ALFRAY, John I

It is not mentioned in the earlier biography, The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 25. that in 1411 Alfray, together with his father, took possession of a small estate at Chipstead in Surrey, several miles away from their home in East Grinstead. CP25(1)/231/68/20. The transaction of 1416, regarding three messuages and some 270 acres of land in East Grinstead and Lingfield, may not, as was earlier believed, have been an enfeoffment by Thomas May and his wife, but rather the completion of Alfray’s purchase of the property. CP25(1)/240/83/18.

Alfray died before the spring of 1444, leaving his elder son and heir, John, still a minor. Edward Sackville brought a plea against William Fenningham* and others for the wardship of land in East Grinstead, which the Alfrays allegedly held of him by knight service. Add. 39376, f. 31. The MP’s widow, Margaret, encountered further difficulties five years later, when it was alleged in the King’s bench that in the autumn of 1445 she had broken the closes of the prior of Lewes at East Grinstead, depastured crops worth £5, abducted one of the prior’s servants and assaulted and mutilated his bondman William Shortlegg. She retaliated by accusing Shortlegg of similar offences committed a year later. The outcome of the dispute, over the ownership of land and the rights of the prior to receive tithes, is not known. KB27/752, rots. 23d, 76.