BUGGE, Edmund (d.1410/11), of Newhall in Thurlaston, Leics.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Jan. 1397
Jan. 1404

Family and Education

s. of Geoffrey Bugge of West Leake, Notts. by Margaret, da. of Robert Foucher and his w. Margaret, da. of Robert de Campania (d.1343) of Thurlaston. m. bef. 1405, Felicity, sis. of William* and Bartholomew Brokesby*, s. Baldwin†, 1da.

Offices Held

Master forester in the duchy of Lancaster honour of Leicester bef. Mich. 1400-28 Nov. 1410.

Commr. to make proclamation of Henry IV’s intention to govern well, Leics. May 1402; of oyer and terminer Apr. 1406.

Biography

Edmund was a descendant of Ralph Bugge, the wealthy wool merchant of Nottingham, who was also forefather to the more prominent family of Willoughby of Wollaton. Unlike their wealthy kinsfolk, the Bugges of West Leake retained their original patronymic, and through the marriage of Edmund’s father Geoffrey they added to their Nottinghamshire holdings a share in the extensive estates of the Campania family, including those in Leicestershire at Thurlaston, Wigston, Stoke Golding, Croft and Normanton and, following the death in 1381 of Margaret, wife of Sir John Sulney†, part of the manor of Great Doddington and messuages at Collingtree in Northamptonshire. Geoffrey Bugge died before Easter 1389, by which date his widow had remarried; and Edmund succeeded to his inheritance from both parents not long afterwards.1

Bugge’s chief place of residence, the manor at Thurlaston, was held of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster: but it was the duke’s son and heir, Henry of Bolingbroke, to whom he formed an early and lasting attachment. At London in May 1390 he sold Henry, then earl of Derby, a grey horse for £3, and as a member of the earl’s entourage he took part in the expedition to Prussia lasting from that December until May 1391, receiving all the while a daily wage of 7½d. In the following year, from July to September, he travelled on the continent in Derby’s company of ‘crusaders’, venturing as far as the Holy Land. Later, as one of his esquires he received from him an annuity of ten marks for life, by a grant dated 20 Sept. 1395. Bugge’s first return to Parliament for Leicestershire in 1397 came at a time when his lord was, to all outward appearances, in favour with King Richard. Following the reversal of Henry’s fortunes a year later, Bugge chose to accompany him into exile, and it was he who, in April 1399, Henry sent as his personal envoy from Paris to London and thence to Windsor with messages for the King. Having returned to Paris, he was with Lancaster’s party when it landed at Ravenspur three months later. As a reward for his loyal service in those difficult times the newly made King Henry IV granted him on 1 Oct. 1399 all that pertained to the Crown by the forfeiture and contempt of William Rolleston of Beverley in marrying the heiress of a tenant-in-chief without royal licence (Rolleston subsequently entered into two recognizances in his favour for £40 and 40 marks, respectively); and on 25 Nov. the King awarded him a second life annuity, this one being for £40, charged on the issues of the honour of Leicester.2

Bugge’s office as master forester of the same honour, to which he was appointed not long after Henry IV’s accession, brought him a fee of £5 a year, while as an esquire in the royal household he enjoyed a further £2 annually. It was for Bugge’s convenience, and out of the personal affection which the King felt for him that, from September 1402, his £40 annuity was made chargeable on the duchy of Lancaster lordship of Higham Ferrers. Bugge was present at the field of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, but although he survived the battle the day did not go entirely well for him, for certain letters patent he carried with him were ‘prisez et emblez’. Then, while at Lincoln three weeks later, his black silk collar dotted with the letter ‘S’ in silver (part of his livery as a Lancastrian retainer), was stolen by a man from Pembroke. Bugge was returned to the Parliament of January 1404 in the company of another member of the Household, William Brokesby, marshal of the King’s hall, who was perhaps already his brother-in-law. Further signs of royal favour followed: in August 1405 when the King was at Leicester, Bugge was granted lands worth 40 marks a year at Foston (Leicestershire), recently forfeited by the earl of Northumberland. Henry of Bolingbroke’s generosity thus brought him an annual income of at least £80. On 22 Nov. Bugge was appointed as sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, but for some unknown reason (perhaps because the King preferred him to remain at Court) he was replaced by Sir John Berkeley II* on the same day.3

In the course of the next five years Bugge received various gifts from the King, such as a dozen oaks from Donington park (in 1406) and windfalls from another duchy estate (in 1410), while in the meantime, in 1409, his forestership had been conferred on him for life. His duties as a ‘King’s esquire’ still occasionally entailed acting as Henry IV’s personal messenger: in the autumn of 1410 he went as envoy to Scotland with letters for the duke of Albany, the Scottish regent, seeking a meeting of commissioners to conclude a permanent peace between their two countries. He returned with the duke’s reply to St. Albans, where the King was staying, shortly before 14 Nov., but may have fallen ill and died almost immediately, for a new master forester of the honour of Leicester was appointed in his place on the 28th. However, he could perhaps have lived on until later that winter, as it was not before May 1411 that Foston was granted to another.4

Bugge’s only son, Baldwin, who was to be retained by Henry V as a King’s serjeant with an annuity of 20 marks, later sat for Leicestershire in 1425 and 1426. When he died childless in 1435, the family estates passed to his sister Margaret (d.1474), then the widow of Richard Turville of Aston Flamville, and later the wife of Reynold, son and heir of the wealthy Sir Robert Moton† of Peckleton.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 394, 453; R. Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, i. 46-47; CIPM, xv. 580; Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xiv. 207-15; xviii. 230-2; Leics. Med. Peds. ed. Farnham, 126-7; Leics. Village Notes, v. 296; VCH Northants. iv. 113-14.
  • 2. Derby’s Expeds. (Cam. Soc. n.s. lii), 5, 135, 139, 268; DL42/15, ff. 7, 167; CPR, 1399-1401, p. 9; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 119; DL28/4/1, f. 6.
  • 3. Somerville, Duchy, i. 567; DL42/15, ff. 97d, 167; 16 (pt. 3), ff. 135d, 150; E101/404/21, f. 45; CPR, 1405-8, pp. 44, 182; DL28/27/1; CFR, xiii. 18.
  • 4. DL42/16 (pt. 2), f. 16d, (pt. 3), ff. 33, 135d; Letters Hen. IV ed. Hingeston, ii. 291-2; Somerville, i. 567; CPR, 1408-13, p. 304.
  • 5. CPR, 1422-9, p. 77; CCR, 1429-35, p. 296; 1441-7, pp. 347-8; Feudal Aids, iv. 136; Leics. Village Notes, v. 298-9; Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 105-8, 126, 128.