Absentee Landlords 1411 – 1564

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The period following the sale of Hagley by Henry de Hagley35 to Thomas Walwyn, until its purchase by Sir John Lyttelton in 1564 is one of considerable change nationally, which is reflected by the numerous lords of Hagley.

The de Hagley’s average 28 years in office per generation, while their successors only managed an average of 15 years and some of those were very transitional.

There are three main periods of national history during the time under review. Firstly the expeditions of Kings Henry V and Henry VI in France; secondly, the Wars of the Roses and thirdly, the rise of the Tudor dynasty ending with the see-saw of religious views.

Dr. Nash expresses the view that Walwyn passed Hagley on to Lady Jane Beauchamp, Domina of Bergavenny shortly after he had bought it. The Beauchamps are usually associated with the Earls of Warwick, but a branch of the family had considerable estates in Worcestershire.

The earliest reference to Lady Jane found so far is in Feudal Aids Vol.51, where she is confirmed as holding Hagley.

In 1445 her grandson, Sir James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, and son and heir of the Earl of Ormond, acquired the manor, presumably at her death.

Henry VI was a weak king and domestic disorder was common. Cade’s rebellion in 1450 has already been referred to at the end of the de Hagley period, but most of the troubles were between the great landowners with their private armies. These disturbances developed into thirty years of civil war, with both Lancastrians and Yorkists enjoying some success. However, in 1461, at the battle of Towton, Yorkshire, Sir James Butler was captured and beheaded at Newcastle. At the same time Henry VI was deposed and Edward IV seized the estates of his opponents, including Hagley.

In the same year it was granted to Fulk Stafford but he died in 1462. A third of the estate was left with Stafford’s widow, Margaret, but Edward IV repossessed the rest for a short while. Certainly by 1466 Thomas Prout was holding the manor.

By 1474 it maybe assumed that both Prout and Stafford’s widow had died because the king granted Hagley to his queen, Elizabeth Woodville. She appears to have kept it until 1479 when she granted it to Westminster Abbey36 on condition that two monks were appointed to say daily masses for the souls of the king and queen after their deaths. This piece of insurance did not last long. Thomas Butler, a younger brother of the late Sir James, persuaded the king to return the estates that had been forfeited. By 1485, when Henry VII became king, Thomas, as Earl of Ormond was granted additional rights in Hagley and Cradley.

Thomas died in 1515 leaving his estates between two daughters, Margaret who was married to Sir William Boleyn and Anne who had married Sir James St.Leger. Hagley went to Anne and she survived until at least 1531 when, as patron of the church, she appointed Thomas Langhorn as priest.

Anne’s son, Sir John St.Leger, was in charge by 154337 when, as lord of both Hagley and Clent, he was able to grant permission for two pools to be created along a stream that formed the manorial boundary.

Some twenty years later, in 156438 Hagley, together with Clent, Cradley and Oldswinford, was sold by St.Leger to Sir John Lyttelton of Frankley.

As a footnote to this period, the sale in 1564 included a hunting lodge which is assumed to be the hall that was developed by the Lytteltons until it was replaced in 1754-60. The hunting lodge suggests intermittent and short visits for sport.

From work done on the parish registers, it is known that there were only nineteen families39 in Hagley in 1563. This compares with the eighteen males recorded in 1086, and suggests that since the plague of 1349, no real effort had been made to stimulate the local economy by the last ten lords of the manor.

36Nash History of Worcestershire vol. I p.490
37Lyttelton Charter No. 437
38Nash vol. I p.490
39Nash vol. I p.491

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