Richard Vernon (speaker)
Sir Richard Vernon (c. 1390 – Aug 24 1451) was an English landowner, MP and speaker of the House of Commons.
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.
From his parents he inherited:[1] 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: 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.
Its lands were given to Tong college, greatly improving the income of the chaplains and putting the chantry on a much more secure footing.
Vernon also tried to acquire the substantial estates of Sir Fulke's first wife, Margaret Trussell, which had been settled on Isabel for life.
[1] £40 a year was considered sufficient to support a knight, while £9 would pay an archer.,[3] so it is possible Vernon campaigned with a small force.
The Armagnac besiegers were scattered in a daring relief operation, led by John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford on 15 August.
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.
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.
The key issue was the power struggle between the boy king's relatives, Cardinal Beaufort and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor, formerly a friend of Vernon, brought a force of 200 men to Derby on 24 June, intending to dictate the outcome of the election.
Next day Vernon and Sir John Cokayne, a notoriously violent landowner from Ashbourne[5] arrived with a much larger force and had themselves declared members of parliament.
As Marcher Lord of Brecon, Stafford was also able to open up preferment for Vernon in South Wales, where he already had considerable interests.
Vernon was a deputy justiciar of south Wales (1431 – c. 1438) under James, Lord Audley, and during 1440–45 itinerant justice in the lordship of Brecon.
She was the daughter of Sir John Ludlow of Hodnet, Shropshire and Isabel de Lingen, the foundress of the chantry and college of Tong.
