CHAMPNEYS, Henry

When Henry VI came to the throne, the Champneys family had been established in Bath for several generations. An older namesake of the MP was active in the reign of Richard II and survived into that of Henry V,5 C67/36, m. 14; Bath and N.-E. Som. Archs., Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/3/65, 73. while Richard Champneys, who attested Bath’s parliamentary election returns in 1429 and 1431 (the latter the occasion of Henry’s return), and was also present at the Somerset shire elections of 1409 and 1422, was probably another kinsman, possibly even the MP’s father.6 C219/10/5, 13/1, 14/1-2. Few details of Henry Champneys’s early life have come to light, but it appears that he received some training in the law, for by the end of 1427 he was finding sureties at the Exchequer for the future chief justice John Juyn, then recorder of Bristol, and in the following year he was serving as a minister for the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, William Carent*, as well as appearing at the Exchequer as an attorney for the Bristol town authorities.7 CFR, xv. 204; CP40/669, rot. 318d; E159/205, recorda Mich. rots. 10, 15. It is probable that the Henry Champenay who in May 1428 served in the retinue of Sir John Fastolf at Verneuil came from the East Anglian family of that name: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, fr. 25768/282.

The extent of Champneys’s paternal inheritance is uncertain, but it may have included the house in Frome Selwood where he normally lived. In 1430, however, he augmented his holdings very considerably by a marriage to the widow of Walter Romsey, heir-male of a knightly family with holdings in Hampshire and Somerset. Through her mother, Elizabeth was an heiress in her own right, and it was as a descendant of the Marland family that she brought to her second husband a moiety of the manor of Orchardleigh. Walter Romsey had been a tenant-in-chief, and Champneys and his wife were forced to pay a fine of 100s. for failing to sue out the King’s licence prior to their marriage, but on 29 May 1430 the escheator of Somerset was ordered to assign Elizabeth her dower.8 C67/38, m. 18; CPR, 1429-36, p. 65; CCR, 1429-35, p. 20; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 313; Reg. Stafford, ii (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 258. Yet while bringing Champneys additional landholdings, the marriage also drew him into the tangled web of the descent of the Romsey estates. Sir Walter Romsey, who died in 1403, had been predeceased three years earlier by his eldest son, Thomas. His heir was consequently his grandson Thomas, aged 13 at the time of Sir Walter’s death, but certain of the Romseys’ Somerset holdings were entailed upon the younger Thomas’s brother, Walter, and his heirs, who also stood to inherit large parts of the rest of the lands in tail male, should Thomas fail to produce male offspring. In the event, the latter died in 1420, leaving only a single daughter, Joan.9 CIPM, xviii. 338-40, 959-62, 1110-12; CCR, 1419-22, pp. 93-94. The complexities of the descent of the Romsey estates resulted in litigation between the different branches of the family, but Champneys appears to have taken the side of his wife’s niece: in October 1440 he was among the feoffees of Joan Romsey and her husband, Thomas Payn, and a year later John Berewe* and William Brocas* (the latter tied by marriage to the Romseys) appointed him one of the attorneys to convey seisin of the principal Romsey manors of Rockbourne and Farnham to the Payns. In 1447 Thomas Payn died, probably predeceased by his wife, leaving the descendants of Sir Walter Romsey’s daughter Alice as the ostensible heirs-general to the Romsey property. Now, however, other heirs appeared on the scene, claiming descent from a daughter of Sir Walter by an earlier marriage, and in March 1462 a petition filed in Chancery asked that a summons be sent to Sir John Popham* and Champneys ‘who have very knowledge of the right and title’.10 C44/26/19; CCR, 1435-41, p. 428; CPR, 1436-41, p. 473; Stonor Letters, i (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xxix), pp. li-lii; C1/29/31-32. It is uncertain whether it was this Thomas Payn who represented Weymouth in 1437.

The status which Champneys’s landed property commanded saw him adopt an increased role in county administration. Having been returned to Parliament by the citizens of Bath in 1431, he went on to become joint alnager of Somerset for a period of ten years in May 1433.11 CFR, xvi. 111. Later that year, he was appointed escheator of the double bailiwick of Somerset and Dorset, an office which he would hold for a second time in 1445-6. A succession of ad hoc commissions of a military nature in the crises of 1450 and 1458-9 went along with Henry’s addition to the quorum of the Somerset county bench, while the verderership of Selwood forest rounded off his career of office holding.

In parallel, he maintained his private practice. He continued to act as an attorney for the mayor and bailiffs of Bristol, served as a feoffee for a range of south-westerners (continuing his connexion with the rising lawyer John Juyn), and in September 1442 was granted a life annuity for his good counsel by Thomas Lekhull alias Rivers. By the early 1460s he had also forged ties with William, Lord Botreaux, for whom he was attesting property deeds at this time.12 E159/209, recorda Mich. rot. 28; 211, commissiones Mich. rot. 1; CCR, 1429-35, p. 162; 1441-7, pp. 112, 114, 160; 1447-54, pp. 242, 243, 417, 437, 478, 479; 1461-8, pp. 145-6; CPR, 1436-41, p. 255; Reg. Stafford, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxi), 25.

The date of Champneys’s death has not been established with absolute certainty, but it probably occurred not long before 3 Feb. 1465, when the sheriff of Somerset was ordered to elect a new verderer for Selwood forest in his place. The execution of his will was entrusted to, among others, his eldest son and heir, like him called Henry, who survived until 1506.13 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 284-5; C67/51, m. 24; E405/56, rot. 2; 62, rot. 2; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 313-14; Reg. Stillington (Som. Rec. Soc. lii), nos. 16, 914, 1022. Champneys’s younger son Thomas followed him into the legal profession. He became estate steward to various important local landowners, including William Seymour and John, Lord Dynham, and for much of Henry VII’s reign served on the Somerset bench.14 KB9/422/9a, 10; CPR, 1485-94, p. 499; 1494-1509, p. 657. Thomas married Joan, a daughter of the leading Wells citizen John Attewater* and sister-in-law of the Bristolian lawyer Humphrey Hervy†, whose executor she became: PCC 16 Holder (PROB11/18, f. 124v); 17 Moone (PROB11/12, f. 134v).