FRAMPTON, John I

The identification of this MP is extremely problematic, as there were several namesakes living in Dorset during the period under review.5 John Frampton ‘of Cerne’, who served as a juror for assessment of an aid in 1431, and at an inq. post mortem at Dorchester in 1434, was appointed a tax collector in Dorset in Feb. 1434 and Apr. 1440: Feudal Aids, ii. 102; C139/64/29; CFR, xvi. 193; xvii. 144. Another namesake appeared very frequently as a juror at inquisitions post mortem held at Sherborne, doing so at least 21 times between 1435 and 1476: C139/65/38; 100/46; 101/67; 105/5; 107/32; 115/31; 140/34; 159/35; 163/6; 176/27; C140/2/25; 3/29; 4/34; 5/43; 14/35; 18/51; 25/38; 28/32; 31/9; 50/41; 56/46. Most prominent among them was the John Frampton of Moreton and Buckland Ripers, who had represented the county in the second Parliament of 1404,6 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 117-18. and owned lands there and in Wiltshire worth at least £66 p.a. At his death in 1425 John the shire-knight left a widow, Margaret, who was still living in 1447,7 CIPM, xxii. 583; Feudal Aids, ii. 73, 114; CP40/745, rot. 255d. and a number of sons, including his heir, Robert (d.1465),8 For the main line of the family, see Hutchins, i. 395-8; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 333-4; C139/162/19. and another John. This much is clear from the descent of the principal family estates after the death without legitimate issue of Robert’s son James Frampton in 1523, for they then passed to Roger Frampton, the grandson of Robert’s brother John.9 C142/43/9; PCC 9 Bodfelde (PROB11/21/159, ff. 70v-71v). This John was probably he who styled ‘of Dorchester, gentleman’ was recorded in 1428 and 1431 as joint tenant with Robert Tredosa, esquire, of the manor of ‘Weybayhouse’ in Upwey, which they held of the Crown by service of half a knight’s fee.10 Feudal Aids, ii. 73, 114; Hutchins, ii. 840-1 (an acct. which contains inaccuracies). See also C139/53/17 where the recently-deceased Robert Bingham (d.1431) and his wife Margaret were recorded holding land of Frampton and Tredosa, by service of half a knight’s fee due to their manor of ‘Weybayhouse’. According to Hutchins, Bingham was the son-in-law of the John Frampton who died in 1425. A moiety of Upwey continued in the Frampton fam. in the 16th cent.

Upwey’s location to the north of Weymouth and a few miles south of Dorchester makes it at least possible that the subject of this biography was the man who, styled ‘of Weymouth’, was accused of wrongfully taking possession of land near Blandford during Henry V’s absence in Normandy after 1417, considered suitable for military service in 1420, and attested the Weymouth elections for the last Parliament of the reign.11 C1/4/38; E28/97/9B; C219/12/6. He owed his own election, as a representative for Lyme Regis in the Parliament of 1427-8, to close links with the prominent family of Brooke, seated at Holditch, for after Sir Thomas Brooke† (d.1418) and his wife Joan had been granted custody of the impoverished town of Lyme by Henry V, to hold for term of their lives,12 CPR, 1413-16, p. 325; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 377-9. they and their son the younger Sir Thomas Brooke* (d.1439) exerted a decisive influence over the borough’s representation, so that Lyme often returned their feoffees and legal advisors. Frampton figured among them. In 1421 the widowed Joan Brooke conveyed to him and William Taverner† (who had been elected for Lyme in 1417) several of her properties in Somerset and Dorset, including seven messuages and land in Lyme itself, which she had held jointly with one or other of her two husbands, Robert Cheddar† and Brooke. Frampton and Taverner were to remain solely seised of these holdings until Joan’s death in 1437,13 CIPM, xxiv. 712-13; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 87-88; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 372. and the former made a quitclaim to her son Sir Thomas of any title to all her estates in Devon, Dorset and Somerset in April 1438.14 Harl. Ch. 50 E 6. It is worthy of remark, too, that John’s brother William Frampton received a grant of land from Joan and her son Richard Cheddar*, presumably for services rendered.

Given the description ‘of Dorchester’ attached to the MP it is not easy to distinguish him from another John Frampton who also lived in the county town, and which of the two attested all but one of Dorchester’s eight parliamentary indentures between 1425 and 1437 and officiated as the town’s bailiff for at least three annual terms in the same period remains uncertain.15 C219/13/3-5; 14/1-3; 15/1; Dorchester Recs. ed. Mayo, 251, 265, 285. He was also a juror at inquisitions post mortem conducted there: CIPM, xxii. 524; C139/49/38; 64/28; 110/46. In 1433 John Frampton ‘of Dorchester’, aged 46, testifying at the proof of age of Walter Payn, stated that his wife Elizabeth had been Payn’s godmother at East Lulworth in 1413: CIPM, xxiv. 269. It may have been he who later married Edith, sis. and h. of John Crook of Bridport, and died bef. Apr. 1456, when his widow quitclaimed to William Oliver I* her right to a messuage in that town: CP40/778, rot. 314; CAD, i. C434; C146/10314. That John the MP was a figure of standing in the county is clear not only from his participation in shire elections. At Melcombe Regis in September 1430 he testified to the royal commissioners looking into the state of the town’s economy that reports about the inhabitants’ inability to pay the fee farm and parliamentary subsidies were correct; and he was listed with his brother Robert among the leading men of Dorset required in 1434 to take the generally administered oath not to maintain those who broke the law.16 E143/25/1 (previously E163/7/14); CPR, 1429-36, p. 382.

Frampton’s marriage to the daughter and heiress of a Hampshire landowner, Edmund Marshall, took place ‘long before’ her father died in March 1428. The death coincided with the final days of Frampton’s Parliament. In July the escheator of Hampshire was instructed to give the couple seisin of the manor of Woodcote, which was held in chief, respiting any homage due, as they had had issue. But for reasons unknown they decided to give up possession of the manor, and by licence of January 1432 conveyed it to feoffees in the interest of the Thornes family.17 CIPM, xxiii. 19; CFR, xv. 226-7; CPR, 1429-36, p. 184; VCH Hants, iii. 48. In 1456 Joan’s cousins brought a suit against the feoffees: CP40/780, rot. 311. The same cousins sued out a pardon in 1462: C67/45, m. 22. In 1437 John and Joan Frampton were engaged in litigation over another part of her inheritance, the manor of Somerley in Harbridge, only to relinquish their title to their opponent a year later.18 CP40/704, rot. 138; VCH Hants, iv. 605. The date of Joan’s death, without surviving children, is unknown, as is the name of Frampton’s second wife. Belated inquiries about the former Marshall estates, held much later, in 1464, found that John Frampton had died on 4 Dec. 1458, leaving as his heir Thomas Frampton, aged 24.19 C140/14/36.

The inquisition post mortem for the countess of Wiltshire at the end of 1457 had recorded that she held the Dorset manor of Chilfrome from John Frampton as her feudal overlord.20 C139/164/16. Subsequently, part of this manor came into the possession of John’s brother William, who had already mounted a challenge in the King’s bench against Robert Tredosa, John’s co-parcener of ‘Weybayhouse’ in Upwey,21 KB27/774, rot. 16d; 788, rot. att. 1. and at his death in 1494 William was also in possession of the Frampton moiety there.22 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1065. The other, Tredosa, moiety was contested in Hen. VIII’s reign: C1/526/21.