post mortem of their former masters. Yet, in each of the preceding cases, archers were also joined with commanders other than their own so that such associations are not an infallible guide to the relationship between an esquire and his charges.126 There may have been some territorial associations of many of the archers and their leader, especially in the case of Cholmondeley whose watch included a large number of men from Broxton, but no commander seems to have had a monopoly upon men from one area. Likewise, there was no attempt to iso­ late the men from each of the seven hundreds in one of the seven watches commanded by an esquire based in that hundred. Naturally, most of the commanders had several archers from their own neighbourhood under their command. Beeston's watch thus included a number of men from the north-western portion of Nantwich, Bostok's watch drew heavily on Northwich as well as Nantwich while several men from southern Macclesfield served under Davenport. Edisbury was a common origin for the men of Donne's watch. Both Legh and Holford commanded a large contingent of Bucklow men who were joined in Legh's watch by a group from Macclesfield. Conclusions in this area must, however, be vague due to a paucity of firm evidence for the residence of most of the archers. All that the evidence indicates is that it was not uncommon for a commander to gather within his watch several men who were dependent upon him in some form. There is reason to believe that, despite these quite natural trends, the primary initiative in the recruitment came from Richard. The clearest indication of this situation is the very manner in which the guard was recruited. Richard did not indent with his esquires as commanders of companies as would have been normal if these men were to bring their own retinues into royal service. Each yeoman archer was retained separately by the king/earl and thus a direct contract was formed between the two parties without intervention. The case of Walter de Washington whose patent was warranted by the same privy seal writ that authorised a £20 annuity for his commander, Ralph de Davenport is sui generis. Each watch was also composed of men recruited at different times and from different areas of the palatinate, an indication of a lack of integration within any one watch. Finally, the numerical equality of the watches is a pattern that would be more likely to result from an arbitrary assignment of centrally recruited men than from allowing each esquire to recruit his own subordinates. It would thus appear that the organisation of the watches and the recruitment of their personnel, Cheshire Archers 23 leaders and archers alike, was the direct result of action by the king and his personal advisers. The archers of the bodyguard were in direct daily contact with their master, and were thus in an excellent position to secure from him monetary rewards beyond their wages. Such rewards were on occasion closely related to the terms of enlistment. These grants are noted in the right margin of the payroll for Michaelmas 1398, and may thus be viewed as a form of bonus payment for the service of a yeoman archer within the royal bodyguard. The bonus could take various forms. It could be a cash payment as it was in the case of Stephen Lenne who received a regard of sos. to cover the fees for sealing his patent as a yeoman of the livery of the Crown.127 A closely related form of reward and one that usually involved larger sums of money was a royal pardon for debts owed to the Crown. Philip Rosumgreen, for example, owed the king/earl £40 for his breach of a bond entered into before the justice of Chester. Richard pardoned a moiety of the sum to Philip. Lucrative offices could also be employed as a form of reward; Thomas Cholmondeley was granted on 29 September 1397 the custody of the bridge and passage of Holt, and this grant was duly noted in the marginalia.128 Service within the watches of the bodyguard was the most demanding task that a Cheshire archer could be selected to perform, but it also could be the most remunerative.

THE YEOMAN ARCHERS Having examined Richard's force of archers, it is now necessary to consider the yeoman archers themselves. The scarcity of sur­ viving evidence about these groups of relatively insignificant individuals has made it appear desirable in many cases to examine all the archers who wore the livery of the Crown as a homogenous group. There appears to be little difference between the men who were recruited in various capacities and when any discrepan­ cies did exist they will be noted. The Cheshire archers certainly drew the strictures of their contemporaries.129 Article five of the gravamina offered in justifi­ cation for Richard II's deposition is founded upon such com­ plaints of murder, rape and robbery committed by Cheshire archers who were protected from prosecution by a king who used them to oppress his enemies. The archers have been viewed in much the same terms by modern scholars.130 Richard's liveried retainers thus developed quite a reputation for criminality. An examination of the surviving records of the palatinate confirms that Richard's yeomen retainers frequently found them- 24 Cheshire Archers selves in trouble with the law. The evidence for their participation in criminal incursions in neighbouring shires is extremely scarce. The only clear cut case that has been unearthed is that of Hugh Draper who was acquitted by a jury at the delivery of the gaol of Stafford castle in 22 Richard II of feloniously breaking a house at Colton and taking goods worth 6 is. 4d. m Evidence of the propensity for disorder exhibited by Richard's archers within their native shire is, however, abundant if not complete. It indi­ cates that a large proportion of Richard's archers were at various times indicted for tresspass. The most common offence was striking someone with a staff during the course of a dispute. Occasionally the archers employed the tools of their trade. Robert de Hassall was indicted in 10 Richard II for striking a man with a bow at Sandbach.132 This type of violent action was indicative of an attitude of taking the law into one's own hands, but it was not by medieval standards the type of action that made one a criminal. This is of course not to say that the rudeness of character displayed by such abusive behaviour was not a source of grievance to those who experienced its ramifications as a result of coming into contact with these men. There were also men who had been indicted for more serious offences within the ranks of Richard's retainers. Several archers had been involved in the death of a man at some point in their lives, but their numbers (under 20) were small in relation to the entire force. Roger de Mottram is the only member of Richard's retinue who can definitely be said to have killed a man while he was an archer of the livery of the Crown, and since he received his pardon from Henry IV, his crime must not have been especially heinous.133 Such crimes of violence were in many cases simply an extension of the self help philosophy and concomitant lack of self-restraint revealed by the large number of assaults for which yeomen archers were indicted. Some genuine criminals can be detected among Richard's retainers. Hugh de Bickerton, Thomas Eddeslegh and John de Saughall were for example named in an inquisition concerning a robbery in 20 Richard II. Hugh le Draper, Thomas le Pever and Henry de Pinnington were at this time cited as disturbers of peaceful commerce in Northwich. There were indeed men like Draper or Henry Glaskerian who were habitual offenders, and these habitual offenders often appear jointly with others of their ilk in several indictments.134 Men who were partners in crime were not, however, necessarily companions in arms within Richard's retinue. Archers from various watches as well as those not included within the watches were all indicted together, often with others who were not to serve Richard at all. When men of Cheshire Archers 25 the same watch had a record of criminal association, it was still not usual for them to receive their patents as liverymen on the same date.13"' There thus appears to have been no conscious effort by the king to utilise the specifically criminal elements in the palatinate as a basis for his private bodyguard. Many of the archers who committed offences were one time offenders and those archers who were involved in recurrent criminal associations were not recruited en masse, but were individually retained instead. Once these men were retained, they of course took shelter behind the royal livery. Several had mainprises