REMPSTON, Robert

The Rempstons held property in Godlingston, about a mile from Swanage, and Robert’s stepmother Edith brought to her marriage dower lands from her former husband, John Walsh.2 CP40/536, rot. 302. His father died before December 1409 when Edith obtained a licence from Bishop Hallum of Salisbury to have religious services celebrated in the oratory of her house in the parish of Corfe Castle.3 Reg. Hallum (Canterbury and York Soc. lxxii), 809. Robert had come into his inheritance by November 1411 when he settled property in Swanage on his sister Cecily and her husband Thomas Starcliff.4 Dorset Hist. Centre, Weld of Lulworth Castle mss, D/WLC/T166. The property reverted to him later, bef. Nov. 1448, after the Starcliffs died without issue: Hutchins, i. 669-70. In the following year he was said to have landed holdings at Godlingston, Swanage, Wareham and Croft worth £20 p.a., and to these he later added messuages and land in the Isle of Purbeck and elsewhere in east Dorset.5 Feudal Aids, ii. 72, 109; vi. 426; Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 280-1, 337. He was zealous in exerting his claims to land he coveted, as the manuscript known as the ‘Godlingston roll’ reveals. The roll, drawn up by Rempston himself, sets out in detail his title to the manor of Godlingston, which he said had been sold to his great-uncle Master John Corf or Cok by the latter’s cousin Ralph Talbot, the last legitimate heir of the Talbot family of east Dorset. It also set out his title to certain lands and tenements in Godlingston and Woolgarston which he said had been purchased by his father but which Stephen Mathew claimed in the 1420s as a descendant of the Talbots. Mathew was supported by his mother and her second husband John Estoke, who agreed to meet Rempston at Godlingston where their evidences might be examined, but later at a loveday held at Corfe Castle the lawyer John Newburgh II* declared in support of Mathew’s claim, which Rempston noted was ‘a false title, let it be remarked’. Rempston accepted the validity of settlements of other property on Estoke’s widow in 1427, while keeping an interest in remainder. The dispute between him and Mathew seems to have eventually been brought to an end by Rempston buying his opponent out, but he did not do so until 1443.6 Hutchins, i. 662-8; Dorset Feet of Fines, 336-7, 363; Weld of Lulworth mss, D/WLC/T42. Rempston’s acquisitiveness is also suggested by allegations made in the mid 1420s that on several occasions and with a great multitude of men he had broken the free chase of Purbeck, held by the King as guardian of the young John Beaufort, earl of Somerset.7 C1/6/177. His purchase in 1435 from John Westbury† of property in Wareham and Rollington was recorded in the earl’s court at Corfe Castle, as well as in the court of common pleas.8 Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 95; Dorset Feet of Fines, 347; C146/10072; SC2/169/12. In addition, Rempston held two tenements and a curtilage in the county town of Dorchester until 1437, when he conveyed them to John Martin I*.9 Dorchester Recs. ed. Mayo, 284.

As his concern for the legality of his title to land indicates, Rempston was a practised lawyer. In an active career spanning 50 years, he came into contact with many of the leading gentry of Dorset, who held him in high regard. His first appearance in the records, in 1405, was as a mainpernor in the Exchequer for William Filoll†, afterwards a knight of the shire,10 CFR, xii. 312. and five years later he was named as an executor of the will of John Savage of Long Critchell, a former escheator, who left him a sword.11 Reg. Hallum, 698; CCR, 1409-13, p. 214; 1435-41, p. 483. On 11 occasions between 1410 and 1442 he attended the Dorset elections to Parliament, and besides attesting the election indentures then drawn up at Dorchester he also bore witness to the result of the elections held at Wareham six times in the years 1421 to 1431. Rempston’s public service included acting as a collector of parliamentary subsidies three times and as a member of several ad hoc commissions. Nevertheless, in 1414 process was made against him at the Exchequer for recovery of goods allegedly taken from a ship belonging to the Cosinati of Genoa which had been wrecked on the Dorset coast in a tempest 27 years earlier. When he and other men of Purbeck finally appeared to answer at Easter 1425 they said they knew nothing about the ship or its cargo, and they were allowed to go free.12 E159/201, recorda Easter rot. 9. Rempston was called to serve on juries at Dorchester, notably at the assize of novel disseisin held in March 1414 in the suit between the abbess of Tarrent and Sir Robert Turberville†, and at the inquisition post mortem in April 1425 following the death of Edmund, earl of March.13 C260/127/7c; CIPM, xxii. 486.

