Hungerford, acting on the advice of John Heydon, a solicitor of Baconsthorpe, took forcible possession of the estate on 17 February 1448.

[5] In 1452, Hungerford went with John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, to Aquitaine, and was taken prisoner while trying to raise the siege of Chastillon.

In consideration of his misfortunes, in the year of his return to England he was granted a licence to export fifteen hundred sacks of wool to foreign ports without paying duty and received permission to travel abroad.

In June 1460 he retired with Lord Scales and other of his friends to the Tower of London, on the entry of the Earl of Warwick and his Kentish followers into the city; but after the defeat of the Lancastrians at the battle of Northampton (10 July 1460), Hungerford and his friends surrendered the Tower to the Yorkists, on the condition that he and Scales should go free.

[6] After taking part in the Battle of Towton (29 March 1461) – a further defeat for the Lancastrians — Hungerford fled with Henry VI to York, and from there into Scotland.

He afterwards met with some success in his efforts to rally the Lancastrians in the north of England, but was taken prisoner at the Battle of Hexham on 15 May 1464, and was executed at Newcastle.