cancelled with the notation that they were servants of the king.130 There is a petition in Henry's first parliament from a Robert de Worsley of Lancashire which states that Nicholas de Worsley, an archer, with the aid of John Massey of Tatton, one of Richard II's knightly retainers, procured his imprisonment by means of a false bill presented to Richard that accused him of serving in the appel­ lants' army a decade earlier.137 Nicholas apparently hoped to gain possession of the manor of Worsley by such tactics. Richard may have been genuinely duped by this bill, but it is equally likely that he consciously maintained the cause of his retainer. There can in any case be no serious doubt that Richard's retinue practised maintenance just as any other late medieval private military force did. A good deal of both the individual and group disorder is attributable to the bellicose personality commonly found among those who pursued a martial career or its very near equivalent as a yeoman retainer. Because of the irregularities of pay and supply, such men were accustomed to foraging for themselves without regard for the property rights of others. Those who challenged them stood in danger of life and limb. The martial traditions of Cheshiremen are well known, and for many of the yeomen archers service in Richard's retinue was but an interlude in their military careers. Approximately twenty-five of the yeoman archers had served in freland under Sir John Stanley a decade earlier. Most of them arrived with their own horses and some provided their own armour; they were career soldiers, not rabble turning to soldiering as a last resort. At least one archer had seen previous service in Gascony, and some of Richard's liverymen may have served with Gaunt in Spain. Several archers had fathers who had served the Black Prince during the first stage of the Hundred Years War and thus sprang from families where soldiering was the usual means of earning a livelihood.138 These professional military men continued their careers under the house of Lancaster. There are indications that former 26 Cheshire Archers members of Richard's retinue were employed by Henry IV and his sons in their campaigns throughout the Celtic fringe, and the archers were certainly active again in France when the Hundred Years War was renewed. Richard de Hankelow received a pro­ tection in 1415 to serve at Harfleur with the earl of Dorset, and a muster of Cheshire archers serving the king in France two decades after Richard's death still lists about twenty-four members of his retinue on active service.139 Some of Richard's yeomen switched their allegiance to their new earl and served the prince of Wales as personal retainers. At least four former archers of the livery of the Crown under Richard became archers of the Crown under Henry V.140 Several archers also engaged in pseudo-military service as liveried retainers for other masters than the king. They sometimes served quite exalted masters as was the case with John Bate, Richard de Millington and John de Southworth who respectively served the earls of Rutland and Oxford and the duke of Lancaster. There were also archers who took service with local landholders rather than national figures. Those who had served their com­ manders have been noted; to those might be added by way of example Henry de Massey, servant of the lady of Carrington.141 A large proportion of Richard II's Cheshire archers was drawn from the large reserve of military and paramilitary careerists that his palatinate had to offer. The royal retinue drew heavily upon the marcher districts of the palatinate for its archers. Broxton hundred was an immediate bulwark against the Welsh and hence it was an area with long military traditions. Richard incorporated a considerable number of men from this hundred and the surrounding regions of Edisbury and Nantwich into his private force. There is no other observable territorial bias in the recruitment of yeomen archers. The hundred of Macclesfield with its extensive royal manor and forest produced fewer archers who can be definitely said to have resided there than any hundred except Wirral. Since Maccles­ field enjoyed extensive immunities within the palatinate's admini­ strative structure, the relative scarcity of Macclesfield archers may, however, reflect a bias within the surviving record evidence. Certainly, the fact that when Richard decided to reimburse those who had fought for him at Radcot Bridge a decade earlier Macclesfield received the largest sum of any hundred would indicate that the king had a loyal following in this region. What is clear is that the retinue was not composed exclusively or even primarily of Macclesfield men as has been suggested.142 Likewise, the majority of the archers were not direct tenants of the king/earl. Although there were several archers, especially those Cheshire Archers 27 recruited for pleasure drawn from the demesne manors of Frodsham and Drakelow and their environs, their numbers con­ stitute less than ten per cent of the entire force. Frodsham which produced about four-fifths of these archers had in any case been alienated by Richard to Radegund Becket.113 Furthermore, there were also tenants of the house of Lancaster within the royal retinue such as John Brokerake of Halton.114 Richard's archers thus came from all areas of the earldom without regard for tenurial associations. This reasonably equitable distribution of yeomen of the livery of the Crown throughout the earldom provides reinforcement for the view that Richard did not actively seek to incorporate the criminal elements of the shire in the ranks of his retinue. Chester had developed a system of immunities designed to attract men fleeing from the law in order to increase the number of men available within the shire to resist Welsh incursions. There were three lay sancturies, Hoole Heath, Overmarsh, and Rudheath, within the confines of the county designed to offer refuge to criminals. Of these, only Rudheath appears to have provided any recruits for Richard's retinue. The overwhelming majority of liveried archers bore names that indicated that they were natives of the shire and many of them are from families whose pedigrees can be traced back for several generations within the shire. The only sure exception to this was John de Bernak of Yorkshire.115 There was a handful of men from Flintshire who also served as archers, but Flintshire was viewed as an appendage to Cheshire. This fact makes it all the more remarkable that very few men from Flintshire served. The scarcity of Welsh names among the archers seems to indicate a conscious preference for archers descended from the Anglo-Norman settlers of the palatinate. There are only five fully Welsh names and all of these are to be found among the men serving only at the royal pleasure. This may well have been done in an effort to prevent any unnecessary ill-will that might have been aroused throughout England by the use of a somewhat foreign element in the royal retinue. The English background of the archers is in any event an indication that the king was able to draw upon a higher social and economic group within his palatinate than the Welsh, who were generally at the bottom of the ladder.140 The king's favour toward his Cheshire retainers was displayed by means of continuing rewards which supplemented their wages. The rewards accorded to the yeoman archers after they had been actively in service to Richard pass unnoticed by the scribe who made out the payroll for Michaelmas 1398 since they could not be considered as comprising part of the wages for which 28 Cheshire Archers the retainer had agreed to serve. Members of gentry families seem to have enjoyed a very slight advantage in securing rewards. The most common type of grant was for a share of the goods and chattels of some criminal that had been forfeited to the Crown. A few archers were fortunate enough to secure some more perma­ nent type of reward. The most valuable type of grant was a land grant. Walter de Washington found a different sort of security during Richard's final organisation of his watchmen when on 4 July 1398 he was provided with a corrody in the convent of Lancaster. 