ASH, John II, of Sowton and Exeter, Devon.

Ash was the eldest son of a Devon-born lawyer of the same name, who had been drawn to the south-east by the profits available in the Westminster law courts. There were several namesakes active in Devon in the period, among them at least one gentleman, John Ash of ‘Escot’, but since in this period the citizens of Exeter did not otherwise return outsiders, it is unlikely that any of them should be identified with the MP of 1460 (KB27/745, rot. 35d; C139/24/34; C1/41/184; CFR, xvii. 328). The father had for many years been retained as legal counsel by the citizens of Exeter, and in August 1453 the son was for his part admitted to the freedom of the city, the customary entry fine being pardoned by the mayor and council. Exeter Freemen ed. Rowe and Jackson, 51. By this date, he had already been receiving wages as one of the yeomen of the Crown for almost four years. He probably owed this post to the connexions formed at court by his father, who had been deputy steward of the King’s household, and he may have taken up the appointment even in the older man’s lifetime. CPR, 1452-61, p. 19.

His father’s death, probably in the second half of 1446, gave Ash control of the family estates in Devon centred on the manor of Clyst Fomson in Sowton, at the time of his own son’s death in 1495 said to be worth £20 p.a. Feudal Aids, i. 486, 491; C140/82/10; C1/19/163; CP40/752, rot. 104d; 829, rot. 447; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1203. By contrast, it is less certain whether he also succeeded to his father’s property in Middlesex, holdings which in 1436 had allowed the latter’s annual income to be estimated at as much as £53 p.a. It is not certain how the elder John Ash came by his property in this county, and it is indeed possible that he merely held it by virtue of a marriage and for term of his wife’s life. Certainly, at the time of the respective deaths of our MP’s sons in 1482 and 1495 no writs of diem clausit extremum were sent to the escheator of Middlesex. CFR, xxi. 663; xxii. 528. The MP was evidently distinct from the John Ash of Harefield who d.c.1467, leaving a wid., Joan, and a da. and h., Denise, who went on to marry William Welder of Hillingdon: London Metropolitan Archs., Tarleton mss, ACC/0312/87, 92, 93, 98.

As far as it is possible to tell, Ash played little part in public life. He may occasionally have served on local juries, but did so only irregularly, and hardly at all during Henry VI’s reign. C139/126/23; KB9/271/11. Perhaps he was preoccupied by the need to secure his inheritance, for in the first half of the 1450s he was kept busy defending his tenure of his lands at Sowton in the Westminster law courts, and litigation over property there was still in progress in the later 1460s. C1/19/163; CP40/826, rot. 119; 829, rot. 447.

The political crisis of 1459-60, which saw the duke of York, his sons, and his closest supporters among the peerage (the Neville earls of Warwick and Salisbury) exiled, also led to a closing of ranks among the Lancastrian court party and royal household. Many Crown offices were placed in the hands of trusted royal servants, and it was probably as a consequence of his existing ties with the court that in April 1460 Ash was appointed to the controllership of subsidies in the ports of Plymouth and Fowey. The patents issued that month were unusual in that they related only to tunnage and poundage, and made no reference to any other customs, as was normally the case. In any event, the holders of these curious commissions were to remain in office for little more than four months, for in July an army led by Warwick and Salisbury and the duke of York’s son and heir, Edward, earl of March, defeated a royal force under the nominal leadership of King Henry himself, and seized the reins of government along with the King’s person. Within days of the battle at Northampton, the unpopular earl of Wiltshire who was already on his way to seek sanctuary in the Low Countries, had been replaced as treasurer by Henry, Viscount Bourgchier, who rapidly replaced the customs officers throughout the realm.

Nominally, Henry VI remained on the throne, but the Yorkists lost little time in dismissing most of the members of his household, although it is uncertain whether Ash was among those who at this time lost his position about the King. Certainly, he was not without connexions among the new rulers. In the early 1450s he had supplied victuals to the household of Sir John Dynham (d.1457) at Nutwell, and although at the time he had had to rely on the intervention of Queen Margaret to secure payment, Letters Margaret of Anjou (Cam. Soc. lxxxvi), 144. relations with Dynham’s son and heir (later Lord Dynham) were apparently cordial. In the second half of the 1460s Ash named Dynham as one of his feoffees, and it is even possible that he was at this time in receipt of a livery from him. The pardon for offences against the statute of liveries issued on 9 May 1467 to a large number of Devon men is ambiguous. Although the list of names was headed by Dynham as the only esquire, it also included ten other gentlemen besides Ash, not all of whom can be shown to have been otherwise connected with Dynham: CPR, 1467-77, pp. 60-61. Certainly, his election by the normally prudent citizens of Exeter as one of their representatives in the Parliament summoned by the Yorkist administration at the end of July 1460, and his modest wages of just 40­s. (apparently paid to him even before the end of the first session), suggest that he was not only deemed to be on sufficiently good terms with the new rulers to serve the city’s interests, but was moreover prepared to sit in a potentially partisan assembly for only scant remuneration. Devon RO, Exeter receiver’s acct. 38-39 Hen. VI, m. 1d. Even in the early months of Edward IV’s reign, Ash’s contacts at court were sufficiently good for him to be able to sue Thomas de la Mare†, who had been sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire in the crisis year of 1459-60, but had been rehabilitated since being taken prisoner as one of the defenders of the Tower against the Yorkist earls in the latter year, for the arrears of his wages as Henry VI’s yeoman of the Crown. The process dragged on until the autumn of 1471, when de la Mare was finally discharged in return for a fine to the Crown, but without, it would seem, ever paying our MP his wages. E13/147, rots. 17d-18; 150, rots. 23d, 26d.

The exact date of Ash’s death is unknown. He was still alive in 1465 when Bishop Neville of Exeter was translated to the archbishopric of York, for it was under the latter title that he named him one of his feoffees prior to June 1467, when Neville was replaced as chancellor by Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells. C140/82/10. Likewise, it was probably he who in 1468 was squabbling with John Denys* of Orlegh, William Prideaux, Ralph Bury and Thomas Calwodelegh† over property in Sowton. CP40/826, rot. 119; 829, rot. 447. It may have been he who as John Ash ‘of Clyst St. George alias of Gabrielsclyst alias of Clyst Honiton alias of Bishop’s Clyst’ sued out a general pardon in May 1472, and it is just possible that it was also he who in December 1477 attested the Devon election indenture for the Parliament of 1478. C67/49, m. 23; C219/17/3. It is, however, equally possible that this was his synonymous son and heir, who succeeded to the family property at some point before he in turn died in 1482. C140/82/10. The younger John was succeeded by his brother William (c.1442-1495), to whose descendants the family seat in Sowton subsequently passed. CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1203.