BOYVILLE, John (1391-1467), of Stockerston, Leics.

From the mid thirteenth century the Boyvilles had been established at Cranoe just on the Leicestershire side of the county’s border with Rutland. Later in the same century they considerably augmented their estates through the marriage of Sir Thomas Boyville to one of the coheiresses of his feudal overlord, Sir William Murdak†. This brought them the manor of Stockerston, near Cranoe, together with the manors of Wardley and Ayston, both near Uppingham in Rutland. In 1304 the family’s local account was recognized by a royal grant of free warren in their demesne lands in Cranoe and Stockerston. J. Nichols, Leics. ii (2), 815; VCH Leics. v. 82; Leics. Med. Peds. ed. Farnham, 102-3. Our MP’s grandfather, Sir John† (d.1375), enjoyed a prominent career, but the death at a relatively young age of our MP’s father and his own minority meant that it was nearly half a century before the family again attained a renewed prominence in local affairs.

The first documented episode of Boyville’s life was a dispute over his wardship. On 11 May 1402 his marriage was committed to the wealthy duchy of Lancaster annuitant, Sir Richard Stanhope*, for a modest payment of 120 marks, but in March 1405 this grant was revoked on petition of his father’s feoffees, headed by two Leicestershire knights, the brothers Sir John† and Sir Henry Neville†. His wardship then passed into the hands of his mother, Elizabeth, and her second husband, John Wolf of Frolesworth, before being claimed in 1411 by Sir Thomas Chaworth* on the grounds that Boyville’s father had been his tenant at Slawston near Stockerston. These conflicting claims probably found their resolution in John’s majority in the following year. CIPM, xviii. 689; CPR, 1401-5, pp. 92, 499-500; Leics. Med. Peds. 105. An echo of this dispute is to be found in 1423 when Chaworth was attached to reply to Boyville for taking livestock worth £40 from Slawston: CP40/649, rot. 109d.

The first reference to Boyville in an active role does him little credit. On 20 Aug. 1412 he was indicted before a Leicestershire coroner for his involvement, as abettor, in the murder of one of his immediate neighbours, John Caldecote, at Holyoaks (in Stockerston) on the previous day. His younger brothers, Hugh, also as abettor, and Thomas, as principal, were the only others indicted. In Michaelmas term 1413 John and Thomas were appealed of the same crime by Caldecote’s widow, but, as so frequently with such actions, the appeal was soon abandoned, probably after the parties had come to a private agreement. Soon afterwards the royal suit against John was similarly discontinued after Thomas, as principal, had successfully pleaded a pardon. KB27/610, rot. 19; 615, rex rot. 3. If the victim had been a relative of the Rutland j.p., Nicholas Caldecote, one would expect the case to have left a greater impact on the legal records. Immediately afterwards Boyville is seen in a more positive light: he participated in the Agincourt campaign and that of 1417 in the retinue of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. E101/51/2, m. 12. On 29 Sept. 1415 another of the earl’s retinue, Sir William Fauconer, fell fatally ill at Calais and named our MP as one of his executors: Reg. Chichele, ii. 44, 652.

This was the beginning of an association that was to be of significance in his later career, as too was the profitable marriage he made a few years later. The earlier dispute about his rightful guardian seems to have left him free to choose his own bride, and his choice resulted in a significant, albeit a temporary, addition to his estates. An important fine levied at Ascension 1424 shows that his wife Elizabeth enjoyed a considerable jointure and dower as the widow of a Berkshire knight, Sir Robert Langford. By this fine, not recorded until 1432, the manor of Blackwell Hall in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, 17 messuages in White Cross Street (in the London parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate) and about 1,500 acres divided between several Berkshire vills, was settled on Elizabeth and her issue by her first husband. Oddly, however, the legal remainder of the bulk of this property was settled not on the right heirs of Sir Robert Langford but on her right heirs. CP25(1)/292/67/126. This suggests that Elizabeth held these lands not as an endowed widow but as an heiress, but there is plenty of evidence to contradict this. A settlement made on 20 Nov. 1439 strongly implies that she was the aunt of the heiress of the Cheynes of Beckford in Gloucestershire, and hence herself no heiress. Moreover, the bulk of the lands settled on her are known to have been held by Sir Robert’s father, Sir William Langford†. Through the agency of our MP’s brother, Hugh, the Lovetoft inheritance was settled on Thomas Rous* of Ragley, Warws., the widowed husband of Anne Cheyne, with successive remainders, in tail, to Rous’s three sons, and to William Cheyne, with a further remainder to our MP, his wife and her issue and a final one to the right heirs of Margaret Lovetoft: CCR, 1435-41, p. 343. It is difficult to find any other explanation for this settlement than that both William Cheyne and our MP’s wife were the children of the Lovetoft heiress. The settlement provided that if any of the deed’s beneficiaries attempted to bar the entail their estate was to cease, strongly implying that they were successive heirs-at-law. Moreover, the monumental brass to our MP and his wife in Stockerston church bears the arms inter alia of Cheyne: Nichols, ii. 823. However this may be, the limiting of the legal remainder to her heirs was of obvious advantage to Boyville: if her issue by her first husband failed and she had issue by Boyville, then this issue would inherit the lands in preference to the collateral heirs of the Langfords. The tension inherent in this arrangement, potentially damaging as it was to the interests of Boyville’s stepson, Edward Langford*, a minor when it was made, explains the compromise made in July 1442. Boyville entered into a substantial bond of 1,000 marks to Edward undertaking that he would not enter into any collusive litigation designed to defeat Edward’s hereditary estate in the lands he held for his wife’s life. He and his wife also quitclaimed to Edward all their right in the London property of the Langfords. CCR, 1441-7, p. 76; Corp. London RO, hr 170/62. These concessions restored harmony and Boyville was later to have a close relationship with his Langford stepson.