117 A few archers of the watch were able to obtain appointment to local offices outside the palatinate.148 At least five of these grants dealt with possessions of the earl of Warwick and one of these lordships had then been given to Norfolk. A sixth dealt with Lewes which had been in Mowbray's hands, and the earl of Arundel's lands were also used in this way. Richard was thus making use of his personal followers in an effort to secure himself in areas of doubtful loyalty at the same time that he rewarded their faithful service.149 These sorts of grants must have been a particular source of grievance for the residents of those areas placed under the authority of such outsiders; medieval England had a long tradition of indigenous graft in local administration but the incursions of outsiders were always viewed as an intolerable abuse. Finally, Robert de Carrington obtained a less tangible but none the less significant form of reward on 17 July 1398 in the form of a general pardon on account of his service to the king.150 In the distribution of rewards, the archers who served in the immediate bodyguard of the king naturally had a distinct advan­ tage over their colleagues. There were no marginalia in the Michaelmas account for the remainder of the Cheshire archers, and the men of the watches held a near monopoly in securing patents for forfeited goods and chattels from their master. For this select group, the opportunity to obtain such rewards must have been nearly as important as their wages in inducing them to serve in Richard's private livery and in providing them with tangible proof of the benefits that the public fisc could provide for loyal service to Richard's person. The social and economic standing of the yeoman archers was somewhat heterogeneous. The author of the Annales implies that they were all drawn from the bottom of the socio-economic heap.151 Yet a great many of them came from the prosperous yeomen of the palatinate as their titles imply. This type of archer is well represented by William de Glutton whose inquisition post mortem taken at Tarporley states that: Cheshire Archers 29 he died seized in his demesne as of fee of one messuage, three tofts and twenty-two acres and twelve butts with appurtenances in Glutton held in capite of the king by military service of his manor of Shawe, value 6s. He also held a certain parcel of land in Glutton called 'le Acres' that he held of John de Barton in socage and for 4d. per annum, value as. He also held two acres of meadow with appurtenances in Aldersey held of Hugh Ball and Hugh Godman in socage, value per annum 2s. The next heir is his son William de Glutton aged ten years and more.1 -12

Such yeomen, while hardly wealthy, did have a respectable freehold and occupied a responsible position in the local commu­ nity. The military was, however, a career open to talent, and the attractive wages of over £9 a year that Richard offered to his private contingent of archers attracted men from varied socio- economic backgrounds. There was a liberal sprinkling of younger scions of manorial families such as Robert de Hassal within the ranks of Richard's retinue. Such members of manorial houses whose senior members had armigerous or perhaps even knightly pretensions had their own fortunes to make, and they found soldiering to be a well paying and reasonably honourable pro­ fession whose rewards could augment or even replace those of a judicious marriage.153 At the other end of the social scale, there were within the ranks of Richard's retinue, some men at the bottom of the heap who had turned to soldiering out of absolute necessity. These were men who held no lands of their own, but rather rented their small holdings from others for a term of years.154 These men have of course left little trace on the records of the palatinate, but perhaps William de Edgesley's inquisition post mortem may be somewhat representative. When he fell at Shrewsbury, he held no lands in his demesne but he did own two cows and had an acre of oats.155 If it is possible to argue from negative evidence, it would seem that those archers who were incorporated into the retinue during the spring and summer of 1398 to serve during pleasure and who were not included within the watches of Richard's bodyguard at this point were generally of lower socio-economic standing than their companions in arms. They have at any rate left less of a mark upon the surviving non-criminal records of the palatinate. Richard drew most of his liverymen and especially the mem­ bers of his permanent bodyguard from the solid yeomanry and the scions of manorial families within his earldom. Within the watches there were about fifty men who were associated with manorial families and another hundred who were drawn from the yeomanry. Thus, half of this force at the very least was drawn from these groups. The men who were retained for life, but who were not included within the watches add about ten members of gentry families and thirty-five yeomen to the list; a 30 Cheshire Archers figure that again constitutes about half the total. Even among the men retained during pleasure, over fifty of the group belong to these solid citizens of the earldom. The social distinction between yeomen and scions of minor gentry families must not, however, be pressed too far. It has been based upon the information and pedigrees provided by Ormerod and the Holmes family. These works and the heralds' visitations upon which they are largely based were primarily concerned with the descent of manors and arms rather than with fourteenth- century social conditions. It is, furthermore, often very difficult to identify an archer with a family of the same name. Ormerod and the Holmes do this on very unsure grounds, and I often have followed their lead with no great conviction. Thus, Roger de Croxton is noted by Holmes and Ormerod as a member of a gentry family, yet this man is pardoned aos. of a 405. fine because of his poverty.150 A yeoman such as William de Glutton may have been better off than this gentry scion. It was from such solid citizens that the local administration drew its personnel. Richard's yeomen retainers may have com­ piled a considerable criminal record, but they were also the men who allowed the judicial and administrative machinery of the earldom to function. A man might be indicted of a crime, and yet be found serving as a juror in another context as was the case with John de Massey of Kelsall.157 A good many of Richard's retainers served as jurors at home. While their impartiality may be doubted, their service as jurors at least indicated a certain standing within the community, even if that standing might on occasion be misused through champerty or embracery. At least three of the king's retainers must have been literate since they served as clerks. John de Hatton who is noted as a clerk in his patent for the livery of the Crown had been appointed common clerk of Chester of 30 March 1394. A John de Hatton had served as sheriff of the city of Chester and was later to serve as mayor. Thus Hatton was probably a layman. On 15 March 1398 William Wronou and his brother were appointed to the 'offices of the constableship of the clerkship' of Oxford castle as a reward for their service to the king. Thomas Tatton received a patent for the clerkship of Bromfield-Yale on 30 September I397-158 Whether any of these men were clerks in the conventional sense or whether they were literate laymen is undetermined. Over twenty of Richard's archers had been active in local administration before joining his retinue, most commonly as bailiffs or beadles of their respective hundreds. These men held office long before they joined the king's private retinue. Thomas de Cheadle for example had served as bailiff for the hundred of Cheshire Archers 31 Macclesfield as early as 1387. The future yeoman archers who served in such offices must, therefore, have obtained their positions as a result of their status within their local communities rather than through royal favour. A more significant commentary upon the type of men who served Richard as yeomen of the livery of the Crown is their continued employment by the house of Lancaster in the administration of the palatinate. Richard's ex-archers, just as their commanders, continued to serve as bailiffs, sometimes as in Cheadle's case without apparent interruption.159 In addition Henry IV and his son made good use of the local knowledge of many of the yeomen by appointing them as col­ lectors of the subsidies accorded them by the inhabitants of the earldom. Indeed, ex-archers were employed in the collection of the very subsidies by which Cheshire bought its pardon for its loyalty to Richard. 1"" The new dynasty found their service in the administration as well as the military sphere to be as invaluable as had the last Plantagenet.101 Richard's archers included men of military and administrative talent then in such short supply that his rival was forced to continue to employ them in spite of his antipathy toward their previous associations.

