Richard Vernon

Effigy of Sir Richard Vernon. St Bartholomew's church, Tong, Shropshire. Effigy of Benedicta de Ludlow (foreground), Sir Richard's wife. St Bartholomew's church, Tong, Shropshire.

Sir Richard Vernon ( 1390 – 24 August 1451) was an English landowner, MP and speaker of the House of Commons.

Background and early life He was born into a long-established well-to-do family based at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, the eldest son of Richard de Vernon (died 1400) and Joan verch Rhys (died 1439), daughter of Sir Rhys ap Gruffyd of Llansadwrn and Abermarlais, Carmarthenshire, and Wychnor, Staffordshire. His father died when he was ten years old, so he did not come into his estates until eleven years later. By this time he had already married Benedicta de Ludlow of Tong, Shropshire.

Landowner Vernon's property was widespread and varied. From his parents he inherited:

In Cheshire the forestership of Macclesfield Forest, and the manors of Marpie and Wibersley.

In Staffordshire estates around Draycott, Harlaston and Pipe Ridware.

In Derbyshire estates around Bakewell, Baslow, Calver, Haddon, Netherseal and Rowsley

In Pembrokeshire the manors of Stackpole Elidor (also known as Cheriton), Bosherston and Rudbaxton.

In Carmarthenshire the manors of Pendine and Cantrewyn.

In Buckinghamshire the manors of Pitchcott and Adstock, including advowsons of their churches.

In Westmorland the manors of Meaburn Maulds and Newby, and there were also scattered lands in Cumberland.

In addition to this patrimony, the death of his paternal grandmother, Juliana de Pembrugge (Pembrook), brought him lands formerly belonging to her brother, Fulke de Pembrugge, who was also his wife's stepfather:

In Shropshire the manor of Tong, together with Tong Castle.

In Leicestershire the manor of Aylestone.

Sir Fulke's second wife, Isabel of Lingen, who was also Vernon's mother-in-law, had founded a chantry and college of a warden and four chaplains at Tong to pray for the souls of her three husbands. She bequeathed advowson of the church to Vernon, and also settled her manor of Haselbech, Northamptonshire, on him. so it is possible Vernon campaigned with a small force. If so, the most likely destination was Harfleur, where the English garrison was left stranded after the Agincourt campaign. The Armagnac besiegers were scattered in a daring relief operation, led by John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford on 15 August. This fits well with Vernon's subsequent career, as he must have returned to the Midlands by November.

In November 1416 Vernon was pricked High Sheriff of Staffordshire. That period of office was followed by a knighthood and he was appointed Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire, a post he held for five years. He was then chosen as one of the arbitrators in a dispute between the abbot of Burton Abbey and Thomas Okeover, a quarrelsome Derbyshire landowner and politician. He was twice appointed Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, in 1425 and 1426, and was made High Sheriff of Staffordshire again in 1427.

Vernon became a member of Parliament for the first time in 1419, as a knight of the shire for Staffordshire. He was one of a number of Derbyshire magnates who were summoned early in 1420 to Westminster to discuss the defence of Normandy. His services to the Crown extended to advancing a loan of £52 10s, in concert with the Essex landowners, Sir William Coggeshall and Richard Baynard, who became Speaker the following year. 1421 marked the high point of Henry V's French campaigns, with Normandy under firm English control, the king wed to Catherine of Valois, the French king's daughter, and English forces pressing south and east of Paris. arrived with a much larger force and had themselves declared members of parliament. The clash became linked to a property dispute between Thomas Foljambe of Chesterfield, a client of Vernon, and Sir Henry Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont Hall. Foljambe's retainers launched a murderous attack on Pierrpont and his men in Chesterfield Parish Church. Sessions of oyer and terminer were held at Derby in 1433 to investigate the affair. The first jury to sit was headed by Pierrepont himself and naturally held Foljambe responsible for the whole dispute. A second jury included Vernon and Cockayne, and was more sympathetic to Foljambe. Ultimately, no resolution was reached. Within four years, Vernon and Grey were on good terms again, engaged in joint enterprises. Vernon was elected in 1436 to represent Derbyshire in the parliament of 1437 without undue drama.

Powerful though he was, Vernon felt the need of backing from even more powerful magnates in times of conflict. From 1430 he was increasingly linked with Humphrey Stafford, who was to become Duke of Buckingham in 1444. She married secondly to Sir John Stanley of Elford; they had issue. Ann, who married Sir John Bradbury Isabella, who married Nicholas III de Montgomery.