Boyville did not embark on his public career until his wife’s lands had considerably augmented his wealth. Once he had done so he immediately assumed a very prominent role, as one might expect of a landholder assessed on an annual income of as much as £100 in the tax returns of 1436. E179/192/59. The value of his patrimony is difficult to assess. In 1389, when the Boyville lands were in the wardship of the Crown, they were farmed at 40 marks p.a.: CFR, x. 279-80. His importance was further enhanced by his place in the Beauchamp retinue. An undated valor of about 1430 shows that by that date he was serving as the earl’s steward in Leicestershire and Rutland and drawing annual fees of 20 marks. SC12/18/45, f. 12. It may be that it was as a Beauchamp retainer or even as his steward that, while still a relatively young man, he was returned to represent his native county in the Parliaments of 1423, 1426 and 1427, and Rutland in that of 1429. A fortnight before this last return, on 18 Aug., he had attested the Leicestershire election, and hence, strictly speaking, in doing one or the other he was in breach of the statute of 1413 governing residence qualification of electors and elected. He went on to attest the next three Leicestershire returns before himself being again chosen at the next election of September 1435. C219/13/2, 4; 14/1-5. In the meantime he had served a term in the shrievalty of Rutland. That his five returns to Parliament in the space of only 12 years owed much to the patronage of the earl of Warwick is implied by the fact that after the earl’s death in 1439 he was not again elected until 1453.

Although in July 1440 Boyville’s local landed influence was augmented when he and his brother, Hugh, were granted the keeping of the lands of their insane uncle, Thomas Walsh – after it was found that the previous grantees, Walsh’s sister and her husband, Sir Thomas Gresley†, had wasted the property – the 1440s were a period of much less intensive activity. In November 1440 the Crown ordered his replacement as verderer of Rutland forest on the grounds that he lived outside the county, and it may be that by this date he had surrendered the bulk of his interests there to Hugh, who later held the same office. Nevertheless, if he had done so, it did not prevent his selection as sheriff there for a second time, and, as sheriff, he conducted the election of 26 Jan. 1447 which saw Hugh’s return. CPR, 1436-41, p. 424; C145/309/47; CCR, 1435-41, p. 397.

As a landholder of considerable standing, Boyville had a wide range of connexions. In 1436 he acted as a feoffee for the powerful Derbyshire knight, Sir Thomas Blount†, in Blount’s purchase of the manor of Elvaston, and their association long continued. The two men were related by marriage: John’s mother, who survived into the 1420s if not beyond, was the aunt of Sir Thomas’s wife, Margaret. The link between them probably explains the marriage of John’s stepson, Edward Langford, to Blount’s daughter, Sanchia. CCR, 1435-41, p. 61; J.C. Cox, Notes on Churches Derbys. iii. 9; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. i. 240. Connexions closer to home included three other men who represented Rutland in Parliament: in 1425 his wife stood as godmother at the baptism of John Chiselden* and later our MP and his brother Hugh acted as feoffees for Chiselden in his financial troubles; in 1429 he was a feoffee for William Beaufo*, who, in the same year, acted with him in a Chancery mainprise; and he assisted Thomas Palmer*, who may have been his brother-in-law, in the purchases of manors in Holt and elsewhere. C139/129/41; CCR, 1422-9, p. 461; 1441-7, pp. 117, 227; 1447-54, pp. 265-6, 441; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 179, 454; CP25(1)/126/74/10, 76/56.