CONCLUSION The picture presented by Richard's Cheshire archers is that of a typical late medieval retinue albeit a very large retinue. As was the case with any paramilitary assemblage of that era, there was undoubtedly a great deal of disorder perpetrated by its members and there was a good deal of truth in the complaints of the chroniclers.102 Such conduct was common by yeoman re­ tainers, and it was for this reason that the practice of retaining yeomen was under special attack in the parliaments of the period. On this point the comment of Richard's most recent and most sympathetic biographer sums up the situation nicely: 'They were probably neither better nor worse than the average fighting man of the day.'163 Richard was likewise acting in the same fashion as any great magnate of his realm when he protected his yeoman retainers from the legal consequences of their actions and caused Adam of Usk to lament: Whom the king favoured to such an extent that he would not deign to hear anyone who had a complaint against them, rather he scorned them as being all the more hateful. That was the greatest cause of his own ruin.104 The problem that led to Richard's ruin was that he of course was not just another overmighty subject; he was also the king. As 32 Cheshire Archers king he was the fount of justice and the sworn defender of the laws of his realm. In this sense at least, he was, as he claimed to be, the lex animata. 5 This almost mystical position placed the king on a plane above the factional machinations of the baronage to secure control of the English government for their own profit. In his efforts to meet and surpass his rivals on their own ground, Richard II forfeited this special position which his kingship had accorded him. A king who engaged in factional politics could no longer move about his realm without fear of his subjects as St Louis had done, he needed the protection provided by his Cheshire archers, drawn from his own favoured earldom. To secure the loyalty of the men of his earldom as well as those magnates who adhered to his party Richard had ceased to be king of all his people.160 The king's desire to have a personal force of yeoman archers under his direct command was particularly damaging to his regality. Richard II by this manoeuvre entered directly into the factional power struggle. In 1399 there could be no scapegoat, such as the earl of Oxford had provided a decade earlier, upon whom to foist the responsibility for the assemblage of a factional military force. The Cheshire archers were indispu­ tably the king's own retainers. The familiarity that such an arrangement of direct association produced between the retainers and their commander also tarnished Richard's regality. Ironically such familiarity was probably increased because of Richard's efforts to emphasise his regality with others. This left the king isolated and alone so that he turned to his guards for companion­ ship. His bodyguard was allowed to address him in the most intimate forms according to the Kenilworth chronicle: They were on such familiar terms with the lord king that they boldly addressed him in the mother tongue; Dycun, slep sicury quile we wake, and dreed nouzt quile we lyve seftow: ffor zif thow haddest weddet Perkyn dauzter of Lye thow mun well halde a love day with any man in Chester shire in ffaith.167 The king's factional maintenance of his yeoman retainers was not overlooked by his rivals in their moment of triumph. The gravamen dealing with Cheshire archers concludes: And although complaints were brought to the attention of the said king about such manner of grave abuses on their part, the same king, never­ theless, made no effort to administer justice or a remedy for these things, but instead favoured these same men in their evil-doings, trusting in them and in their protection against any other subjects of his kingdom. Because of this, the loyal subjects of his kingdom had solid grounds for indignation and unrest.168 This gravamen hints at Richard's basic problem. He did not have the material nor the mental resources to create an absolutist state at the close of the fourteenth century. The king was forced to Cheshire Archers 33 defend the royal prerogative of which he was so conscious from the usurpations of greedy baronial factions with the resources available to him. He chose to sacrifice the moral prestige of his office in an effort to overawe his rivals by the creation of his own powerful faction of lords, and by himself dominating the field of factional politics with a retinue drawn from his own earldom that would be superior to that of any of his rivals. If Richard could not eliminate private armies, or indeed, given his fourteenth- century pseudo-chivalric outlook even see the need to do so, he could at least be his own most overmighty subject. Yet when the test came, Richard discovered that he had overestimated his physical strength. He was betrayed by many of his magnate supporters, and Richard's personal retinue proved an inadequate defence against his rival of Lancaster. Richard had allowed his kingship to become tarnished by engaging in factional politics in the defence of his prerogative, and what was more tragic, he had failed in this effort. The prestige of the Crown had suffered a severe blow. It only remained for the Crown to enter directly into the factional battle between private armies for control of the spoils of the English administrative machine for its prestige to reach its nadir. This sad event was to be reserved for the grand­ son of Richard's usurper when Henry VI found himself personally active in the first battle of St Albans.109

NOTES

