William Plumpton

He was the grandson of Sir William Plumpton executed in 1405 for treason by Henry IV and the son of Sir Robert Plumpton of Plumpton Hall, Yorkshire. On the death of his father in 1421 he became the ward of Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland.

He served in the French war 1427–30 and was knighted. On his return to England he was appointed by Northumberland as Seneschal of Knaresborough Castle and Steward of Northumberland's Spofforth estates.

Plumpton's own estates included Plumpton Hall, Yorkshire, Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire and Hassop Hall, Derbyshire. He represented Nottinghamshire in the Parliament of 1436/37. He served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1447 and High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1453.

During the War of the Roses he fought on the Lancastrian side at the Battle of Towton in 1461, where his son William and his benefactor Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland were slain. Plumpton was captured but later was pardoned by Edward IV and regained his offices in 1471.

He had two wives. Plumpton first married Elizabeth Stapleton of Carlton, Yorkshire in 1430, by whom he had seven daughters, all of whom married, and two sons, Robert and William. His second wife was Joan Winteringham, whom he later claimed had married in 1451 following the death of Elizabeth; by her he had one son, Robert, who was regarded as heir, as the older Robert had died in 1450 and William had been killed at Towton.

The Plumpton Correspondence was preserved in a manuscript book of copies which passed into the hands of Christopher Towneley about 1650, and remained among the Towneley manuscripts; it consisted of letters written during the time of Sir William Plumpton and later members of his family down to 1551. It was edited for the Camden Society by Thomas Stapleton in 1838–9 (2 vols.); the letters illustrated by the editor by extracts from a manuscript in the same collection, the Coucher Book of Sir Edward Plumpton.

• Archbold, William A.J. (1896). "Plumpton, William" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 434–435.
• Dockray, Keith (January 2008). "Plumpton, Sir William (1404–1480)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22398. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

• The Plumpton Letters and Papers Joan Kirby 1996. Google Books.