Not surprisingly Boyville was also much involved in the affairs of his relatives, acting as one of the executors of his uncle, Richard Walsh, and as a feoffee of his cousin, William Boyville. Leics. Village Notes, iv. 353; C140/17/23. Nevertheless, despite his range of connexions in the vicinity of his estates, Boyville looked further afield both for husbands for his three daughters and a second wife of his own. The marriage of his daughter Margaret to Thomas, son and heir-apparent of Richard Restwold*, took place shortly before 28 Sept. 1455, when the groom’s father settled on the couple in tail his Wiltshire manor of Heale in Woodford. It is probable that Edward Langford, a witness to the settlement, was the broker of the match as the bride’s half-brother and a Berkshire neighbour of the Restwolds. E326/8348. The context of the marriage of the other two daughters is unknown, but Anne married the rising lawyer Henry Sotehill of Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, and Elizabeth married John Cockayne of Bury Hatley in Bedfordshire. Nor is it known why Boyville found his second wife in the south: at some date before Hilary 1464 (and perhaps some years before) he married Eleanor, widow of William Fauconer of Kingsclere in Hampshire and almost certainly one of the daughters of the Oxfordshire knight, Sir Thomas Wykeham. In a lawsuit of Hil. term 1464 she is described as one of the executors of ‘Philippa Wykeham’, who may have been the wid. of William*, s. and h. of Sir Thomas Wykeham. Another of the executors, Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Middleton*, is known to have been a da. of Sir Thomas, and it is a fair speculation that Eleanor was also: CP40/811, rot. 185. Her first husband died bef. May 1458: Winchester Coll. muns. 12542. It is not known what provision Boyville made for her, only that, in the contract of 11 Feb. 1464 for the marriage of his gds. John Sotehill to Elizabeth Plumpton, part of the jointure was settled in remainder expectant on the deaths of himself and Eleanor, his wife: Plumpton Letters (Cam. Soc. ser. 5, viii), 233. Her first husband was no doubt a kinsman of the Sir William Fauconer (but certainly not his son), for whom Boyville had acted as an executor nearly 50 years before, in 1415, and this, remote as it is, is the only context that can be suggested for the match. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 62.

The active role Boyville took in affairs of his relatives and neighbours often led him into disputes, but only one of these was anything more than a minor matter. His friendship with John Chiselden drew him into a quarrel with the volatile Everard Digby*, with whom Chiselden was violently at odds. In Michaelmas term 1451 Boyville sued Digby for assaulting his servants at Stockerston; and Digby replied by bringing an action of trespass against the Boyvilles. That these suits were related to the Chiselden dispute is implied by the outlawry of our MP’s namesake, styled as ‘of Stockerston, junior’ for riot, in company with the Chiseldens, against Digby. CP40/763, rots. 480d, 483d; KB27/762, rot. 9d; 763, rot. 12; KB29/91, Hil. 32 Hen. VI. It may have been these personal concerns which prompted Boyville to sue out a general pardon in November 1452, and to resume his parliamentary career with election on 1 Mar. 1453 to an assembly in which Chiselden sat for Rutland. C67/40, m. 14; C219/16/2.

Little can be said of the last years of Boyville’s career, although, given his advanced age, it is noteworthy that he remained as active as he did. His election to Parliament for the seventh and last time at the age of nearly 70 came in September 1460, and suggests that if he was committed to one side or the other in the civil war of 1459-61 it was to York. C219/16/6. This preference is confirmed by his appointment in July 1461 to the benches of both counties in which he held significant estates, a surprising promotion for one so elderly. His post mortem nomination to the Rutland bench of 23 Apr. 1470 casts doubt on his identification with the j.p. of the 1460s, but the probability is that his last appointment was a clerical error: CPR, 1467-76, pp. 626-7. Later he gained a more direct mark of royal favour. On 22 Jan. 1466 he obtained a royal licence to found and endow a perpetual almshouse and chantry at Stockerston. Unfortunately he did not live to carry out this intention. He is last recorded as active on the following 7 Sept. when he witnessed a charter at Braunston in Rutland for his old friend Chiselden, and probably died very soon after his last appointment to the Leicestershire bench in May 1467. CPR, 1461-7, p. 486; 1467-77, pp. 618-19; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 22.

Boyville’s will has not survived, but the renewal of the licence for the almshouse on 9 July 1468 shows that his executors were his son-in-law, Henry Sotehill, John Boyville, and William Hopkins, rector of South Luffenham (near Stockerston). It was they who carried through the testator’s plan for a hospital generously endowed with lands worth £12 p.a. CPR, 1467-77, p. 113. The hospital remained in operation until shortly after 1535: VCH Leics. ii. 45; v. 307. At his death he left three daughters, all the issue of his first wife. Two of them are still commemorated in the windows of the nave of Stockerston church, and it was between the three that the inheritance was divided on 17 May 1468. This division demonstrates how extensive the Boyville estates were: the Leicestershire manors in Cranoe and Slawston with lands at Uppingham in Rutland and Little Packington in Warwickshire were given to Edmund Cockayne; manors in Wardley and Ayston with lands in Bisbrooke, Glaston and Preston in Rutland and a manor at Medbourne and lands at Welham in Leicestershire, to Restwold; and the manor of Stockerston with land at Illston-on-the-Hill and King’s Norton in Leicestershire, to Sotehill. According to the now-lost inscription on Boyville’s fine monumental brass in Stockerston church he built the bell-tower there. His widow, Eleanor, later married John Manners, a cadet of the powerful Northumbrian family established at Etal and himself a naval commander during Edward IV’s northern campaign of 1461-2. Nichols, ii. 821; Gothic Art for Eng. ed. Marks and Williamson (Victoria and Albert Museum cat.), 402. For Manners: CPR, 1461-7, p. 193; CCR, 1461-8, p. 55; C.L. Scofield, Edw. IV, i. 156, 263. This choice may reflect her late husband’s Yorkist sympathies, although the connexions through which it came about are unknown. When she came to make her will many years later in the summer of 1492 she wanted to be buried in the church of Kingsclere alongside her first husband, William Fauconer. PCC 6 Vox (PROB11/10, f. 43v).