January 1392-3. He sat for the county of Somerset in 1378, 1382, 1388, and 1390. He was returned for both constituencies in 1384 and January 1389-90. He was knighted before 1377. He was closely associated with John of Gaunt, and acted for some time as steward of Gaunt's household. Owing to Gaunt's influence, he was chosen in January 1376-7, in the last of Edward III's parliaments, to act as speaker (Stubbs, Constit. Hist. 1883, ii. 456). According to the rolls of parliament (ii. 374) Hungerford 'avait les paroles pur les communes d'Angleterre en cet parliament.' He is thus the first person formally mentioned in the rolls of parliament as holding the office of speaker. Sir Peter de la Mare [q. v.] preceded him in the post, without the title, in the Good parliament of 1376 (cf. Stubbs, iii. 453). In 1380 Hungerford was confirmed in the forestership of Selwood. In 1369 he purchased of Lord Burghersh the manor of Farleigh-Montfort (since called Farleigh-Hungerford, and the chief residence of his descendants), and in 1383 obtained permission to convert the manorhouse into a castle. About 1384 he aroused the suspicion of Richard II, who attached him, but he obtained a pardon and confirmation of his free warren of Farleigh. Hungerford died at Farleigh on 3 Dec. 1398, and was buried in the chapel of the castle (Leland, Itin. ed. Hearne, ii. 31), where a monument was erected to his memory, and a portrait placed in a stained-glass window. The latter is engraved in Hoare's 'Mod. Wiltshire, Heytesbury Hundred,' p.90. He married, first, Eleanor, daughter and heiress of Sir John Strug of Heytesbury, and, secondly, Joan, heiress of Sir Edmund Hussey of Holbrook. By his second wife, who died on 1 March 1412, he was father of Walter, lord Hungerford (d. 1449) [q. v.], and three sons who predeceased him.
[Dugdale's Baronage; Collinson's Somerset, iii. 353; Manning's Lives of the Speakers; Returns of Members of Parliament; Hoare's Hungerfordiana, privately printed, 1823; Canon Jackson's Guide to Farleigh-Hungerford, 1853.]
HUNGERFORD, 'Sir WALTER, Lord Hungerford (d. 1449), son and heir of Sir Thomas Hungerford [q. v.], by his second wife, Joan, was strongly attached to the Lancastrian cause at the close of Richard II's reign, his father having been steward in John of Gaunt's household. On Henry IV's accession he was granted an annuity of 40l. out of the lands of Margaret, duchess of Norfolk, and was knighted. In October 1400 he was returned to parliament as member for Wiltshire, and was re-elected for that constituency in 1404, 1407, 1413, and January 1413-14, and represented the county of Somerset in 1409. He acted as speaker in the parliament meeting on 29 Jan. 1413-14, the last parliament in which he sat in the House of Commons (cf. Manning, Lives of the Speakers, p. 55).
Hungerford had already won renown as a warrior. In 1401 he was with the English army in France, and is said to have worsted the French king in a duel outside Calais; he distinguished himself in battle and tournament, and received substantial reward. In consideration of his services he was granted in 1403 one hundred marks per annum, payable by the town and castle of Marlborough, Wiltshire, and was appointed sheriff of Wiltshire. On 22 July 1414 he was nominated ambassador to treat for a league with Sigismund, king of the Romans (Rymer, Fœdera, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 186), and as English envoy attended the council of Constance in that and the following year (cf. his accounts of expenses in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 24513, f. 68). In the autumn of 1415 Hungerford accompanied Henry V to France with twenty men-at-arms and sixty horse archers (Nicolas, Agincourt, p. 381). He, rather than the Earl of Westmoreland, as in Shakespeare's `Henry V,' seems to have been the officer who expressed, on the eve of Agincourt, regret that the English had not ten thousand archers, and drew from the king a famous rebuke (ib. pp. 105, 241). He fought bravely at the battle of Agincourt, but the assertion that he made the Duke of Orleans prisoner is not substantiated. He was employed in May 1416 in diplomatic negotiations with ambassadors of Theodoric, archbishop of Cologne (Rymer, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 158), and in November 1417 with envoys from France (ib.vol.iv.pt.ii.p.25). In 1417 he was made admiral of the fleet under John, duke of Bedford, and was with Henry V in 1418 at the siege of Rouen. In November of the latter year he is designated the steward of the king's household (ib. vol. iv. pt. iii. p. 76), and was granted the barony of Homet in Normandy. He took part in the peace negotiations of 1419, and on 3 May 1421 was installed knight of the Garter (Beltz, Hist. of Garter, p. clviii).
Hungerford was an executor of Henry V's will, and in 1422 became a member of Protector Gloucester's council. In 1424 he was made steward of the household of the infant king, Henry VI, and on 7 Jan. 1425-6 was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Hungerford. The summons was continued to him till his death. Hungerford became treasurer in succession to Bishop Stafford, when Bishop Beaufort's resignation of the
