PYGOT, John

John Pygot represented the senior branch of a family which, long established at Doddington, near Lincoln, added Cardington in Bedfordshire to its inheritance in the early fourteenth century as heir to a ninth part of the barony of Bedford.1 VCH Beds. iii. 234-5, 295-6. For the family’s early history: R.E.G. Cole, Hist. Doddington, 6-22. His great-grandfather, Sir John† (d.1361), MP for Bedfordshire in the Parliaments of September 1327 and February 1334, divided his estates between the issue of his two wives: the senior line had Doddington and the nearby manor of Thorpe-on-the-Hill, while the Bedfordshire properties passed to the junior line, headed by Sir Baldwin Pygot†.2 CIPM, xi. 171. The premature deaths of John’s father and grandfather meant that it was not until his own career that the Lincolnshire branch of the family came to play a significant part in local affairs.3 According to his inq. post mortem of 1453 our MP was the gds. of Sir John (d.1361): C139/146/17. This is almost certainly a mistake. It is far more probable that he was the gt.-gds., that is, s. of John (b.c.1373), son of Sir John (b.c.1339), son of Sir John (d.1361): CIPM, xi. 171; xvi. 3.

Pygot must have inherited when no more than a baby, but his early life is undocumented. It can be speculatively suggested that he came into the wardship of the abbot of Westminster, from whom the Pygots held their manor of Doddington, and that after his mother’s marriage in 1412 to the wealthy and influential Yorkshire knight Sir John Etton† he spent time at the Etton castle of Gilling. He may have fought in France as a young man, for he is perhaps to be identified with the namesake who served under Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, in the garrison at Harfleur in 1417 and then indented to fight in the campaign of 1421.4 E101/48/17; 70/6/737. Speculation gives way to certainty, however, only with Pygot’s marriage to Elizabeth Beelsby which revived the family’s fortunes and greatly extended its estates. On the death of her brother Thomas, a royal ward, in the autumn of 1429, she inherited the manors of Beelsby and Thorganby near Grimsby, Horsington near Horncastle and those of ‘Swynford fee’ and ‘Brewes fee’ in Harlaxton near Grantham, extended altogether at just under £30 p.a. in an inquisition of 1429. This is certainly an undervaluation: Horsington, extended at £3 p.a., was leased out for eight marks p.a. in 1438. Moreover, the value of the manors would have been greater had not Beelsby, comfortably the largest of them, been in a very poor state of repair: its demesne of 300 acres of arable and 40 acres of meadow were valued at nothing above the cost of repairing the site of the manor with its dovecot and water-mill.5 CIPM, xxiii. 380-1; Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Horsington deeds 112; A.C. Sinclair, Beelsby, ped. facing p. 26. Elizabeth’s stepfa., Sir Godfrey Hilton†, who had had the keeping of the inheritance during the minority of her brother, may have been responsible for its poor condition: CFR, xiv. 156, 202; xv. 30. In 1438 Pygot had an action of debt pending against him: CP40/708, rot. 42d. On 24 Feb. 1430 the Lincolnshire escheator was ordered to deliver this delapidated inheritance to Elizabeth and Pygot, who had probably married before her brother’s death.6 CFR, xv. 305-6. This gave John an extensive, but scattered, estate. In 1436 his annual income was assessed at £60, an assessment that would have been greater had not his mother, rated at £28 p.a., held part of his paternal inheritance in dower.7 E179/136/198. Not all of his mother’s income was derived from Pygot lands. After Etton’s death in 1433, she continued to hold his manor of Kirkburn (Yorks.) in jointure: The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 38. She was still alive in 1440 but dead by 16 Dec. 1446: W. Yorks. Archive Service, Leeds, Ingilby deeds 114, 120. In Easter term 1447 our MP, as her executor, pleaded in the Exchequer a pardon of the previous June against an obligation to acct. for Etton’s custodianship of Roxburgh castle: E159/223, recorda, Easter rot. 6; C67/39, m. 48.

