BLYTON, John

The Blyton family had played an important role in the administration of Lincoln since about 1300, and the profits of trade had enabled them to extend their landholdings from the city into the country. By the late fourteenth century the senior branch was established at Leadenham, while a junior branch remained in the city.1 Lincs. Historian, i. 26-34, is a useful account of the family, but gives a hopelessly confused pedigree. Although our MP was certainly of the junior branch, his exact place in the family cannot be determined. He was not the eldest son of William Blyton, one of the largest landholders in Lincoln, who had acquired property in Cambridgeshire by marriage to the heiress of a moiety of the de la Haye estates. On William’s death in about 1427 the lands he held in right of his wife passed to his two daughters by her, while his property at Ashby-cum-Fenby, near Grimsby, and in Lincoln itself descended to Thomas, a priest and his eldest surviving son by an earlier marriage.2 Feudal Aids, iii. 261, 354; VCH Cambs. viii. 168. The last reference to William comes in Nov. 1426 when he acted as a mainpernor in the Exchequer: CFR, xv. 153. He was dead by June 1428 when his manor of Ashby was in Thomas’s hands: Feudal Aids, iii. 261, 299. Thomas was still alive in 1432 when both he and our MP, described as ‘of Lincoln, gentleman’, were sued by a citizen of Lincoln for the unjust detention of livestock.3 CP40/685, rot. 128d. It is very likely that John was Thomas’s brother and heir-apparent.

Blyton began his recorded career by attesting the Lincolnshire election of 25 Dec. 1430, when Hamon Sutton I*, the leading merchant of the city and one of the feoffees of William Blyton, was returned. His first recorded involvement in the affairs of Lincoln is his attestation of the election of 7 Apr. 1432. When Sutton was returned to represent the county on 12 Sept. 1435, he was once more named among the county electors.4 Lincs. Archit. and Arch. Soc. i. 73-74; C219/14/3. At this date he held properties in the city, which were assigned an annual value of £5 in the subsidy returns of 1436. These may well have come to him by inheritance from Thomas, who has not been traced in the records after 1432, but it seems unlikely that they included all the properties which William Blyton had held there.5 E179/240/269, m.13. William’s property in the city had been valued at £25 in 1412: Feudal Aids, vi. 484. John was himself elected to represent the city on 24 Dec. 1436 and took advantage of his presence at Westminster to appear in person in the court of King’s bench to instigate three actions of trespass. In one of these he claimed he had, in the previous June, been assaulted by John Fraunceys, sheriff of Lincoln. Of greater significance was his suit against three husbandmen and a cowherd of Ashby-cum-Fenby, a case which implies that he had inherited the Blytons’ country estate there. It may be that this action arose out of a confrontation with the tenants of a very powerful neighbour, Joan, countess of Kent, who held land in Ashby and neighbouring vills. At this time she had an action pending in the court of common pleas against our MP, again styled as ‘of Lincoln, gentleman’, for threatening her servants at Ashby.6 C219/15/1; KB27/703, rot. 15; 706, rots. 54, 92; 707, rot. 70; CP40/708, rot. 66.

References to Blyton after this date are scarce. In May 1438 he acted as a mainpernor in Chancery for Sutton when the latter was granted the marriage of a Lincolnshire heiress. Interestingly, his fellow surety was one William Blyton of London, which suggests that the family had established a branch in the capital. In Hilary term 1442 John was defending an action sued by William Gressington* for a debt of four marks. On this occasion he was described as citizen and armourer of Lincoln. This is the only reference to his trade, but it is interesting to note that two Blytons, Laurence and Thomas, were armourers in London during the 1420s. He was dead by Easter term 1443.7 CFR, xvii. 44; CP40/724, rot. 224d; 729, rot. 295; Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, pp. 81, 167.