NELOND, John

This MP’s family was established in Sussex by the late fourteenth century, and his putative father, William Nelond, represented the borough of East Grinstead in 1388. John was associated with William and the latter’s wife in 1402, in a suit at the assizes held at East Grinstead, in which they alleged that they had been wrongfully dispossessed of land at Horsted Keynes. He acted as the couple’s attorney in court, and it may be that he had received a formal training in the law.3 JUST1/1512, rots. 52d, 65d. His own landed interests were focused on East Grinstead, and in March 1409 he assigned to William and his wife an annual rent of 40s. from his property there known as ‘Kentwynes’. Subsequently, in 1416, he also acquired the Sussex manor of Bevingdean.4 VCH Suss. vii. 225; Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 210, 217-18, 226; CCR, 1409-13, p. 65. In the early years of the century the Nelonds had established an important connexion with the monks at the great Cluniac priory of Lewes, where John’s brother Thomas became a member of the monastic community. John himself entered the service of the priory, seemingly in the capacity of a land agent, or administrator of the priory estates. This service took him to Norfolk, where by the spring of 1410 he had been enfeoffed of lands belonging to the priory at Hitcham, Walpole and Westwalton, and that same year the prior and convent obtained a licence from the Crown enabling him and Simon Baret to grant to the priory in mortmain other property in the neighbourhood which he and Baret had recently acquired, no doubt with this purpose in mind. Other transactions concerning the priory’s holdings in Norfolk were completed later, after the promotion of Nelond’s brother Thomas to be prior of Lewes in 1414. On the death of Prior Thomas in 1429 arrangements were made for masses to be said in the conventual church not only for the soul of the deceased but also, in the future, for the souls of John and his wife.5 F. Blomefield, Norf. ix. 111-12, 132-4; x. 307-12; Lewes Cart. (Norf. Rec. Soc. xii), pp. x-xi, no. 222; CPR, 1408-13, p. 197; CAD, ii. A2905, 2940, 3144; iii. A5547; VCH Suss. ii. 68-70. Nelond turned his local knowledge of the land-market in Norfolk to his own advantage, by investing in property there himself. By 1432 he had acquired some 210 acres, a water-mill and 34s. of rent in Hitcham, Walpole and elsewhere, his tenure being confirmed in July that year when a Lincolnshire gentleman, Sir Philip Retford, recognized his title and promised that he and his feoffees would not be ejected from these holdings.6 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 187-8.

Despite his business in Norfolk, the focus of Nelond’s activities remained concentrated at East Grinstead. Earlier in his career he had established an amicable relationship with a prominent local landowner, Thomas St. Cler, who in October 1416 named him as an executor of his will along with the testator’s wife Margaret.7 Reg. Chichele, ii. 97. Dealing with St. Cler’s estate led the two executors to form a liaison, and before too long Nelond became Margaret’s third husband and joint holder of the life interests she held in her previous husbands’ estates. Margaret’s origins were as illustrious as Nelond’s were obscure: she was the daughter of Sir John Philipot, perhaps the wealthiest Londoner of his day, and even though she was not Sir John’s heir she had expectations of gaining some share of her father’s substantial estates in London and Middlesex, for before his death in 1384 Philipot had promised her the reversion of certain properties which had formerly belonged to the vintner John Stodeye†, tenements in the Old Change and his mansion at Stepney. In the event, however, Philipot’s widow, to whom he had left a handsome interest for life in almost all his holdings in and around London, proved to be extremely durable and lived on until 1431, three decades after the death of her fourth husband, Adam Bamme†. Nevertheless, before her marriage to Nelond Margaret had managed to acquire at least some property at Stepney, which in 1412 was said to be worth £10 p.a.8 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 56; Cal. Wills ct. Husting London ed. Sharpe, ii. 275-6; Med. London Widows ed. Barron and Sutton, 89-90; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 277-8. Furthermore, her father had negotiated for her a valuable jointure on her first marriage, made long before in the early 1380s. These estates, belonging to her first husband’s family, included lands along the valley of the river Tarrant in Dorset, and part of the manor of Pennington in Hampshire. These she leased out to the Stourtons in transactions confirmed by her nephew John Philipot.9 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 168-9, 241, 263; VCH Hants, v. 118-91; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 171, 173; Feudal Aids, ii. 349, 372. Margaret’s second husband, Thomas St. Cler, being a younger son, was not especially wealthy, yet even so he had inherited the manor of Preston Capes in Northamptonshire, worth £20 p.a., and a fourth part of estates at Kemsing and Woodland in Kent, held in gavelkind, and he had also purchased lands of his own worth £10 p.a. at East Grinstead, as well as more at nearby Lingfield, across the county border in Surrey. His elder brother Sir Philip St. Cler had also settled on him and his wife a quit rent of ten marks a year from the Sussex manor of Brambletye.10 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 277-8; CIPM, xxii. 81. Thomas St. Cler’s death in 1416 left Margaret a prosperous widow, receiving an income from his lands in Kent, Northamptonshire, Surrey and Sussex to add to her existing revenues from the atte Hale estates in Dorset.11 C138/19/25; CCR, 1413-19, pp. 323, 328.

