Sir John Gresley’s career is a curious one in that he was politically active for over 30 years before the death of his father finally gave him possession of one of the greatest gentry inheritances in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. This he enjoyed for only four years and his career is essentially that of an heir-apparent. This helps to explain two of its notable aspects: he continued his military career after the victorious campaigns of Henry V and he was virtually excluded from local administrative office. In a petition presented in the Parliament of 1425 he claimed that he had served Henry V for 18 years, and it is likely that he was brought up in the household of Henry as prince of Wales (although he was probably too young to have seen action in the prince’s Welsh campaigns).
Sir John was drawn, albeit peripherally, into the disorders which so severely disturbed the peace of the Midlands early in the new reign. His family’s long-running dispute with their Staffordshire neighbours, the abbey of Burton-upon-Trent, broke out again, despite an arbitrated settlement in 1406. According to a petition presented in Chancery by the abbot, on 17 Feb. 1414 Sir John led an assault on his prior and cellarer at Branston and then, two days later, came to nearby Burton and made threats against the unfortunate pair in the conventual church.
Sir John was one of those who enthusiastically embraced his master’s aggressive ambitions. On 28 May 1415 he was retained to serve abroad with one other man-at-arms and six archers, and a week later he and his father secured protections as members of the royal retinue.
It is unknown whether Sir John returned to France in the expedition of the following June. If he did he appears to have returned home before the King’s death for, on 13 Mar. 1422, he witnessed a deed on behalf of his father.
In the meantime Gresley had become embroiled in a dispute over the wardenship of the duchy of Lancaster chace of Duffield Frith, which had been granted to him on 4 Aug. 1420 for the term of his life.
Little evidence survives of Sir John’s activities, whether in France or England, during the late 1420s. He did, however, form a connexion with the young Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford: on 3 Apr. 1427 he headed the witnesses to the earl’s confirmation (dated at Newport castle) of the charter granted to the borough of Newport by the Staffords in 1385. Even though this is the only reference directly to connect the two men, the fact that several of Gresley’s fellow attestors numbered among the earl’s intimates implies that their association (at this date at least) was a close one. The two men may have been brought together by their mutual military service, but there was also an obvious local dimension to their association. Sir John’s service to the earl might even have been a factor in his election to Parliament in 1427, although, since the attestors to this return included both his father and younger brother, Geoffrey, the family probably needed little external assistance.
In about 1430 Gresley had married a wealthy widow who, remarkably, had lost three husbands in the space of a decade. All three left her an interest in lands in Cheshire. Unfortunately for the new couple, however, their possession was challenged by the brother of her first husband, the heir of her second and the feoffees of her third. The first of these disputes was a straightforward one over Margaret’s dower and jointure. In a petition to the chancellor, Sir John and Margaret claimed that she, presumably during her widowhood, had agreed with Sir Geoffrey Massey, brother and heir of her first husband, and his mother to abide by the arbitration of an apprentice-at-law, James Holt, concerning her entitlement in the Massey estates. The parties had entered into mutual bonds in as much as 1,000 marks to be kept by Holt and surrendered to the aggrieved party if either party defaulted on his award.
Another dispute Sir John inherited with his new wife concerned more complex issues. According to a further petition they presented to the chancellor, she, as a widow, had undertaken to pay 300 marks to John Delves in return for the marriage of his young son and heir-apparent, Richard (c.1416-1446), to her infant daughter Elizabeth Winnington. Soon after, however, she herself agreed to marry the groom’s father and he undertook to repay her the 260 marks she had borrowed for her daughter’s portion and to pardon her the remaining 40 marks. To ensure the young Elizabeth of her jointure and his new wife of her dower, Delves made arrangements for the settlement of his manor of Doddington and lands in Weston (together worth £10 p.a.) upon himself and Margaret for a term of six years from 14 Mar. 1429 with remainder to Richard and Elizabeth and their male issue. The rest of the Delves inheritance (with the exception of the manor of Crakemarsh in Staffordshire) was settled on Ralph Egerton*, William Lee* and Margaret herself to the intent that she should receive both her reasonable dower and repayment of any moneys owed to her from her daughter’s marriage portion. If the petitioners’ valuation was a correct one the Delves estates were able to bear such a burden for they were worth 200 marks p.a. Egerton overturned these arrangements. Four years after John Delves’s death in 1429 he forcibly abducted Richard from the custody of our MP and Margaret and persuaded him to disavow his young wife. Such a disavowal was possible because the couple had been married when Richard was not yet ten and Elizabeth under four years old. Later Egerton and Richard ‘with great multitude of people unknown in riotewyse arrayed’ disseised the Gresleys of the manor of Doddington and took goods of our MP worth £100. Moreover, since John Delves’s death, Egerton had allowed Margaret only six marks p.a. for her dower and had refused to pay her any part of the 260 marks still due to her.