References to Pygot before his election to Parliament are infrequent. By far the most interesting of these is the appeal lodged against him in the court of King’s bench in Hilary term 1428. Joan, widow of one John Warde, alleged that on the previous 10 Aug. Pygot had fatally wounded her husband with a sword. This accusation cannot be placed in the context of any known local feud, but the case does serve to show how well connected the accused was, even in the early years of his career. Before being found not guilty before the Lincolnshire justices of assize on 3 Mar. 1429 he was able to call upon an impressive group of mainpernors for his successive appearances in court. In Hilary term 1428 these included two of the Members sitting in the Parliament then in session at Westminster – the Rutland knight of the shire Sir Thomas Burton* and the Lincoln MP Robert Walsh*– and in the following terms they were replaced by, among others, Ivo Etton (a younger son of his mother’s second husband), the Yorkshire knight Sir Richard Pickering* and Walter Strickland I*.8 KB27/667, rot. 20.

The suspicion that Pygot had been involved in a murder did not deter the Lincolnshire electors from returning him to Parliament at hustings held on 31 Mar. 1432. His election, in company with Geoffrey Paynell*, presents some noteworthy features. It was the only occasion in Henry VI’s reign that both the MPs came from the parts of Kesteven. Further, as many as 55 of the 61 attestors to the return also came from those parts, a preponderance that can hardly have been accidental. It is tempting to conclude that the two MPs mobilized their neighbours, but there was no particular close correlation between the residences of the MPs and those of the attestors, who were drawn more or less evenly from Kesteven as a whole.9 S.J. Payling, ‘County Parlty. Elections’, Parlty. Hist. xviii. 253, 255-6. Whatever the reason for Pygot’s election, it may have contributed to bringing him an unwelcome appointment: in the November after the dissolution he was pricked to the financially-burdensome office of sheriff of Lincolnshire.

Thereafter Pygot may have undertaken further military service. The fact that he was knighted in about September 1436 suggests he took part in the Calais campaign of that year.10 He was styled ‘knight alias esquire’ in Easter term 1437: CP40/705, rot. 162. The possibility that he had fought in France under Henry V and, as noted below, his connexions with several notable soldiers provide further indirect evidence in support of this supposition. The remainder of his career is only intermittently documented. In November 1443, at a time when a large number of Lincolnshire landowners were suing out exemptions from office, he was again nominated to the shrievalty but refused to act. His refusal to fill an office which so many were taking active steps to avoid is understandable (indeed, the first man nominated to replace him, Robert Fauconberge, offered to go to prison rather than serve), but it caused the government acute embarrassment for it left the county without a sheriff until the following May.11 R.M. Jeffs, ‘Later Med. Sheriff’ (Oxf. Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1960), 61-62. In November 1446 Pygot got himself into difficulties of another sort: a powerful commission, headed by Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby, and Ralph, Lord Cromwell, was appointed to investigate riots arising from his dispute with his Nottinghamshire neighbour, William Meryng*. Regrettably, no indictments, if any were taken, survive.12 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 40-41; KB27/742, rots. 125, 139d.

Pygot’s career was not, on this evidence, a notable or distinguished one, but he did have a surprising breadth of connexion among the gentry of the north and Midlands. In September 1436 he was one of those to whom Sir John Bertram*, one of his colleagues in the Parliament of 1432 and with whom his stepfather, Etton, had served as keeper of Roxburgh castle, committed his Northumbrian estates.13 CCR, 1447-54, p. 209. Bertram was a soldier, as was Sir Thomas Burton, who had stood surety for Pygot in 1428, and Sir Henry Retford of Castlethorpe (Lincolnshire), for whom our MP offered surety in the same year. This raises the possibility that these associations were formed during shared military service. Equally significant in this context is a suit in the court of common pleas in Hilary term 1445. A London draper, John Bederenden*, in right of his wife, Joan, sued Pygot and Sir William Plumpton* (who was, incidentally, also one of the Bertram feoffees), for the Northamptonshire manors of Northborough and Etton. These manors were owned by Sir Thomas Rempston†, one of the most famous soldiers of his generation, and it is probable that Pygot was being sued as one of his feoffees.14 CP40/736, rot. 111; 746, rot. 299d; CFR, xv. 205.

