The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421,
ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C.-
Ralph was 12 years old when his father fell at Shrewsbury
and the custody of the family estates as well as his own wardship
and marriage was granted by the King to his mother, Beatrice.
When he attained his majority Beatrice conveyed to him the manors
of Shirley, Hope, ‘Houne’ and Hollington (Derbyshire),
Ettington (Warwickshire) and Barnham (Suffolk), on condition
that he would pay her 100 marks a year for the rest of her life.
She also held a lease from Lord Basset’s feoffees of four
of the Basset manors in Leicestershire, on the expiry of which,
in 1414, these too passed to her son.3 A valor of Ralph’s
combined Shirley and Basset holdings (at least 14 manors) made
that same year showed a yield of £385 15s.6¼d. gross,
from which after £104 8s.10¼d. had been deducted
for repairs, the expenses of collection and fees for his officials
and council, he had £281 6s.8d. clear. To this he added
shortly afterwards revenues from manors at Thrumpton (Nottinghamshire)
and Swepstone (Leicestershire). The tax assessments of 1436 were
to estimate his clear annual income as much less than earlier
(£150), but then his mother still enjoyed £92 a year
and his son, Ralph, £40 p.a., charged on the family estates.4
This son had been born before August 1408 while our MP himself
was still a minor, the child’s mother being his first wife,
Joan, heiress of the estates of her great-grandfather, Sir Henry
Brailsford†, which, following her death and that of her
grandfather, Sir John Basset† of Cheadle, Cheshire, fell
to her infant son. In September 1408 Henry IV granted Shirley
and his mother the farm of Brailsford (held of the duchy of Lancaster)
for 40 marks a year, and it was they who subsequently arranged
the boy’s marriage (by papal dispensation dated 23 Sept.
1423) to Margaret, daughter and by then sole heir of John Staunton
of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire. They retained custody of
young Ralph’s inheritance until he came of age in about
1429 (though he did not do homage to the King for Brailsford
and Staunton until 1433).5
Shirley took as his second wife a daughter of an influential
neighbour in Derbyshire, Sir John Cockayne, whose family, like
his own, had long served the house of Lancaster. The couple may
have been betrothed by 1412, for when Cockayne made a will preparatory
to joining the duke of Clarence’s expedition to France,
he put the manor of Middleton in the hands of trustees to hold
to the use of this daughter, Alice, until the consummation of
her marriage. In 1419 Shirley settled on Alice as his wife jointure
in the manor of Sheldon (Warwickshire) as well as in other properties,
while Cockayne promised them the reversion of his manor of Harthill
(Derbyshire). A few years later this alliance between the two
families of Cockayne and Shirley was to be strengthened further
by Sir John’s marriage to Shirley’s sister, Isabel.6
While Shirley’s father had found favour with John
of Gaunt and Henry of Bolingbroke, he himself looked for preferment
to Henry of Monmouth and, having been knighted on the eve of
Henry’s coronation, in January 1414 he secured from him
appointment for life as master forester of the honour of Leicester.
He contracted by indenture dated 29 Apr. 1415 to serve on Henry’s
expedition to France with a contingent of six men-at-arms and
18 archers who were mustered at Southampton on 1 July. Before
his departure he made enfeoffments of his estates requiring that,
were he to die overseas, the trustees should spend 200 marks
for the welfare of his soul and that of his father, and give
his sisters, Isabel and Nicola, 200 marks each for their marriage
portions and another sister 100 marks for her sustenance, it
being understood that they would do nothing without the guidance
of his mother Beatrice, who was also made sole guardian of his
son, Ralph. In fact, Shirley did come close to death on the campaign:
he fell ill at the siege of Harfleur and was sent home with the
King’s permission on 5 Oct. Eight of his men returned with
him, but the rest went on to fight at Agincourt, on which celebrated
occasion one of them (Ralph Fowne) won fame by taking prisoner
the duke of Bourbon. Shirley raised a force of seven lances and
23 archers for the invasion of France begun in the summer of
1417, and was present at the sieges of Louviers and Rouen, not
returning to England until early in 1419, after the Norman capital
had fallen.7 Late in the following year he was elected to Parliament
for Leicestershire, apparently for the only time in his career,
and it was during the parliamentary session that he secured appointment
as sheriff of the neighbouring bailiwick of Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire. He remained in office until May 1422. No satisfactory
explanation has been found for Shirley’s complete withdrawal
from public affairs both locally and nationally after the summer
of 1423. He never attracted the attention of Henry VI, whose
coronation at Paris in 1431 he is said to have attended, and
although he retained his post as master forester of the honour
of Leicester, from May 1442 onwards he was required to share
it with John, Viscount Beaumont.8
During the same period of the 1420s and 1430s Sir Ralph’s
grasp over parts of his substantial landed holdings weakened
considerably. This was mainly due to the ambitions of Humphrey,
earl of Stafford, the heir-general to the last Lord Basset of
