See also
| Husband: | Walter HUNGERFORD (1378-1449) | |
| Wife: | Eleanor BERKELEY ( - ) | |
| Marriage | c. 1439 | Beverston, Gloucestershire, England |
| Name: | Walter HUNGERFORD | |
| Sex: | Male | |
| Name Suffix: | (1ยบ B. Hungerford of Farleigh) | |
| Father: | Thomas De HUNGERFORD ( - ) | |
| Mother: | Joan HUSSEY ( - ) | |
| Birth | 22 Jun 1378 | Farleigh-Hungerford, Somersetshire, England |
| Death | 9 Aug 1449 (age 71) | |
| Burial | Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire | |
| Name: | Eleanor BERKELEY | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Father: | - | |
| Mother: | - | |
Knight of the Garter. Son and heir of Sir Thomas Hungerford, by his 2nd 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 40 pounds out of the lands of Margaret, Duchess of Norfolk, and was knighted. In Oct 1400 he was returned to Parliament as member for Wiltshire, and was re-elected for that constituency in 1404, 1407, 1413, and Jan 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 Jul 1414 he was nominated Ambassador to treat for a league with Sigismund, King of the Romans (Rymer, Foedera, 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 (Nicholas, 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 Nov 1417 with envoys from 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 Nov 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 great seal in Mar 1426-7 placed Gloucestershire in supreme power. He acted as carver at Henry VI's coronation in Paris in Dec 1430 (Waurin, Chron., Rolls Ser., iv. 11), but on the change of ministry which followed Henry VI's return from France in Feb 1431-2, he ceased to be treasurer. He attended the conference at Arms in 1435 (Wars of Henry VI in France, Rolls ser., ed. Stevenson, ii. 431). He died on 9 Aug 1449, and was buried beside his first wife in Salisbury Cathedral, within the iron chapel erected by himself, which is still extant, although removed from its original position. By his marriages and royal grants Hungerford added largely to the family estates. He was a man of piety, and built chanteries at Heytesbury and Chippenham, and made bequests to Salisbury and Bath Cathedrals. In 1428 he presented valuable estates to the Free Royal Chapel in the palace of St. Stephen at Westminster. He also built an almshouse for twelve poor men and a woman, and a schoolmaster's residence at Heytesbury. The original building was destroyed in 1765, but the endowment, which was regulated by statutes drawn up by Margaret of Botreaux, wife of Hungerford's son Robert, still continues (Jackson, Anc. Statutes of Heytesbury Almshouses, Devizes, 1863). Hungerford's will is printed in Nicolas's 'Testamenta Vetusta,' pp. 257-9. He left his 'best legend of the lives of the saints' to his daughter-in-law, Margaret, and a cup which John of Gaunt had used to John, Viscount Beaumont.