NEWBURGH, John I

The Newburghs of Dorset could trace their ancestors back to the Conquest, and were descendants of the first earl of Warwick, albeit belonging to junior line which continued after the failure of the senior branch in 1242. Originally seated at Poorstock, they acquired the manor of Winfrith Newburgh to the north of Lulworth Cove by grant of Henry I, thereafter holding it of the Crown by the serjeanty of offering water in a silver basin for the King to wash his hands on Christmas Day. The manor was often leased out for a lucrative rent. The Newburghs’ estate at East Lulworth, purchased at the end of the thirteenth century, became the principal seat of the family in our period, in particular during the lifetime of our MP’s son, John.6 J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 364-9, 436-7; Feudal Aids, ii. 9, 29, 49; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 38-40. Their ancestor Roger de Newburgh had re-founded Bindon abbey in new buildings on the east side of Lulworth Cove as far back as 1172,7 RCHM Dorset, ii (2), 404. and Roger’s descendants included John†, the shire knight of 1307 and Sir Robert†, who sat in seven Parliaments for Dorset between 1320 and 1330. Part of John’s paternal inheritance fell to him as a ten-year-old early in 1382 following the death of his grandmother Hawise, the widow of Sir Thomas Newburgh, who had held Winfrith Newburgh in jointure. John’s father had died the previous year, leaving his widow, Margaret, possessed of the estate at East Lulworth and the Dorset manor of Horsyth. Young John was taken into royal wardship, and on 7 Feb. 1382 his marriage and the custody of Winfrith were sold for as much as £300 to Sir William Bonville† and John Fittleton.8 CIPM, xv. 567-9; CPR, 1381-5, pp. 94, 333. By 1389, while John was still a minor, his mother married a neighbour, William Payn† of West Lulworth, and in the summer of 1393, probably on his coming of age, the couple made an arrangement with him whereby Margaret’s moiety of the Dorset manor of Stockwood and property in Wiltshire (both part of her own inheritance) would fall after her death to his bride, Joan de la Mere, to hold for her lifetime, with reversion to John and his heirs. In return John agreed that the Payns might keep East Lulworth until they died, whereupon it too would form part of Joan’s jointure.9 Wilts. Feet of Fines, 163; Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 217. At the same time he apparently raised a mortgage of 200 marks on security of the manors of Winfrith and East Lulworth from another Dorset landowner, Sir John Moigne†. He was not formally given seisin of the lands kept by the Crown until November 1394.10 CCR, 1392-6, p. 319; Hutchins, i. 436-7.

A constant ambition of Newburgh and his son John was to make good their claim to the estates of his maternal grandfather Nicholas, the last Lord Poyntz, a matter on which they focused their attention for a century or more after the death of that lord in 1376. The inheritance of John’s mother and her sister Avice had met with challenge, and although their legal actions for possession of the Dorset manors of Stockwood and Broadway eventually proved successful, their suits for that of Tockington in Gloucestershire ended in failure. By 1396 Avice had married (as her second husband) another member of the Newburgh family, John’s kinsman Gilbert,11 CP, x. 673-6; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 129, 209; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 189; Dorset Feet of Fines, 179, 208. only to be widowed again before 1412, by which date John’s mother had died. Avice joined her nephew John in bringing a collusive suit against his stepfather William Payn and others for possession of another part of the Poyntz inheritance, a moiety of the manor of Rockley in Wiltshire, and Rockley fell to him in its entirety subsequently. A year or so later they sued Sir John Tiptoft† and his wife for lands and rents in Isle Abbotts, Somerset, albeit with limited success.12 Wilts. Feet of Fines, 189, 757; VCH Wilts. xii. 144; CP40/603, rot. 397d; Peds. Plea Rolls, 283. For several decades more the Newburghs relentlessly continued their efforts to gain possession of the rest of the Poyntz estates, especially after Avice’s childless death left them as sole heirs to the whole inheritance. For instance, their claim to the manor of Sutton Poyntz and the hundred of Culliford Tree in Dorset, which they seemingly gave up in 1409 when they made a quitclaim to Alice de Bryan, daughter-in-law of the late Lord Bryan, was to be revived many years later.13 CCR, 1405-9, p. 501; CP40/699, rot. 132d. The value of Newburgh’s landed holdings is difficult to ascertain. In 1412 his income was assessed at no more than £43 p.a., but at that date his aunt Avice was still alive, and he had not yet taken possession of East Lulworth, where his stepfather Payn was ensconced. This particular property did not fall to him until quite late in his lifetime, although as he called himself of ‘East Lulworth’ from 1421,14 Dorset Feet of Fines, 296; Feudal Aids, ii. 65, 66, 73. For releases of East Lulworth to him in 1430, see CCR, 1429-35, pp. 95-96. he may have taken up residence there before his stepfather’s death in 1426.15 Feudal Aids, vi. 425; C139/45/34; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 30 (endnote to biog. of William Payn† of Weymouth). Newburgh later accounted in the Exchequer for the issues of a burgage in Wareham which Payn and his 2nd wife and wid. Agnes (d.1430) had held of the young duke of York: E364/65, m. E.

