Hungerford, Robert, Lord Hungerford

(1431–1464)

   A loyal partisan of the house of LANCASTER, Robert Hungerford, third Lord Hungerford, commanded Lancastrian forces during the fighting in Northumberland in the early 1460s.

   Hungerford married the daughter of William Moleyns in 1441 and was recognized as Lord Moleyns in right of his wife from 1445. In the early 1450s, Moleyns engaged in a violent quarrel with John Paston over the Norfolk manor of Gresham, which, after an unsuccessful arbitration by William WAINFLEET, bishop of Winchester, Moleyns eventually surrendered to Paston. In 1452, Moleyns accompanied John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, to FRANCE and was captured and held for ransom by the French after the Battle of CASTILLON in 1453. His family sold and mortgaged property to effect his release in 1459, the year he succeeded his father as Lord Hungerford.

   In 1460, Hungerford was commander, with Thomas SCALES, Lord Scales, of the Lancastrian garrison holding LONDON. In July, Hungerford and Scales withdrew into the TOWER OF LONDON when the city authorities opened the gates to the Yorkist lords newly landed from CALAIS. While Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, and Edward, earl of March (see Edward IV, King of England), the son of Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, marched north to confront HENRY VI, Warwick’s father, Richard NEVILLE, earl of Salisbury, besieged the Lancastrians in the Tower. Warwick’s victory at the Battle of NORTHAMPTON on 10 July forced Hungerford and Scales to surrender the Tower shortly thereafter to the new Yorkist regime, although both were allowed to depart safely.

   Hungerford fought for Lancaster at the Battle of TOWTON in March 1461, and afterward fled into SCOTLAND with the Lancastrian royal family. Attainted by PARLIAMENT in November 1461 (see Attainder, Act of), Hungerford traveled to France in 1462 to seek aid for the Lancastrian cause. By the end of that year, he was commander of the Lancastrian garrison in ALNWICK Castle. Besieged by Warwick, he was saved by the arrival in January 1463 of a relieving army out of Scotland jointly commanded by the Lancastrian Pierre de BRÉZÉ and the Scottish earl of Angus. Hungerford retook Alnwick in the spring of 1463 when the Yorkist commander, Sir Ralph Grey, defected and surrendered the fortress to him. In early 1464, Hungerford assisted Henry BEAUFORT, duke of Somerset, in the Lancastrian campaign that captured much of Northumberland. Along with Thomas ROOS, Lord Roos, he commanded a wing of the Lancastrian force at the Battle of HEDGELEY MOOR in April and again at the Battle of HEXHAM in May. Hungerford was captured after Hexham and executed at Newcastle.

   See also all entries under Hungerford

   Further Reading: Haigh, Philip A., The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1995); Hicks, Michael,“Piety and Lineage in the Wars of the Roses: The Hungerford Experience,” in Ralph A. Griffiths and James Sherborne, eds., Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), pp. 90–108; Ross, Charles, Edward IV (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1998).