WOLFFE, John

The Wolffes were an old Devon family who had held the manor of Kentisbury (in Braunton hundred) since the early fourteenth century. An earlier head of the family, Richard Wolffe†, had represented the borough of Plympton in Parliament in the reign of Edward III, but thereafter no other Wolffe is known to have entered the Commons until the later years of Henry VI. John’s early life is obscure, but he had evidently succeeded to the family property by 1435, when he first presented to the parish church of Kentisbury.8 Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 407; ii. 635; Reg. Lacy, i (Canterbury and York Soc. lx), 106. Their principal manor aside, the family’s landholdings were modest, consisting in a main of a number of burgage plots in Combe Martin and Oakhampton, and scattered property in Stockenbridge, Bolberry Alyn (apparently acquired by John himself from a London tailor in November 1456), and Canworthy, altogether thought to return annual revenues of some £17.9 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 798; C141/1/12; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 175-6.

It is not clear when or how the young John Wolffe came to the attention of the wealthy and influential bishop of Winchester, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, but he was serving as one of the cardinal’s esquires by early 1447, when he was rewarded with the joint keepership of the episcopal park of Stoke near Marwell in Hampshire. When Beaufort died a few months later, Wolffe seems to have moved seamlessly into the service of his successor, Bishop Waynflete. Although the new bishop did not issue Wolffe (then styled his serviens et armiger) with fresh letters of appointment until April 1478, he apparently did not reassign the keepership of Stoke to another man in the interim. A few years later, in the summer of 1455, Wolffe played a pivotal part in the transactions surrounding the re-endowment of Cardinal Beaufort’s collegiate hospital of St. Cross in Winchester of which Waynflete now became patron.10 Harriss, 371-2; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 147-8. It is thus probable that he was already an important member of Waynflete’s familia when he was returned to the Commons for the bishop’s borough of Taunton in March 1453. The Parliament witnessed the loss of the remaining English possessions in Gascony and the onset of Henry VI’s mental illness, but there is no indication of what part, if any, Wolffe played in the deliberations of the Commons. As a result of the King’s incapacity the Parliament remained in recess for most of the second half of the year, and the routine business of the administration was delayed as the lords debated what arrangements should be put in place. It was thus only in early December (a month later than normal) that new escheators were appointed for the English shires. Among the men nominated was Wolffe, who probably owed his appointment for his native bailiwick of Devon and Cornwall to the championship of his episcopal patron.

Wolffe is not known to have been re-elected to the Parliament summoned in the summer of 1455 in the immediate aftermath of the battle of St. Albans, but it is probable that as a member of the household of the scheming bishop of Winchester he kept abreast of the political turbulence of the duke of York’s second protectorate and the King’s ultimate recovery. It was this recovery that ushered in a period of political ascendancy for Bishop Waynflete (who was appointed chancellor of England in October 1456), and in consequence a spell of preferment for his servants and clients. By the autumn of 1457 Wolffe was in receipt of livery as a King’s esquire, and was licensed to crenellate and fortify his residence at Kentisbury.11 CChR, vi. 129. That spring he had been granted life-long exemption from Crown office,12 CPR, 1452-61, p. 342. but he seems to have used this privilege only selectively, for in October and November 1458 he accepted appointments to the potentially lucrative posts of deputy butler and controller of customs in the Somerset port of Bridgwater.13 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 459, 460.

Meanwhile, last ditch attempts to bring about a reconciliation between the lords supportive of the duke of York and those adhering to the court party around Queen Margaret had come to nothing, and in the autumn of 1459 there were armed confrontations at Blore Heath and Ludford Bridge. In the immediate aftermath of Blore Heath, a Parliament had been summoned to the Lancastrian stronghold of Coventry, and following the flight of the duke of York, his sons and his Neville allies in the wake of the disintegration of their forces at Ludford, the court party took pains to secure the return of its supporters. Among the men chosen was Wolffe, who was returned for another of Bishop Waynflete’s boroughs, the Wiltshire town of Downton. Central to the Parliament’s deliberations became the attainder of the exiled lords, whose possessions were employed to reward the administration’s supporters. Thus, even in the final days before the dissolution Wolffe was granted the keepership of the earl of Warwick’s former park at Chittlehamholt in Devon.14 V.G. Davis, ‘Bp. Waynflete of Winchester’ (Trin. Coll. Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 262; CCR, 1454-61, p. 410.

Yet the triumph of Queen Margaret’s adherents proved short-lived, and their defeat at the battle of Northampton in the summer of 1460 led to Waynflete’s, and in consequence, Wolffe’s eclipse from power. On 7 July Waynflete was stripped of the great seal, and although he retained enough influence in his own borough of Taunton to secure Wolffe’s return to the Parliament summoned by the new rulers, Wolffe lost his Bridgwater offices before even the first session had ended. Beyond that, Waynflete’s influence was still sufficient to protect Wolffe from wider-ranging reprisals, and he does not appear to have availed himself of the general pardon offered after Edward IV’s accession. He was, however, henceforth restricted to the bishop of Winchester’s service and did not hold any further office under the Crown. Nor, it seems, did the administration formed by the earl of Warwick in the name of the restored Henry VI in the autumn of 1470 require his services: Bishop Waynflete had cautiously refrained from accepting a major part in the shaky regime, and was able to secure a general pardon not long after Edward IV’s victory in May 1471. Wolffe for his part had to wait until later that year before he too was able to procure royal letters.15 H. Kleineke, ‘Gerhard von Wesel’s Newsletter’, Ricardian, xx. 75; C67/48, m. 31.

Wolffe died on 31 Mar. 1483, leaving as his heir his 24-year-old son Anthony,16 CFR, xxi. 717, 737. who survived his father by little more than eight years. At his death in late October 1491 he left only an infant daughter, said to be some 18 months old. The family estates were taken into the King’s hands, and in March 1502 were granted to the Crown servant William Cokesey, but (along with the young heir’s marriage) transferred to Ralph Lepton the following July.17 CFR, xxii. 366; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 798; iii. 905; CPR, 1494-1509, 277-8, 307. Wolffe must be distinguished from two contemporary namesakes who held lands from the bp. of Winchester at Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey. It was the elder of these who in 1458 served as bailiff of Westminster abbey in Surr. and Suss.: E368/230, rot.7; Reg. Common Seal, 369; CPR, 1461-7, p. 510; CCR, 1441-7, p. 214; 1468-76, no. 501; C131/241/8; C1/28/152; 29/366; 39/208; 58/218; C4/54/19. The MP must further be distinguished from a contemporary Exeter merchant: DKR, xlviii. 384; CP40/720, rot. 33d; C244/25/46, m. 2.