Other of Pygot’s connexions were forged through neighbourhood. Since his paternal estates lay on the Nottinghamshire border it was natural that he should have found associates in that county. He is particularly often found in company with the Leeks of Cotham and their various junior branches. In 1412 Sir John Leek† and his son Simon† had served as feoffees for his mother’s jointure when she married Sir John Etton; in 1419 our MP offered mainprise for Simon’s younger brother, John Leek† of Hickling (Nottinghamshire); and in 1434 he served as a feoffee for the settlement of jointures on Simon’s daughters and coheiresses, Anne and Mary, on their marriages to Richard Willoughby* and Sir Giles Daubeney* respectively.15 CCR, 1409-13, p. 337; 1429-35, p. 308; CFR, xiv. 266; Add. Ch. 76721-2; Nottingham Univ. Lib., Middleton mss, Mi D 3372/2-4. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 582-3, conflates John Leek of Hickling with his younger cousin and namesake, son of Ralph Leek of Halam and coroner of Notts.

Nevertheless, it was from Lincolnshire rather than Nottinghamshire that Pygot drew his own feoffees. Before his death on 24 Oct. 1450 he conveyed his paternal inheritance to Richard, son and heir apparent of Lionel, Lord Welles, and two relatives of his wife by marriage, Godfrey Hilton of Irnham and Richard Thymelby of Holton-le-Moor.16 For this and most of what follows: C1/38/264. Since he had no issue he instructed them not simply to allow his widow a life interest in the estate but to convey it to her in fee, perhaps in fulfilment of a condition in their marriage contract. As so often in such cases the purpose of these instructions was of doubtful legality. The estates concerned had been entailed by Sir John Pygot (d.1361), and difficulties inevitably arose. On 15 Aug. 1451 John Bendish of Hadleigh (Suffolk), said to be our MP’s cousin and heir, quitclaimed his interest in Doddington to the widow, and by final concord levied in 1453 completed this process of surrender.17 CCR, 1447-54, p. 284; CP25(1)/145/161/4. He was a descendant of one Elizabeth Pygot (whose place in the family ped. is uncertain) by Sir Walter, 3rd son of Sir William Clopton (d.1378) of Hinxton, Cambs.: J. Copinger, Suff. Manors, iii. 165; CIPM, xv. 18. Yet, while Bendish certainly had a claim, he was not the only claimant. It was probably to remedy this doubt about the identity of the correct heir, in the resolution of which the Crown had a vested interest, that a special commission issued out of Chancery in July 1452 to inquire into Pygot’s lands and heir.18 CPR, 1446-52, p. 582. No inq. had been taken on his death because, of his own lands as opposed to his wife’s, he was a tenant of the abbot of Westminster rather than the Crown. For an unknown reason the commissioners were slow to act. It was not until 30 Oct. 1453, more than three years after John’s death, that a Lincolnshire jury, sitting before Robert Sheffeld*, returned the royal ward, John Gascoigne (b.c.1433), son of James Gascoigne* and the representative of the Cardington branch of the Pygots, as his heir general and heir-in-tail.19 C139/146/17; Cole, 23-24.

The findings of this inquisition did not, however, disturb Pygot’s widow in the possession of his lands. She continued to treat them as though she held them in fee. In 1468 she sold them, in remainder after her death, to Sir Thomas Burgh†, for what appears to be a bargain price of 300 marks. One of Pygot’s feoffees, Godfrey Hilton, perhaps as a reaction to this low price or to protect the interests of the heir-in-tail, refused to countenance the sale, and Burgh was obliged to sue him in Chancery.20 Cole, 26; C1/38/264. The outcome of this suit is unknown (and it may have been collusive), but Elizabeth continued to take the profits of the disputed lands until her death in 1473. The jurors at her inquisition post mortem wisely chose to avoid controversy. They related the story of the sale to Burgh and returned Thomas Bendish as Pygot’s kinsman and heir without specifying his descent. Significantly they made no mention of the mid fourteenth-century entail.21 C140/47/62; Cole, 27. Her wealth had made Elizabeth an attractive bride and after Pygot’s death she had taken two further husbands: first, in the autumn of 1452 the committed Lancastrian, William Vaux*, and then, in the church of St. Margaret’s, Lincoln, in 1461, John Stanley, the son of John Stanley I*.22 Leics. RO, Shangton mss, 34D56/86; Lincs. Archit. and Arch. Soc. v. 51. It is the political sympathies of her second husband which explain why, in 1460, her feoffees in the manor of Horsington were headed by three militant Lancastrians: Thomas Roos, Lord Roos, Richard Welles, Lord Willoughby, and Ranulph Dacre*, Lord Dacre.23 Magdalen Coll. Horsington deed 111.