This paper is an exercise in collective prosopography, examining the theme of military and local administrative service through the careers of twenty-six men who had, in common, careers as soldiers in France after the death of Henry V and at least one election to parliament. The aim of the enquiry is two-fold. The first relates to military service alone. What, beyond mere personal inclination, prompted these men either to continue campaigning abroad after their initial experiences in the great campaigns of Henry V, or to embark on military careers as the fortunes of the English in France began to decline? Did they profit or lose by that decision, whether measured in terms of hard cash or those less tangible signifiers of status by which the late medieval gentry measured themselves? For those who survived into the 1450s, how did their experiences in France inform the choices they made in the troubled domestic politics of that decade? The second concerns the relationship between military service in France and participation in local administration in England. How far did commitment to the first preclude participation in the second? At what stage in their careers did they serve in parliament? What part did administrative service at home play in their careers?

The sample of twenty-six is open to the objection that some were far more martial than others: Sir Thomas Rempston and Sir Richard Haryngton, for example, were, above all other things, soldiers, commanders in the field, but men like Sir Edward Hull and John Nanfan were defined only in part by their military service, having an existence as administrators and diplomats that identified them at least as accurately as their purely military role. Further, some were abroad more fitfully than others. Yet all twenty-six had this in common: the war in France either dominated or played an important part in their lives for much of the period between 1422 and 1453, and all spent significant periods there. This differentiates them from the vast majority of their fellow MPs and gives them a coherence as a group.