The Middleton Accounts of 1525: #1

500 years ago … 1525. King Henry VIII is on the throne and his wife is still Queen Catherine of Aragon. Middleton Hall is owned by Sir Henry Willoughby and it was his principal residence. Sir Henry had been a highly skilled soldier and had been a Knight of the Body to not only King Henry VII but also King Henry VIII. However, Sir Henry was now about 74 years old.

In 1911, the Manuscripts Commission published a report providing information on a number of the personal papers belonging to Lord Middleton. This report included the Middleton household expenditure accounts for 1525. Therefore, in this important anniversary year, we thought we would provide a series of posts correlating with the date of when the expenditures occurred. They are very varied!

This first post in this series concerns a payment made, on 2nd February, to the King for prest money. The payment was for 13l, 6s, 8d (l, s, d = £, shillings, pence). This was the equivalent of about £5,883.69 today and at that time was the equivalent of about 444 days of wages for a skilled tradesman.

Re-enactors on Medieval Day at Middleton Hall, 2024. Photograph taken by Steve Davies.

Prest money is now considered an obsolete term. This money was paid to soldiers who enlisted in the service of the King and the giving of the money bound their service. As to why Sir Henry is paying it to the King and not the other way around, well that is an interesting question, to which we currently do not know the answer …!

Further Reading: W. H. Stevenson, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1911. p376.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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