VEER, Walter

The Veers had been possessed of ‘Vere’s Wotton’ in Symondsbury near Bridport in west Dorset since the thirteenth century, but Walter’s grandmother, one of eight sisters and coheirs of Nicholas Glamorgan (d.c.1362), brought to the family her property at East Standen in Arreton, on the Isle of Wight, and it was there that Walter’s father, John, chose to reside. John’s lands and rents on the island, together with his moiety of the manor of Whitwell there, provided him with an income estimated at £30 p.a. in the tax assessments of 1412, and at that date he also received annual rents of four marks from land in Devon.3 VCH Hants, v. 146, 161, 216n; Feudal Aids, vi. 454. Although John served twice as a tax collector in Hampshire, and as a coroner in the county before 1402, he never attained offices of greater importance. In his brief will dated 30 Nov. 1418 and proved on 29 May following, he asked to be buried in his parish church of St. George in Arreton, and named his widow and son Walter as executors.4 CCR, 1399-1402, p. 451; PCC 44 Marche.

Walter’s elder brother (another John) had predeceased their father, without leaving issue, so Walter inherited the lands on the Isle of Wight. Preferring, however, to live on the mainland, he took up residence across the Solent at Lyndhurst in the New Forest, and his first public office, awarded him in 1423, was that of riding-forester. He may have exceeded his brief: at an unknown date he was sent a writ directing him to desist from charging chiminage on the carts of the warden of Winchester College travelling through the forest, and to release any distraint which he may have taken on that account.5 CPR, 1422-9, p. 139; Winchester Coll. muns. 10745. He had attended the county court at Winchester for the parliamentary elections held in April 1421, and was himself elected to the Parliament summoned to meet on 13 Oct. 1427. A few weeks into the first session he was appointed escheator of Hampshire and Wiltshire, and evidently proved competent, for he was re-appointed in 1432, having in the meantime served a term as sheriff of his home county, in the course of which he conducted the elections of that year ex officio. He once more attested the parliamentary indentures in 1433. Naturally enough, he was listed by the Hampshire MPs in that Parliament among the men of the shire required to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain law-breakers.6 C219/12/5; 14/3, 4; CPR, 1429-36, p. 396.

During this period of the early 1430s Veer established connexions of note among the gentry of the region. In 1430 he was enfeoffed by the prominent Sussex landowner Sir John Bohun in certain of his estates in that county, including the lordship and manor of Midhurst, and in the spring of 1432 he assisted Bohun’s son-in-law Sir Stephen Popham* in mediating between Sir John and the burgesses of Midhurst to put an end to their disputes over market tolls and the profits of the local courts.7 CIPM, xxiv. 53; W. Suss. RO, Add. mss, 20801. Later he witnessed deeds on behalf of Sir Stephen’s stepmother, Margaret, widow of Henry Popham†, and for the conveyance of the manor of Barton on the Isle of Wight to Winchester College. Links with members of the Leyot family, perhaps kinsmen of his, led to his being entrusted with Master Richard Leyot D.C.L. with the Wiltshire manor of Laverstock and land at Brockenhurst near his home in Hampshire.8 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 440, 492-3; 1441-7, p. 292; Winchester Coll. muns. 3666.

Veer, who had interests in shipping, proved successful in a maritime cause arising out of the arrest of Le Marie of Lymington. In October 1434, however, Thomas Freeman*, the Salisbury merchant, appealed against the sentence passed by Master John Gentyll (acting as lieutenant to the admiral, John, duke of Bedford), on the grounds that Gentyll had showed Veer and his co-plaintiffs undue favour. Early in 1435 Veer was granted letters of protection for six months as about to sail for France in the company of Sir John Cressy*, only for these to be revoked in July that year because he had failed to embark and remained in London.9 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 442, 463. It would seem that he had sought protection from actions in the law-courts because of financial difficulties. In June the previous year he had entered a recognizance at the staple of Westminster to pay John Brinkley esquire the sum of £20 before Whitsun 1435, but had failed to do so. Accordingly, in February 1438 the sheriff of Hampshire was instructed to arrest him and keep him in prison until Brinkley’s widow had been satisfied of the debt, and to extend, appraise and take into the King’s hand his lands and chattels. Veer’s manor of East Standen and lands on the Isle of Wight, worth nine marks a year, were seized. Seemingly as part of the same matter, Veer went to law with one John Yevan (an associate of Brinkley’s widow) in May, his adversary entering recognizances in £100 to abide by the award of arbitrators, who included the lawyers William Perkins* and Michael Skilling.10 C131/230/10; CIMisc. viii. 109; CCR, 1435-41, p. 181.

Over the years Veer had failed to keep his inheritance intact. The tax assessments of 1436 had judged his income in Hampshire to be only £20 p.a.,11 Feudal Aids, ii. 353, 355, 369; E163/7/31/1. two-thirds of that enjoyed by his late father. Furthermore, he had sold his property in Dorset. ‘Vere’s Wotton’ had been purchased by William Mountfort*, the wealthy Bridport merchant, who himself conveyed it to John Bettiscombe*, the lawyer; and it was also to Bettiscombe that in 1435 Veer sold his manor of Brimpton on the border of Dorset and Somerset. At that time, or so he said, he was planning a journey overseas (presumably in Cressy’s retinue), so he left various evidences in the possession of his cousin, Alice, the widow of John Winford, instructing her to deliver the deeds to Bettiscombe if he paid her £20 in gold, or else to give them back to him on his return home. Among the documents was one ‘yt I found in a cofer of my father’s within ye Isle of Wight, in my manner of Stanton’, which proudly recorded the names of Veer’s ancestors from the reign of Henry III to the birth of his elder brother.12 CAD, i. C58; vi. C6144; Hutchins, ii. 240.

Meanwhile, in December 1437, after Henry VI formally attained his majority, he granted Veer his office in the New Forest for life, and two years later Veer obtained at the Exchequer keeping of the priory of St. Helens on the Isle of Wight for ten years, at an annual rent of £8.13 CPR, 1436-41, p. 122; CFR, xvii. 114-15. On 7 Dec. 1441 the riding-forestership was awarded in reversion to William Ringbourne* to hold after Veer’s death, but on 8 Jan. following Veer was re-granted it in survivorship with Henry Trenchard*, an esquire of the royal household, and when he died, probably on the following 8 Feb., Trenchard secured it for life. Ringbourne was compensated on 10 Mar. with the lease of St. Helens priory.14 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 33, 37, 225; CFR, xvii. 210. William Leyot* and Thomas Pakyn*, who had provided mainprise for Veer’s farm of the priory, soon found themselves in trouble at the Exchequer, for the barons held them responsible for an annuity of £7 previously granted from the priory’s revenues to the duke of Gloucester.15 E159/220, brevia Trin. rot. 2d. The matter was eventually resolved in their favour.

Veer apparently died without surviving issue. His holdings at Arreton, some nine messuages and 350 acres of land, passed by his gift to John Dykeman (d.1460) and his wife Alice, possibly the MP’s cousin of that name.16 CCR, 1461-8, p. 51.