Several members of the Dorset gentry asked Rempston to be a trustee of their landed holdings. Thus, he was enfeoffed of various manors in east Dorset belonging to Robert Derby (d.1420), the son and heir of Sir Stephen†, and acted in the interest of his widow Michaela,14 CCR, 1419-22, p. 161; 1441-7, p. 2; CPR, 1422-9, p. 325; C139/64/28, 109/26. and his trusteeship of the property of Richard Byle* of Wareham brought him into association with John Newburgh I*. Rempston maintained close links with Newburgh and his family, who lived near him, even though, as we have seen, John’s son questioned the veracity of his title deeds. Newburgh stood surety for him at the Exchequer in May 1423 when he obtained keeping of property in East Purbeck on a ten-year lease, and later that year enfeoffed him of his estates in Somerset and Dorset.15 Dorset Feet of Fines, 296; CP25(1)/291/65/17; CFR, xv. 36; xvi. 204. Another associate, who also stood surety for him, was William Gerard*, a neighbour from Wareham. Links with the Newburghs, father and son, long continued, and when in 1440 John II arranged for his elder daughter to marry the Wiltshire landowner John Lye* of Flamston, he stipulated that Rempston should be among the group of advisers who would decide the level of compensation to be paid to him from her maternal inheritance if her sister should happen to die within a year.16 Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 96; Dorset Feet of Fines, 345; Harl. Ch. 54 D 18. Naturally, Rempston was included on the list of men of Dorset required to take oath in 1434 not to maintain those who broke the peace, and he was among the distinguished witnesses to letters patent of the abbot of Cerne, dated in the abbey’s chapter house on 9 Nov. 1436.17 CPR, 1429-36, p. 382; 1446-52, p. 550.

Although Rempston did not often take briefs as an attorney in the central courts at Westminster,18 CP40/720, rot. 293. he was a litigious man, bringing several lawsuits on his own account. These frequently involved charges of trespass on his lands (including an allegation against men of Corfe for forcibly breaking his closes), pleas of debt, sometimes amounting to as much as £50, the theft of a goblet and a pyx, breach of contract by a carpenter, and the devaluation of his property by the damage done by tenants. Nor did all of the defendants in Rempston’s suits come from Dorset. Thomas Langford*, a goldsmith from Wells, was outlawed for failing to appear in court to answer his accusations, and he sued the abbot of Forde abbey in Devon for unjustly detaining a bond.19 KB27/646, rot. 49; 661, rot. 80d; 667, rot. 3d; CP40/657, rot. 395; 667, rot. 366; 680, rot. 168; 691, rot. 51; 696, rot. 44; 738, rot. 189d; 753, rot. 15; 773, rot. 33d; 779, rot. 514d; CPR, 1446-52, p. 194. He brought other pleas in his capacity as executor of Joan, widow of John Fauntleroy of Marsh.20 CP40/738, rot. 189d. Given that he must often have travelled to Westminster it is surprising that he was only elected to Parliament once, in 1442. It is also surprising that he was returned for Shaftesbury rather than for the borough of Wareham, situated closer to his home and where he had property in the parish of St. Martin.21 Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 104. Rempston did, however, own a messuage in Shaftesbury, which to some extent qualified him to represent the borough in Parliament, and seven years earlier he had joined William Morton* and William Catte* in a suit which they brought in person in the court of common pleas against a local draper and two chaplains, who had conspired to disturb their title to other properties in the town.22 CP40/699, rot. 437d; C139/166/24. One of the knights of the shire who accompanied him to the Commons, and whose election he attested, was his old colleague John Newburgh II.

The death of Rempston’s only son and namesake (called ‘the younger, gentleman’ in 1445),23 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 281-2. For Rempston’s settlement of jointure and dower on Robert junior’s wid. in 1447, see I.o.W. RO, Brook mss, AC95/32.68, 69. may have been a factor in his decision to grant his manor of Hymbury and lands in Sturminster Marshall to the priory of Christchurch Twynham in Hampshire. He made the grant on 27 Feb. 1448, just 15 days after obtaining the necessary royal licence for an alienation in mortmain. The prior agreed to continue to pay the rent due from the property to Sir Theobald Gorges alias Russell*.24 Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 102; CPR, 1446-52, p. 126; C143/451/5. One of Rempston’s two daughters, Elizabeth, had also died before this date. He had contracted a good match for her, with Walter Payn, the son and heir of William Payn† (d.1426) of Lulworth, sometime steward of Corfe and stepfather of John Newburgh I. This son-in-law was party to the transactions completed at the end of 1449 in which Rempston and his wife entailed the manor of Godlingston and various of their property holdings elsewhere, to the benefit of their issue, with remainder in default to John Newburgh II and his wife Alice.25 Dorset Feet of Fines, 370-1; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 30 (1st endnote for William Payn† of Weymouth). When Rempston died, on 10 Nov. 1456, his heirs were found to be his other daughter, Isabel, the wife of Walter Haket, and his grand-daughter Joan Payn. The Hakets had been given a reversionary interest in property in Wimbourne Minster ten years earlier.26 C139/166/24. Later, the widowed Isabel married (as his second wife) John Carent the elder, of the prominent Somerset family, and after Carent’s death in 1478 an esquire called John Coke (fl.1503).27 Hutchins, iv. 111-12; C1/505/60-67. Following her death the Rempston lands were divided between her daughters.28 Hutchins, i. 667, 718; iv. 74.