T Chester 2/71 m. 10 (i); Chester 29/101 m. 5. 2 Margaret Sharp, 'Contributions to the History of the Earldom and County of Chester: 1237 1399', Manchester University thesis 1925, p. 49 et passim pt. i, argues that Richard IPs reign marked an inter­ ruption in the integration of Chester into the national administrative system. 3 Calendar of Recognizance Rolls of the Palatinate of Chester. 36th Rep. Deputy Keeper, P.R.O. (1875), hereafter C.Ch.R. p. 98. Cheshire Sheaf, ist ser. 2 (1883), p. 262. There is no evidence that this group was 'Richard's private bodyguard of 400 Cheshire Archers' as Harold F. Hutchison, The Hollow Crown (1961), p. 180, asserts. C.C.R. 1396- '399. P- 210; Thomas Rymer ed., Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae, etc., John Nearlme (1737-45), hereafter Foedera, III, pt. 4, p. 135; H. T. Riley ed., J. de Trokelow, Chronica et Annales, Rolls Series (1866) hereafter Annales, p. 203; L. Bellaguet ed., Chronique du religieux de St. Denis, 1380 1422 (1839-52), II, p. 552; Baron K. de Lettenhove ed., Oeuvres de Jean Froissart (1870), hereafter Froissart, XVI, p. 18, and Henri Wallpn, Richard II (1864), II, p. 158, who seems to follow Froissart through citing the Monk of Evesham in his note. 4 Thomas Hearne ed.. Duo Rerum Anglicarum Scriptorcs Veteres, viz. T. Otterbourne et J. Whethamstede (1732), hereafter Otterbourne, p. 191; J. Davies ed.. An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry VI, Camd. Soc. (1856), hereafter Eng. Chron., p. q; H. T. Riley ed., Thomas Walsingham. . . . Historia Anglicana, Rolls Series (1863-4), hereafter Wals. II, p. 224; F. S. Haydon ed., Eulogium 34 Cheshire Archers Historiarum, Rolls Series (1858-63), III, hereafter Cont. Eulogium, p. 372; E. M. Thompson ed., Chronicon Adae de Usk (1904), hereafter Adam of Usk, p. 11; cf. Thomas Hearne ed., Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi II... a monacho quodam de Evesham . . . (1729), hereafter Monk of Evesham, pp. 133 4. 5 Wals. It, p. 225; Annales, p. 216; Rotuli Parliamentorum, Rec. Comm., hereafter Rot. Part. Ill, pp. 418, 421. 6 Froissart XVI, p. 83; cf. Annales, pp. 218, 237. 7 Adam of Usk, p. 23; Cont. Eulogium, p. 380; cf. Eng. Chron. p. 14. 8 Wals. II, p. 231; Annales, p. 238; cf. Otterbourne, p. 200. 9 E. 403/562; cf. E. 364/37 m. 32. 10 On 13 May, Thomas de Beeston, Richard Cholmondeley, John de Legh, Adam de Bostok and Ralph Davenport, esquires of the county of Chester, received £477 155. E. 403/662; cf. post, for the connexion of these esquires with Richard's bodyguard; cf. J. Webb ed., French Metrical History of the Deposition of Richard II, Royal Society of Antiquaries (1819), hereafter Cretan, p. 301; B. Williams ed., Traison et Mart de Richard II (1846), hereafter Traison et Mart, p.29. 11 Transcription of the Dieulacres Chronicle, hereafter Dieulacres, in M. V. Clarke and V. H. Galbraith, 'The Deposition of Richard II', Bul. Jn. Ryl. Lib. 15 (1930), p. 172; cf. Cretan, p. 323. 12 Cretan, pp. 323, 334, 364; cf. Monk of Evesham, p. 150. 13 Dieulacres, p. 171 n.3, and Archbishop Scrope's manifesto against Henry IV; J. Raine ed., The Historians of the Church of Tork, Rolls Series (1878-94), II, p. 246. 14 Dieulacres, p. 172; Adam of Usk, p. 27, calls him a great malefactor, but, the usually Lancastrian Monk of Evesham does not corroborate Usk on this point (p. 154). 15 C.Ch.R. p. 292; cf. E. 101/42/10. 16 Found in Cretan, p. 68n.; William Beamont in 'Richard II', Jnl. Archil. Archaeol. Hist. Soc. Chester, ist ser. 3 (1863-9), P- '3° objects to the authenticity of this passage. 17 C.Ch.R. pp. 222, 154. 18 Annales, pp. 250 1; Cretan, pp. 176 7 says that the harassing force was Welsh, but this would be an easy error for a Frenchman, or the natural distortation of a Welsh patriot if Bishop Trevor is the real author of the poem as E. J. Jones asserts in 'The Authorship of the Deposition and Death of Richard II attributed to Creton', Speculum, 15 (1940). 19 Adam of Usk, pp. 41-3; Creton, p. 405. Thomas Carte, A General History of England (1747-55), II, p. 645, estimates the force at 6,000 archers of whom only about 1,000 were local men so that some Cheshire archers could well have been involved. 20 Peter McNivan, 'The Cheshire Rising of 1400', Bul. Jn. Ryl. Lib. 52 (1969-70), pp. 375-96; cf. S.C. 6/744/m.3d. 21 N. H. Nicolas ed., Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, hereafter P.P.C. I, p. 112. 22 P.P.C. II, pp. 42-3: James H. Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth (1884 98), I, p. 114; C.P.R. 1399 1401, pp. 285 6. 23 There are numerous pledges for the good conduct of archers throughout the course of 1400 in C.Ch.R. passim. 24 Wals. II, p. 258. This passage would imply casualties in excess of the total of 200 Chester deaths offered by Wylie I, p. 362; cf. Dieulacres, p. 181; Chest. 3/21 no. 14; E. 101/42/10. 25 BM Harl. ms. 1988 f. I4.iv., Lans. ms. 644 f. 22V.-23; cf. William Beamont, 'Henry IV pt. I', Jnl. Archil, Archaeol. Hist. Soc. Chester, ist ser. 3 (1863 9) P- 35°- 26 Chest. 3/21. In addition to these nine, C.P.R. 1401-1405, p. 253 notes a William Ferour as a rebel and servant of Henry Percy, and there was a writ to the escheator of Chester on 7 October 1403 to seize the lands of John de Winnington and make inquisition touching their value (C.Ch.R. p. 532). 27 Monk of Evesham, p. 122; cf. Eng. Chron. p. 6. Cheshire Archers 35 28 Monk West. p. 94. 29 Sharp, I, p. 12; cf. most recently Caroline Barron, 'The Tyranny of Richard II', Bul. Inst. Hist. Res., 41 (1968), p. 17. 30 C.P.R. 1388-1392, p. 227. 31 Dieulacres, p. 172. 32 Ibid. p. 173. 33 Cf. Rot. Parl. Ill, p. 477. 34 Compare for example C.Ch.R. p. 231 with Chest. 2/71 m. 24 (5) (6). 35 Thomas and William Donne received grants of 4d. a day that noted their association with the archers of the duchy/principality. Chest. 