Despite his standing as a tenant-in-chief and the obligations for him to serve in a military capacity, no evidence has been found that Newburgh took part in warfare overseas. He refused to take up knighthood on at least two occasions. Of his interest in the parliamentary representation of his home county there can be no doubt: he frequently attested elections conducted at the shire court at Dorchester from 1414 onwards, doing so at least nine times. Curiously, appointment to royal commissions was delayed until he was in his forties, although his nomination as a commissioner of array in 1416 was followed by the inclusion of his name on the list of Dorset men sent to the Council early in 1420, as being suitable for military service in defence of the realm.16 E28/97, no. 9B. Appointment as sheriff of Somerset and Dorset came later that year. In March 1422, before his term ended, Robert More†, one of the wealthiest landowners of the region died. Newburgh had already taken the opportunity to negotiate with More a profitable match for his son and heir, and in the spring of 1423 he finalized an agreement with More’s widow for the younger John’s espousals with her stepdaughter Edith, who as More’s only child was a notable heiress.17 Hutchins, i. 368.

Besides going to the Exchequer to account for the issues of the shrievalty, Newburgh appeared there on another occasion, on 8 May 1423, to provide sureties for the Dorset lawyer Robert Rempston*, who was one of his feoffees and neighbours.18 CFR, xv. 36; CP25(1)/291/65/17. Suits in the court of common pleas took him back to Westminster in the following year to pursue his claim to another part of the Poyntz inheritance, the manor of Lullingstone Castle in Kent. The justices were credibly informed that there had been collusion between the parties with the intention of annulling the right and title of others, but after adjournments to the Hilary term of 1425, they eventually decided in Newburgh’s favour.19 CP40/653, rot. 126. In the pleadings his mother was called da. and sole h. of Lord Poyntz, so it would seem that his aunt and her line had now expired. See also: CIPM, xxvi. 93. Such legal business at Westminster may have prompted Newburgh to seek election to the Parliament summoned to meet there on the following 30 Apr., and it looks as if his son John, already making a name for himself as a lawyer, joined him in the Commons as an MP for Shaftesbury. While the Parliament was in progress Newburgh was party to transactions regarding the estates of the Dorset family of Chideock, acting in the interests of the heir (Sir) John*.20 CPR, 1422-9, p. 290; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 328-9. Another reason for Newburgh’s return to this particular Parliament may have been an otherwise undocumented involvement in the administration of the estates in Dorset belonging to Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, who died of the plague in Ireland in the previous January. Just ten days before the Parliament assembled he served as a juror at the earl’s inquisition post mortem held at Dorchester.21 CIPM, xxii. 486. His fellow shire knight for the county, Sir Richard Stafford*, had been given the responsibility of assisting the escheator to make investigations about the earl’s estate. The two MPs were on good terms, for not long afterwards, before he sailed for France in 1426, Stafford nominated Newburgh as an executor of his will. Following Stafford’s death Newburgh and his co-executors were held liable at the Exchequer for the non-payment of an annuity for which Stafford had been responsible during his term as sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, and some of their goods were confiscated to pay the debt. They also had to render account at the Exchequer for the issues of the manor of Gussage Bohun, which, having previously belonged to the late earl of March, was currently in the Crown’s wardship during the minority of his heir the duke of York, and had briefly come into Stafford’s keeping.22 E13/138, rot. 2d; E364/69, m. G; SC6/832/9.