Drayton. By 1427 Shirley had become aware that his tenure of
the two Basset manors in Sheldon was under threat, and not long
afterwards he complained in a petition to the King that the earl
had dispossessed him of them both and also of Colston Basset
(Nottinghamshire), ‘by the procurement and instance of Sir
Thomas Chaworth*’. Furthermore, Earl Humphrey was ‘proposyng,
as yt is comonly sayde’, to enter other of Shirley’s
properties in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, even though
Sir Ralph had ‘with all the menes he cowde’ sued ‘un
to the said Erle to have hys good Lordshyp’, and had on
various occasions showed Stafford and his council deeds and evidences
proving his title to the Basset lands, whereas the earl could
produce no such proofs in support of his own claim. Appeals made
to the King’s Council and judges as well as to the Commons
in Parliament, on the ground that Stafford was ‘of so greate
myght that the said besecher is noght of power to sewe agens
hym’ at common law, all proved to no avail: by 1436, if
not earlier, Sheldon was firmly in the earl’s possession,
and by 1438 not only had Colston Basset been lost, but Shirley’s
principal seat at Ratcliffe-upon-Soar had also fallen irretrievably
into the clutches of his powerful adversary. Towards the end
of his life Shirley also had to contend with a revival of the
age-old claims of the Erdington family to certain property at
Barrow-upon-Soar: in 1442 Sir Thomas Erdington† made a forcible
entry into the disputed premises and before long secured them
at law.9
Tradition in the Shirley family has it that Sir Ralph died
overseas in 1443, his body being brought back to England for
burial in the Lady chapel of the collegiate church in the Newarke,
Leicester, ‘in a costly and beautiful tomb’ which also
housed the body of his first wife, Joan, removed from its original
resting-place at Ratcliffe-upon-Soar. His widow, Alice, quarrelled
with her stepson, Ralph, over her dower portion, a matter eventually
settled in 1447 by the counsellors of both parties. They died
within a few months of each other: Alice in May 1466, leaving
as her next heir her son, another Ralph Shirley, and her stepson
in December following. The bulk of the Shirley estates then passed
to the latter’s son, John (b.c.1427).10
Ref Volumes: 1386-1421
Author: L. S. Woodger
married 1) Joan Basset dau and heir of Thomas
Basset of Brailsford esq and lived Radcliff upon Soar, Nottingham
married 2) Alice Cockayne She died 1466
children:
6(i). Beatrix Shirley - daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Joan Basset; She died on 10 Jul 1483 married Lord John
Brome who was born at Baddesley Clinton, Warwick, England. He
died on 5 Nov 1468 Assasinated. Son Nicholas Brome
6(ii). Ralph Shirley esq. of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire,
Lord of Ettington. son of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Joan
Basset; He died Dec 26 1466 buried at Brailsford. He removed
his seat of residence to Staunton Harold estate which then continued
to be the principal mansion of the elder line of the family,
represented by the Earl Ferrers
Inquisition p.m. Ralph Shirley, esquire. File 17. Taken
at Loughborough, co. Leic, on 12 June, 7 Edward IV, 1467. Before
Baldwin Porter, the escheator, and on the oath of William Parker,
of Loughborowe, John Ballarde, of the same, Robert Payte of the
same, John Stone, of Pakynton, Thomas Spede, of Worthington,
Henry Hay, of Overton, John Harry, of Worthington, Hugh Johnson,
of Segrave, Thomas Boy dell, of Bredon, Robert Parker, of Bredon,
Thomas Bertvyle, of Tonge, and Thomas Dawe, of Tonge, jurors,
who say that Ralph Shirley, esquire, was seised in his demesne
as of fee of the manors of Rakedale and Willowes, etc., held
of Eleanor, who was the wife of Humphrey Stafford, knight. The
manors of Rakedale and Willowes are worth £10. Ralph Shirley
died on St. Stephen's day, last past. John Shirley is his son
and heir and aged 50 years and more.
married 1) Margaret Staunton 1423 dau of John
and heir of Thomas Staunton esq. (the lands of Staunton Harold
came to the Shirleys because of this marriage, she being the
heir of her fathers estate).
married 2) Elizabeth Blount dau of Sir John
Blount. She died 1466
married 3) Lucy Ashton dau of Sir John Ashton
and relict of Sir John Byron and Sir Bertram Entwissel. She died
Feb 12 1481 (no children by her)
children:
7(i). John
Shirley, esq. of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, Lord of
Ettington born after 1423 son of Sir Ralph Shirley of Ettington
and wife Margaret Staunton; d 18 May 1486; buried in Abbey of
Gerondon Leicestershire. Will dated March 26 1485 Shirleys of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire
7(ii). Ralph Shirley, esq. of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, of Wiston,
Sussex, son of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount.
He died at Wiston Sussex in 1510 Shirleys of Wiston Sussex
7(iii). Elizabeth Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
7(iv). Alice Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
7(iii). Anne Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
7(iv). Sanchia Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
7(v). Margeret Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley
and wife Elizabeth Blount.(source: visitation of Sussex)
6(iii). Ralph Shirley, Esq. son of Sir Ralph
Shirley and 2nd wife Alice Cockayne; He lived at Brailesford,
Warwickshire.
Shirleys of Ettington