2/7 i m. 17 (i) (2). For others noted in this capacity who did not receive the livery of the Crown but rather received a cash reward of 15-205. at the close of the autumn session of parliament. Cf. Chest, i/i pt. 5 nos. 42, 47, 50. Thomas Burgh 'one of the lord king's archers' was given a 405. reward by a privy seal letter S.C. 6/774/9. The title could also be given to one who had already been granted the livery of the Crown. Thus, William de Helegh, who had been granted the livery of the Crown on i October 1397 and Ralph Reed who did not obtain his patent until I July 1398 were both called archers of the principality of Chester in a grant of 16 January 1398. Cal. Fine. R. 1391 1399, PP- 290-1. 36 T. F. Tout, Chapters in Medieval Administrative History (1920-33), IV, p. 198; cf. Wylie, II, pp. 289-95. 37 Thomas de Bechton had received English and Chester patents in 1385. C.P.R. 1385-1389, p. 19; C.Ch.R. p. 28. He drew the wages stipulated in his patent in addition to a matching wage as a member of the Cheshire archers. S.C. 6/774/8 10; E. 101/42/10. Hugh Smith and John Winnington had English patents in 1397. C.P.R. 1396-1399, pp. 194, 196. They also drew double pay. 38 Calendar of Recognizance Rolls of the Palatinate of Chester, 37th Rep. Deputy Keeper P.R.O., hereafter C.Ch.R. II, p. 811 ; C.P.R. passim. 39 Chest. 2/71 m. I4d. to m. 24. 40 I.e. m. 14 (6) where the marginalia notes Richard and John Somerville' as 'archers of the livery of the Crown' while the letters note them as 'yeomen of the livery of the Crown', for a similar marginal notation for letters in which simply the livery of the Crown is mentioned see m-35 (13)- 41 Cf. Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd ser. 28 (1933), pp. 5-9. 42 James E. Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England (1866), I, p. 322; cf. the article by Alfred Burton in The Advertiser Notes and Queries, I (16 December 1881). 43 Cf. for example, Chest. 2/71 m. 32d. (9). 44 E. 101/42/10. This account seems to have been tampered with after Richard's fall. The pay of the two archers who formally submitted to Henry IV was erased on the roll. Who would have an interest in doing this is another matter. It is unlikely that it was a result of these wages for the archers not being paid until after Henry's accession for he would have no desire to withold payment from those who had joined his cause. The erasures may be coincidental, they may have been the work of an embittered clerk who still favoured the fallen king, or they may have been designed to remove any taint from these two new supporters of Henry IV; cf. James H. Ramsey, The Genesis of Lancaster (1913), II, p. 316; Anthony Steel, The Receipt of the Exchequer (1954), p. 105, but see the entire Chapter III for special problems of Richard II's final three years. 45 C.Ch.R. p. 465. 46 S.C. 6/774/8; S.C. 6/774/6-11. 47 E. 403/556-62; E. 403/12; E. 403/18; E. 403/19; S.C. 6/1215/8-10. 48 S.C. 6/1234/7; for Holt cf. R. R. Davies, 'Richard II and the Principality of Chester', The Reign of Richard II (1971), pp. 270 2. I was unaware of this work which deals with many of the subjects discussed here until after the first draft of this paper had been written. 36 Cheshire Archers The suggestion concerning Welsh revenue I owe Dr Hewitt. I should also like to thank Professor E. B. Fryde for some suggestions dealing with this problem. 49 Chest. 2/71 m. 2id. (9); cf. m. 2id. (5). 50 Their grants are noted in the marginalia of E. 101/42/10; cf. Chest. i/i pt. 5, nos. 32, 36, 38, 44, 49; C.P.R. 1396-1399, PP- 465, 645^ All but one of the archers noted served in a watch of Richard's guard. 51 Chest. 2/71 m. 33d. (i) (5); m. 22d. (9). 52 Chest. 2/71 m. 25d. (9), m. 27 (7); there were joint warrants for three men on 24 November, Ibid. m. 26 (4) and for two men on 12 December, Ibid. m. 27d. (12). 53 C.Ch.R. passim and E. 101/42/10 using payment of wages to arrive at the enlistment dates of the archers serving during pleasure. 54 Wallon, Richard II, II. p. 215, arrived at a similar conclusion based upon Froissart XVI, p. 101 ; cf. Traison et Mart, p. 19. 55 W. Beamont, A History of the House of Lymme (1876), p. 14, is thus in error in stating that the names of all the king's Cheshire archers are to be found among the Chester enrollments. Sharp, in her appendix on sources, notes that the Chester enrollments differed from the national chancery enrollments because of their close connection with the palatinate's exchequer. They served as financial reminders and warrants, hence the temporary nature of the pleasure grants may have been the reason for not enrolling them. 56 For example, Peter de Holt, one of this group, had enjoyed a previous grant of 4d. a day. C.Ch.R. p. 442. 57 There are also four grants on the patent rolls of this period for livery of the Crown during pleasure, and at least three of them are to Chester natives. C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 412. The fourth man, Ibid. p. 408, may also have been from Chester. There is a previous case of a grant during pleasure in 1390. C.P.R. 1388-1392, p. 227. 58 E. 101/42/10. 59 There were six men in this group who did receive the normal daily rate of £4 8s. E. 101/42/10. 60 E. 101/42/10; Chest. 2/71 m. 30 (4). 61 E.101/42/10. 62 Dieulacres, p. 172. 63 E. 403/562. It is also possible that these funds were used to supplement or replace the ordinary wages of the guard. Some of these men were already collecting wages from more than one grant so this was not unknown. E. 101/42/10. 64 Adam of Usk, p. 11; the figure is accepted by John Stow, A Survey of London (1603), p. 471; Monk of Evesham, pp. 133-4; Froissart XVI, p. 101; cf. Holinshed, p. 488; Adam of Usk, p. 23; Annales, pp. 217-18. 65 Anthony Steel, Richard II (1941), p. 233. 66 S.C. 6/774/7 m. 4d. 67 Annales, pp. 217 18. 