By marrying Margaret St. Cler, Nelond fulfilled the qualifications of an esquire expected to take up the honour of knighthood, and to serve the Crown in the localities. He was appointed to ad hoc royal commissions in Sussex from 1420 onwards, and in 1422 he was also appointed as a j.p., although this position he held only briefly. Four years later he was elected to the Parliament summoned to Leicester, as MP for the borough of Reigate, with which he appears to have had no connexion other than the geographical proximity of his lands at East Grinstead. It is possible, however, that he was associated in some way with Beatrice, the widowed countess of Arundel, who held the manor of Reigate as part of her dower. A link may have been established through St. Cler, whose connexion with Beatrice’s late husband Thomas, earl of Arundel, had been a close one, bringing with it an annuity of £20. Five years earlier Nelond had served on a commission charged with investigating allegations against Walter Urry*, accused of ‘pretending’ to be an agent of the countess in order to remove cargoes of wine from two foreign vessels which had foundered on the Sussex coast.12 CPR, 1416-22, p. 329; CIMisc. vii. 606. Yet while St. Cler and Urry were certainly of the affinity of the late earl and his widow, there is no firm evidence to show that Nelond was similarly retained.

The reversion of his wife’s St. Cler jointure and dower belonged to her late husband’s nephew, also named Thomas, the heir to the principal St. Cler estates, spread over several counties and of considerable value.13 CIPM, xxii. 68-92, 359. Soon after attaining his majority in 1423, this hot-tempered young man began to cause trouble by his ungovernable behaviour. On 4 Feb. 1424 he called on his aunt’s husband Nelond, together with Robert, Lord Poynings, and two other men from Sussex to stand surety on his behalf that he would keep the peace towards one John Wykhurst, having promised them the day before that he would save them harmless for their undertaking. St. Cler was bound over in 100 marks and his mainpernors in £20 each, but on 5 Dec. 1425 he violently assaulted at Clerkenwell one of the feoffees of his estates, the Sussex lawyer John Halle†, thus commencing a vendetta which was to last for several years. St. Cler was arrested and placed in Ludgate prison, and his mainpernors were hauled before the barons of the Exchequer the following summer. Accordingly, that July Lord Poynings and Nelond, recently returned from Parliament, forfeited their bonds, and St. Cler was kept in prison until he satisfied the Crown of 100 marks.14 CCR, 1422-9, p. 136; E159/202, recorda Trin. rot. 1; 203, recorda Mich. rot. 4. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 272. On the previous 4 Feb. Nelond had prevailed upon St. Cler to confirm the estate for life which he and his wife had in the St. Cler manors of Preston Capes and Wolde in Northamptonshire, with a grant of the same to Nelond’s issue, though with reversion in default to St. Cler. Shortly afterwards, on 20 Aug., St. Cler released Nelond of all personal actions, and in October he confirmed to him and his wife, for term of their lives, a gift of the manors of Aldeham and Woodland together with other lands in Kent. All this may have been to recompense Nelond for his losses. Furthermore, in July 1430 St. Cler not only permitted them to make waste on the Kent lands without threat of prosecution, but more importantly in a formal quitclaim he conveyed to them and to Nelond’s heirs his late uncle’s lands in Lingfield and East Grinstead.15 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 212, 323, 345; 1429-35, pp. 64; VCH Suss. vii. 256; VCH Northants, iv. 201. Meanwhile, Nelond had taken the opportunity of settling the manor of Bevingdean on himself and his wife, before subsequently selling it to John Gaynesford I*.16 VCH Suss. vii. 225.

Nelond made his will on 6 Apr. 1437, following it at the end of the month with a codicil. He asked to be buried in Lewes priory, close to the tomb of his brother Thomas, the late prior, or failing that in the new choir of East Grinstead parish church. Not surprisingly, the current prior of Lewes was appointed, along with the testator’s wife and Robert Frampton, one of the barons of the Exchequer, to supervise the work of Nelond’s executors, and bequests were made to clergy and other members of the monastic community. The bulk of his charitable bequests, however, were directed to the church at East Grinstead: he asked his executors to spend ten marks on the construction of the new choir, £5 on the new south porch and the same amount for benches and ‘deskes’ to be made by a local carpenter for the chapel of St. Mary, where his wife’s previous husband St. Cler had been buried. He also left 6d. each to poor men and women in East Grinstead, Lingfield and four other nearby parishes. These works of charity were to be funded from the sale of Nelond’s properties in East Grinstead and Lingfield which was to be carried out by John Gaynesford I, one of his executors. Various other bequests were made to individuals such as Nelond’s young godson John Parker V* of Lewes and Nicholas Gaynesford* (John’s son), to whom he left 20s. each. Finally, Margaret was left the contents of what appears to have been a large residence at East Grinstead as well as the house the couple had acquired at Clerkenwell in London. Margaret had probably passed child-bearing age by the time she married Nelond, and no children are mentioned in the will which was proved on 20 July the same year. Margaret survived her husband and lived on until 1438. She was buried next to her father in the Greyfriars church in London.17 PCC 21 Luffenam (PROB11/3, ff. 168v-69v); Collectanea Topographica et Geneaologica ed. Nichols, v. 285.