Not surprisingly, in 1434 both Newburgh and his son John were listed among the gentry of Dorset required to take the oath against maintenance, with Newburgh senior appearing second on the list after the wealthy Sir Humphrey Stafford* (Sir Richard’s father). Despite this, a year later one of them stood accused of serious disturbances in breach of the peace. It was alleged in April 1435 that a John Newburgh and his men had seized a ship called Sawostane de Garant, which they claimed had sailed into Weymouth harbour in a warlike manner, and carried away its cargo of linen and salt. On receipt of a petition from the owner of the vessel, a Breton merchant, a commission was set up to inquire into the facts and recover the ship.23 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 382, 472. An indication of Newburgh’s standing is his appearance as a witness in company with Lord de la Warre and (Sir) John Stourton II*, to letters patent granted by the abbot of Cerne in the abbey’s chapter house in November 1436.24 CPR, 1446-52, p. 550. Both he and his son had been fined for failing to take up knighthood six years earlier (he himself forfeiting £3 and the younger John four marks), but when summoned to appear in the Exchequer in the summer of 1439 to be fined again our MP sent word that he was unable to attend owing to infirmity and his age of more than 70 years (a slight exaggeration).25 E159/215, recorda Trin. rot. 30. A number of writs were sent out for his arrest, ceasing only after his death, which occurred on 20 Mar. 1444.26 C139/116/44.

Twenty years before his death Newburgh had made settlements of some of his estates in Somerset and Dorset, and further enfeoffments of the same, made in 1434, had been to secure the inheritance of his son,27 CP25(1)/291/65/17; Hutchins, iv. 443. to whom he had transferred lands and tenements in Broadway.28 Feudal Aids, ii. 114. During his lifetime Newburgh had increased the family holdings in Dorset by acquiring the manor of Coombe Keynes: he purchased a moiety from the Brantinghams in Henry IV’s reign (to which his son added the other moiety in 1435), and transactions with Sir John Cressy* in 1441 completed the transfer.29 Hutchins, i. 347; Dorset Feet of Fines, 358-9. Towards the end of his life he had also revived his suit for the manor of Sutton Poyntz,30 CP40/708, rot. 323, 720, rot. 120. This was against (Sir) John Hody* and other feoffees, probably named by the Bryan heiress, Elizabeth, wid. of Robert Lovell*, with whom Newburgh had been engaged in litigation in 1435: CP40/699, rot. 132d. a matter which his son was to pursue with considerable tenacity. Of the marital arrangements Newburgh made for his daughters little is recorded, but it is known that one of them, Edith, married into the old Dorset family of Gouvitz, and when her husband Henry died, in about 1440, he assisted her in the execution of his will. No doubt he also played a part in arranging her second marriage to another heir of estates in east Dorset, William Turberville*, who also boasted an ancient lineage.31 CP40/720, att. rot. 3. Newburgh was buried in the Trinity chapel in Bindon abbey, founded by his ancestors.32 His son John requested burial next to his tomb: PCC 20 Logge. His wife survived him, and was assessed for the subsidy of 1451 on land worth £30 p.a. in Wiltshire.33 E179/196/118.