68 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 565, for the descriptive phrase. 69 Chest. 2/71 m. 22d. (6). 70 Eighteen of Donne's men and twenty of Cholmondeley's received their grants at this time. 71 C.Ch.R. pp. 45, 292. Bostok's patent was enrolled, but his privy seal writ, contrary to practice, was not. Chest. 2/71 m. 19 (2); cf. E. 101/42/10. 72 S.C. 6/774/9 m. 2d. 73 C.Ch.R. p. 154; cf. E. 101/42/10; C.P.R. 1396-1399, P- 215. 74 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 212; C.Ch.R. p. 30; List of Officers of the Palatinate of Chester, yist Rep. Deputy Keeper P.R.O., hereafter List Off. p. 173. 75 C.P.R. 1381-1385, p. 288; C.Ch.R. p. 30. There is a Northants. man with the same name. 76 C.Ch.R. p. 138; Chest. 2/71 m. 33 (13). Ralph's brother was one of the esquires given a loos, retainer by Richard II. E. 101/42/10. Cheshire Archers 37 77 C.P.R. 1396-1399, pp. 381, 385; Chest. 2/71 m. 3d. (8). The sheriff of Staffordshire was instructed to pay Bostok's annuity and arrears on 24 March 1399, cf. C.P.R., 1396-1399, p. 421. 78 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 461; C.Ch.R. p. 154; Legh's original patent is extant, G. Ormcrod, History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (1875-82), rev. ed. by Hclsby (n.d.). Ill, p. 754. 79 E. 403/560. 80 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 454. Holford's father had received a retainer fee of loos, and pardon of a £15 los. debt owed the Crown. E. 101/42/10. 81 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 332; C.Ch.R. p. 31; Ormerod II. p. 269; C.P.R. 1396-1399, PP- 284, 422, 430, 489, 538. 82 Ibid. pp. 381, 418, 544; C.Ch.R. pp. 154, 292; W. Beamont, An Account of the Ancient Town of Frodsham (1881), p. 62. 83 E. 403/562. Thomas de Beeston and his cousin John, of Tiverton received protections to go to Ireland on the king's service on 26 April 1399, C.Ch.R. p. 31. A check of C. 47/2 failed to reveal protections for the other commanders as does Calendar of Chester Plea Rolls, 26th, sgth Reps. Deputy Keeper P.R.O.. hereafter C.Pl.R. Perhaps Beeston left before the main force. 84 C.Ch.R. p. 154. 85 C.P.R. 1399-1401, p. 286. 86 Ormerod III, p. 64 citing a communication by the Rev. W. Davenport. 87 C.P.R. 1399-1401, pp. 327, 393; C.Ch.R. pp. 154, 155, 193, 293, 462; Chest. 2/75 m - 7d. (?) 88 C.P.R. 1401-1405, p. 264; Foedera IV, i, p. 57; cf. Harl. ms. 1988, f. i4iv.; Lans. ms. 644 f. 22V.-23. 89 C.Ch.R. pp. 45, 107, 194, 294; Harl. & Lans. mss. loc. cit. 90 Ormerod III, p. 64; C.Ch.R. pp. 139, 532. 91 C.Ch.R. p. 31; C.P.R. 1401-1405, p. 312. 92 Rot. Part. Ill, p. 439. 93 C.P.R. 1399-1401, p. 283; C.Ch.R. pp. 293, 295. 94 C.Ch.R. p. 61. 95 E. 101/42/29; Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd ser. 18 (1921), pp. 33-4. 96 C.Ch.R. pp. 45, 107-8, 162, 532; cf. p. 535. 97 Ibid. p. 295; C.Ch.R. II, p. 447; List Off. p. 217. 98 C.Ch.R. II, p. 671; Cheshire Sheaf. 3rd ser. 5 (1904), pp. 92-3. 99 C.Ch.R. II, pp. 146; C.Ch.R. p. 363. 100 C.Ch.R. II, pp. 95, 153, 671; cf. W. H. Bird, 'Taxation and Repre­ sentation in the County Palatine of Chester', E.H.R. 30 (1915). 101 Ormerod I, p. 498; Chest. 3/34 no. 4. 102 Ormerod III, p. 901; Chest. 3/4 no. 17; cf. Chest. 3/8. 103 Ormerod III, p. 254; C.Ch.R. p. 44. 104 C.Ch.R. II, p. 64; cf. C.Ch.R. p. 71; C.C.R. 1385-1389, p. 32 which indicate an interest in Alpraham through the Wettenhall inheritance. 105 C.Ch.R. pp. 29 30. Cf. Register of Edward the Black Prince, III (1932); Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd ser. 34 (1939), pp. 15-16. 106 C.Ch.R. p. 138; C.Ch.R. II, p. 181; Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd ser. 29 (1934), pp. 60-1. 107 Ormerod III, p. 64; cf. J. P. Earwaker, East Cheshire (1887-88), II, PP- 3-4, 380-1. 108 Chest. 3/28 no. 2. 109 Ormerod II, p. 243; cf. Sarah Cash, 'The Donnes of Utkinton', Cheshire Notes and Queries, 2 (1897), pp. 163 8. 110 Chest. 3/37 no. 6. in Ormerod I, p. 671; Harl. ms. 1535 f. 160; Addit. ms. 5529 f. z6v. 112 C.C.R. 1389 1392, pp. 219, 287. 113 Chest. 26/8 m. id., 4d., 5d., 8d., nd., I3d.; Chest. 26/10 m. 10, 14, 19; C.Ch.R. p. 291. 114 S. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt (1904), p. 444; Eleanor Lodge and Robert Somerville eds., John of Gaunt's Register 1379-1383, Camd. Soc. 3rd ser. 56-7 (1937), p. 13; D. L. 30/41; Robert Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster (1953), I, p. 370. 38 Cheshire Archers 115 Chest. 26/10 m. sd; Chest. 26/8 m. ad., 4d., 7d. 116 Chest. 3/24 no. 19; cf. Ormerod I, p. 671. 11 7 C.Ch.R. p. 45; Chest. 24/19 (20 Ric. II) bis. 118 Chest. 26/10 m. iod., 32d.; Chest. 24/19 (22 Ric. II). 119 Chest. 38/22-24 m. 28; Chest. 24/19 (19 Ric. II; 21 Ric. II). 120 Chest. 26/8 m. 4d., yd. 10; Chest. 26/10 m. 34; C.Ch.R. p. 297; cf. p. 316; Ormerod I, p. 503; Chest. 26/10 m. 22d.; C.Ch.R. II, p. 447. 121 Chest. 26/10 m. 31; Chest. 24/19 bis. 122 C.Ch.R. II, pp. 209, 210; C.Pl.R. p. 68; cf. Ormerod II, p. 245. 123 Ormerod I, pp. 149, 498, II, p. 245, III, p. 255; Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd ser. 29 (1934), pp. 60-1. i 24 Cf. Ormerod II, p. 259. 125 C.P.R. 1399-1401, p. 286; Chest. 24/19 (20 Ric. II); Chest. 26/8 m. id. 126 C.Ch.R. p. 291; Chest. 26/8 m. 2d.; Chest. 3/27 no. i; Chest. 3/28 no. 2; William Wigland may have been a Bostok tenant, but he served with Cholmondeley. Richard de Ashton, who served under John Donne was party to a recognizance with John de Legh, C.Ch.R. II, p. 448. Beeston was indicted along with the Donne archer, Robert de Tiverton. Chest. 38/22 24 m. 28. Another Donne archer, John de Acton, was a juror at the inq. p.m. of Ralph de Davenport. Chest. 3/23 3 Hen. V no. 2. 