CHITECROFT, John, of Leasam by Rye, Suss. and Southwark, Surr.

Chitecroft’s father, after whom he was named, witnessed deeds at Rye from 1398 onwards. An esquire, Cat. Rye Recs. ed. Dell, deeds 136/151, 152, 166, 168, 176. and landowner whose holdings at Peasmarsh in Sussex were said to be worth £10 p.a. in the tax assessments of 1412, Feudal Aids, vi. 528. the elder John associated with important gentry families of east Sussex and Kent, such as the Culpeppers, Fiennes and Etchinghams, Cat. Rye Recs. deed 136/157; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 267. and appeared on the list compiled in 1420 of the men of Kent considered best suited for military service in defence of the realm. E28/97/15B. Before he died he placed his manors of Dernedale in Lamberhurst, Kent, and Leasam near Rye in the hands of feoffees, including Sir Reynold Cobham of Sterborough and Sir Roger Fiennes*, who in August 1437 made settlements arranging that Chitecroft’s widow Margery and her new husband William Woodham could hold the Lamberhurst estate for life, with reversion to John the younger, while the latter was to take possession of Leasam. Dyke mss, DYK/21. At Easter 1439, described as ‘esquire’ and lord of the manor of Leasam, Chitecroft gave a perpetual annuity of 5s., charged on a tenement in Rye, to a local man called Laurence Dobyll. Cat. Rye Recs. deed 137/11. No record of Chitecroft’s participation in the administration of Rye has been found, and the circumstances of his election for the Port to the Parliament of 1442 remain obscure. He was accompanied to Westminster by the mayor, John Sutton*.

Just six months after the dissolution of the Parliament on 27 Mar. 1442, Chitecroft conveyed his manor of Leasam and all his other landed possessions in the towns of Rye, Hastings, Winchelsea, Fairlight and Fairfield to a distinguished group of feoffees, headed by Thomas Etchingham, the lord of Etchingham, and Sir Roger Fiennes, now treasurer of the King’s household, and including a group of prominent lawyers such as Thomas Haydock*, Edmund Mille* and Thomas Molyneux*. Fiennes, Haydock and Mille had all been Chitecroft’s fellow Members of the Commons, and so too had been Adam Levelord* of Southwark, who was also named in this conveyance. In December 1446 Chitecroft declared that he wished the feoffees to transfer possession of the premises to Levelord alone, whenever the latter required them to do so. Furthermore, it was to Levelord and Fiennes that Chitecroft conveyed his reversionary interest in Lamberhurst five years later. CCR, 1441-7, p. 462; Dyke mss, DYK/22. It is unclear whether these transactions represented a sale or a mortgage, although Chitecroft and his family did retain an interest in the property. There is no doubt that Leasam was valuable: in the following August Levelord issued a five-year-lease of the manor and other holdings to three townsmen of Rye for as much as £20 p.a. Cat. Rye Recs. 137/13.

What clearly lay behind Chitecroft’s settlements of his property was his need to prevent its confiscation by the Crown. In Easter week 1445 together with two other men he had been outlawed at the suit of John Rokesley* of Southwark for causing the death of the latter’s brother, Robert. Three years later the King granted any lands forfeited as a consequence to his newly-founded college in Cambridge, but Chitecroft, through his transactions and his influential contacts, had managed to protect his interests. CPR, 1446-52, p. 143. Furthermore, he had purchased a royal pardon, on 10 July 1446. In this, besides being described as ‘of Leasam, gentleman’, he was also called ‘formerly of Rye, esquire, and late of Southwark’. C67/39, m. 9. Henry Elvedon, one of those outlawed with him in 1445, did not receive a pardon until many years later, in 1467: CPR, 1461-7, p. 296; 1467-77, p. 47. There is now no trace of his property-holdings in the latter place. As a Portsman of Rye he claimed exemption from taxation on his chattels outside the liberty of the Port, and for the time being he continued to live at or near Rye, where he witnessed a deed that autumn. Cat. Rye Recs. deed 130/2; E179/229/138. But, seemingly, he had not been able to curb his temper. A few months later he was responsible for a breach of the peace at the nearby vill of Hope, and was fined 6s. 8d. for drawing blood in an assault on one John Burse. Lathe Ct. Rolls (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxxvii), 149. In 1453 Levelord transferred possession of the Lamberhurst property to Chitecroft and his wife, in association with his own son Robert† and Sir John Cheyne II*, only for it to be sold three years later. Dyke mss, DYK/23-25. Chitecroft would have had to pay the purchaser 1,000 marks by Easter 1458 to recover it. The manor of Leasam was conveyed to feoffees by Thomas Pope* and his wife Katherine in 1455, apparently so that a settlement might be made on Chitecroft and his wife, and in default of Chitecroft’s issue on the Popes themselves. CP25(1)/241/91/1. Pope’s gds. was to recover Leasam in 1527 against Giles Fiennes: VCH Suss. ix. 56; Add. 39377, ff. 120v-121. Probably their dealings also involved a financial agreement, which Chitecroft failed to keep, for two years later Pope brought an action against him in the common pleas for the sum of £100. CP40/784, rot. 435. That all remained unwell with Chitecroft’s affairs is confirmed by his transfer of his goods and chattels in November 1456 to Sir John Cheyne, together with William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, and Sir Richard Fiennes (respectively Sir Roger’s nephew and son). CCR, 1454-61, p. 172. Chitecroft purchased further royal pardons two years later. In these his place of residence was given alternatively as Leasam, Lamberhurst and Bexhill. C67/42, m. 2.

He does not seem to have been recorded thereafter, But there was a John Chitecroft sent as a deputy from Rye to the Brodhull of July 1470, when he was named as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs at the forthcoming herring fair at Yarmouth: White and Black Bks. of the Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 61. and died without surviving issue.