If this petition is to be accepted at face value, the motive for Egerton’s unreasonable behaviour can be inferred. The petition was presented not long after November 1438, when he had allegedly stopped paying Margaret her annuity of six marks; in May 1439 he secured a dispensation for the marriage of his daughter Ellen to Richard’s younger brother and heir-presumptive, John Delves†. It is a reasonable speculation that he had earlier urged Richard to repudiate his wife so that the Delves estates would eventually pass to John. As befitting so complex a quarrel, it gave rise to actions beyond the Gresleys’ petition to the chancellor. On 8 July 1439, before the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, our MP’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth, formally consented to the marriage she had contracted within age, and it is likely that this marked Egerton’s defeat in his attempt to dissolve the match. To the same purpose were collusive actions sued in the palatinate court of Chester a few months earlier: in December 1438 the Gresleys had brought an action against Richard Delves for Margaret’s dower in property in Weston and Blakenhall and conceded the action when the defendant replied that he had nothing in the property save in joint estate with Elizabeth; and in the following April they joined Elizabeth with her husband in the same plea.
Less well documented is the third dispute arising from Gresley’s marriage. In the Chester court on 17 Apr. 1436 Richard Winnington, the heir of Margaret’s second husband, sued a writ of formedon against her and our MP for two-thirds of the manor of Marthall in Cheshire. Presumably the couple were retaining the whole manor instead of only the third to which Margaret was entitled as dower. A jury was summoned to appear on 6 Aug. 1437 when the Gresleys defaulted. When judgement was due to be awarded against them three weeks later they entered the unlikely plea that their default was due to their imprisonment by Richard Lane* at Abbots Bromley (Staffordshire) between 5 and 8 Aug. The case was then transferred into the court of common pleas and no verdict has been traced. This plea may have been no more than a delaying tactic, but it is possible that Lane’s intervention, if such it was, represents another episode in the dispute with Egerton. Perhaps significantly, Lane’s son and heir-apparent was the husband of Egerton’s daughter Margery, and he may have been ready to aid Egerton in discomforting the Gresleys.
The demands of defending the interests of his second wife is one reason for dating the end of Sir John’s military career to the death of the duke of Bedford. Another is his appointment as sheriff of Staffordshire in 1439, an unlikely appointment for one still actively involved abroad. Further, from about this date he began to make more regular appearances in local affairs. On 28 Dec. 1441 he attested the Staffordshire election, the first time since 1423 that he had appeared in that role, and in February following he joined with his brother Geoffrey and eldest son in a bond in £50 to the treasurer of the royal household, Sir Roger Fiennes*.
The death of Gresley’s father on 9 Sept. 1445 finally gave him the family patrimony and seems to have further increased his involvement in the affairs of others.
By the time Sir John finally came into his inheritance, his own son and heir-apparent had begun to play a disruptive part in local affairs. It seems that it was the younger John (together with his brothers) rather than our MP who was responsible for pursuing a quarrel with the Vernons which was to be a significant factor in Derbyshire politics during the 1450s. The early skirmishes of this quarrel led to the making of an award on 21 Sept. 1447, to which our MP was a party, by Ellen Chetwynd’s son, Sir William Ferrers of Chartley, but this failed to bring peace.
Sir John’s children were married advantageously before his death. While still a young girl his daughter Thomasina took Hugh Wrottesley (b.1400) as her husband, making a match which probably arose out of our MP’s place in the service of Henry V: in 1403 the young prince of Wales had granted Hugh’s marriage to the boy’s maternal grandfather, Sir Robert Standish, from whom it was presumably acquired by our MP. Much later, in 1441, probably on the death of Hugh’s mother, Thomasina became the beneficiary of a substantial jointure settlement which included the manor of Wrottesley.
Sir John’s will does not survive, but a later suit shows that he named his nephew, Walter Blount*, as one of his executors, but nothing is known of its terms.