127 E. 101/42/10. There are no notations for the men of the Holford or Donne watches, but one member of Donne's watch, Peter del Holt, who held another grant of 3d. a day did have a note recording a grant of land in Bromfield aside of the record of payment of this lesser wage earlier on the roll.; S.C. 6/774/7 m- 8d.; cf. m. gd. 128 C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 123; E. 101/42/10; C.Ch.R. p. 107. 129 Cf. Annales, p. 208; Adam of Usk, p. 23. 130 Rot. Parl. Ill, p. 418; cf. Tout IV, p. 24; Hutchinson, p. 170; S. H. D. Holton, 'Richard the Redeless', T.R.H.S. n.s. 10 (1896), p. 135. 131 J.I. 3/180; his acquital may be an example of royal maintenance on behalf of an archer. I cannot see the relevance of Davies, op. cit., p. 270 n. 57 which states: 'a specific and interesting example of the outrages of the Cheshire archers is cited in C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 427.' The entry concerns a pardon for murder to John de Haukeston, Kt. who was not only not an archer, but was not even listed in E. 101/42/10 as one of Richard IPs knightly retainers. 132 Chest. 19/2 m. 3 i; Chest. 38/22 24 m. 31 records a fine for 53. for the offence. 133 C.P.R. 1399-1401, p. 386. 134 Chest. 24/19 (20, 21 Ric. II); Chest. 26/10 m. 3d., m. 4, m. 35; C.Ch.R. p. 340, Chest. 26/8 m. id., m. 2d., m. 14. 135 Cf. Chest. 26/8 m. 8. 136 Chest. 26/10. 137 Rot. Parl. Ill, p. 445; E. 101/42/10. 138 E. 101/41/18; E. 101/247/1; C.Ch.R. p. 424; C.C.R. 1385-1389, p. 278; C.Pl.R. p. 56. At least one archer, Philip de Sandbach, had himself served under the Black Prince. C.Ch.R. p. 420. 139 Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 5 (1904), p. 92, which publishes an extract from the Norman Rolls listing Cheshire archers serving in France. C.Ch.R. II, p. 346. 140 Owen and David Garden, C.P.R. 1413-1416, p. 172, Robert Sandbach and Richard Whitehead, Ibid. 1422-1429, pp. up, 140. David de Bostok is also noted in this capacity by Ormerod III, p. 259. John Brownwind had served Henry V as prince of Wales as a yeoman. C.P.R. 1422-1429, p. 61. Ralph Pope served as a yeoman of the prince's chamber. Ibid. 1401-1405, p. 53. 141 Ibid. 1389-1392, p. 509; Chest. 2/71 m. (3) (4); Lodge and Somerville, John of Count's Reg. no. 1007; Chest. 24/19 (20 Ric. II); Chest. 26/19 m. 26. 142 C.Ch.R. p. 312. This suggestion was advanced by the reviewer of Cheshire Archers 39 T. A. Coward's Cheshire: Traditions and History in The Times Litt. Suppl., 19 Jan. 1933, p. 35. 143 These figures are only approximate. They would refute Tout IV, p. 24, which says that the archers were drawn from Richard's personal estates, if estates is to be taken in its strict sense. Sharp I, p. 361, provides a general account of Richard's demesne manors in the palatinate. On Frodsham see the work of W. Beamont, pp. 61 2 144 Cf. Ormerod I, 707 n.a. 145 C.Ch.R. p. 34. 146 Clement ap Howell Vain of Bangor is the only member of this group whose tie with Flintshire is indisputable. Cf. Davies, op. cit. p. 277 for additional speculation on the lack of Welsh retainers; cf. H. J. Hewitt, Medieval Cheshire, Chet. Soc. n.s. 88 (1929). 147 C.C.R. 1396-1399, p. 394; cf. C.P.R. 1396-1399, pp. 328, 425-67. 148 E.g. Ibid. pp. 328, 418, 514, 551, 565. 149 The grants dealing with Warwick's lands were to Ranulph Dennis, keeper of the warren in the lordship of Brailes which had come to the king from the forfeiture of Norfolk, C.P.R. 1396-1399, p. 424; Richard de Helegh, Ibid. pp. 357, 415; Thomas le Pever, Ibid. p. 492; William Starkey, Ibid. p. 412; John Wyther, Ibid. p. 497. On Warwick's ties to the posts granted see Anthony Goodman, 1 he Loyal Conspiracy (1971), pp. 137 40. Richard Doddington served as parker of Arundel's park of Eyton in Wales, C.P.R. 1396-1399, pp. 205, 255. 150 C.Ch.R. p. 86; Chest. 24/19 (22 Ric. II); for other archers who received pardons cf. C.P.R. 1396 1399, pp. 193, 254. 151 Annales, p. 208. 152 Chest. 3/34 no. 2; cf. Ormerod II, p. 750, with speculation by Dr Williamson that the Shawe noted was Shaw Green in Higher Glutton. 153 Ibid. p. 295. Indeed, Hassall enjoyed both as he held lands in right of his wife. C.Ch.R. p. 223. 154 Cf. Ibid. pp. 307, 512. 155 Chest. 3/21 no. 7. 156 Ormerod III, p. 207; Harl. ms. 2119; Chester 38/22 24 m. 4. 157 Chest. 38/22-24 m. 24; Chest. 24/19 (21 Ric. II). 158 C.P.R. 1396-1399, P- 355J C.Ch.R. p. 466; List Off., p. 205. 159 C.Ch.R. pp. 89, 442; cf. J. L. Gillespie, 'The Cheshire Archers of Richard II', unpub. diss., Princeton University, Appendix B. 160 C.Ch.R. pp. 43 (for 1403), 411 (for 1406); for other subsidies collected in part by former archers cf. Ibid. pp. 3, 257, 418 (1402); 206 (1404); C.Ch.R. II, pp. 90 (1416), 32 (1417), 73, '°3, >o8, 447, 5°5 (H'S), 268 and Chester 2/92 m. 8d. (16) which indicates Bucklow hundred as the collection region (1419), 168 (1421), 783 (1444). 161 Henry in fact retained Cheshire men paid by Richard in other adminis­ trative capacities. This contradicts the propaganda of J. Harding who stated of Henry: He swore the Kyn in governaunce/to be put by good and whole provision/and Chesshyre men, for theyr misgovernaunce/to void out of his house. Cf. Ramsay II, p. 252. 162 Annales, p. 208; Adam of Usk, p. 23. 163 Hutchison, p. 170. 164 Adam of Usk, loc. cit. 165 Rot. Parl. Ill, p. 419. 166 Richard had thus himself given lie to the theme of his last parliament as expressed in the opening sermon: 'There will be one king for all'. Ibid. p. 347. 167 Cretan, p. 68n. Such conduct caused the Annales, p. 208, to complain: 'that they considered the king as a colleague, and they held others although lords and powerful men in scorn'. 168 Rot. Parl. Ill, p. 418; cf. Monk of Evesham, p. 188. 169 Cf. C. A. S. Armstrong, 'Politics and the Battle of St. Albans, 1455', Bul. Inst. Hist. Res. 33 (1960), pp. 7-8.