NOTTE, John

Like many of the representatives of the smaller boroughs of the south-west in the late 1440s and 1450s, John Notte cannot be identified with absolute certainty. His was a name frequently applied to fictitious witnesses and sureties in official documents. This was probably true of the man cited as one of the sureties for the attendance of the Salisbury MP Walter Shirley* in the Parliament of 1415.1 C219/11/7. There were, of course, also genuine Nottes. Thomas Notte* of Corsham had represented the Wiltshire borough of Great Bedwyn in 1450, and a John Notte, a probable kinsman of his, was empanelled alongside him on a local jury at a view of frankpledge in July 1453, while Parliament was in recess.2 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 12-15, 33-36. Either this or another John Notte died before 1461, when his widow Felicity and son, another John, quitclaimed lands in Etchilhampton and Stert in central Wiltshire to Robert Frampton and John Filoll*.3 Wilts. RO, Money-Kyrle mss, 1720/281.

Westbury had been enfranchised in 1449 with a view to provide parliamentary seats for the nominees of the King’s administration, and throughout the 1450s the burgesses’ choices were frequently overridden. This was the case in 1453, when Notte’s name was inserted into the sheriff’s indenture over an erasure. If John had benefited from connexions at court, it is possible that he owed his election to the influence of the treasurer of the Household, John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton. A John Notte had found sureties for Stourton’s parliamentary attendance as knight of the shire for Wiltshire in December 1421,4 C219/12/6. and either he or another man served as an attorney for Stourton’s uncle, John I*, at the Exchequer in 1433.5 E159/209, recorda Hil., rot. 9. In 1470, a John Notte (probably a younger man) was among a group of men pardoned alongside Sir Reynold Stourton, younger brother of William Stourton*, Lord Stourton, for offences committed before 1 May of that year.6 CPR, 1467-77, p. 208. It may be significant that when Notte was returned for Westbury in 1453, William Stourton’s wife had only recently come into her inheritance, including her share in the title to the manor of Westbury.