MAUNCELL, John

The Mauncells held the manor of the same name in the Somerset parish of North Petherton. The identification of the activities of the man who represented Bridgwater in two of Henry VI’s Parliaments presents some problems, as throughout the fifteenth century there were at any one time at least two, and perhaps sometimes more members of the family with identical names active in the south-west. The Bridgwater MP was the younger of at least two men alive at the time, the older of whom was probably his father.2 C1/545/53. It seems to have been the father, connected with the influential Chideock family, who briefly served as controller of customs in the port of Poole in the early summer of 1455, and it was also he who set his seal to the Somerset election indentures to the Parliaments of 1431, 1449 (Feb.), 1450, 1453 and 1460 (on the last occasion being distinguished as ‘John Mauncell senior’.3 CPR, 1452-61, p. 202; C219/14/2; 15/6; 16/1, 2; KB9/295/36, 40; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/759. He died not long before 5 Feb. 1472, when a writ of diem clausit extremum in his name was issued to the escheator of Somerset.4 CFR, xxi. 6. Few details of the younger man’s career can be ascertained beyond his two spells in the Commons, and it would be tempting to ascribe even these to the putative father, did the return not explicitly style the MP ‘junior’. The background to Mauncell’s return in uncertain. The family held property in Bridgwater, and the older John periodically attested property deeds there.5 HMC Wells, ii. 680; C1/545/53. Certainly, Mauncell’s services in the Commons came cheap: in 1453 he and his colleague William Ward* between them received just 40s. in wages for a Parliament that had altogether lasted for over 21 weeks.6 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, no. 774.

The full extent of the Mauncell lands has not been established, nor is it clear whether (and if so, when) John ever gained seisin of them. In June 1457 the elder John Mauncell had settled his holdings in North Petherton and Taunton on his son Robert and the latter’s descendants, but if later claims by the MP’s son and heir are correct, the estates had eventually passed to the younger John.7 C1/545/53; CAD, iv. A9690; VCH Som. vi. 296. Few other details of Mauncell’s career have been discovered. In May 1472, not long after the other John’s death, he availed himself of the general pardon then offered by Edward IV, perhaps in connexion with the guarantees he had offered some time earlier for the payment of an annual rent to Agnes, widow of his brother William and now wife of Roger Kemys*.8 C67/49, m. 28; CCR, 1468-76, no. 1568; C1/41/21. It was, however, probably yet another namesake who in 1481 (then for his part styled ‘junior’) was suing the executors of Edith, widow of Richard Thornbury*, for 40 marks.9 CP40/878, rot. 292d.

Mauncell died shortly before 5 Feb. 1488.10 CFR, xxii. 153, 223. He was succeeded by his son Marmaduke, who in time contracted a marriage alliance with the important Vowell family of Wells.11 C1/545/53; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 953; VCH Som. vi. 296. Mauncell’s daughter Maud married the Middle Temple lawyer and Bristol MP Thomas Jubbes†.12 PCC 7 Hogen (PROB11/25, ff. 32v-33); The Commons 1509-58, ii. 456.