METLEY, Nicholas (c.1387-1437), of Wolston, Warws.

Nicholas’s father, Edward, was of obscure background, and probably from Oxfordshire; his mother, Margaret, was a minor heiress and the widow of a lesser member of the Warwickshire gentry. Edward is described as ‘of Oxfordshire’ before his marriage: CFR, ix. 302 ; x. 13, 19. Margaret was one of three coheiresses to a small estate in Northants. and Warws.: CAD, iv. A6950; Jurkowski, 257-8. Significantly for the short-term fortunes of the Metleys, she seems to have enjoyed, additionally to her own modest inheritance, a life interest in nearly all of her first husband’s inheritance, and it was at the Cotes manor of Hunningham that the couple settled. CP40/576, cart. rot. 1. It is difficult to distinguish between the lands Margaret held in her own right and those she had in jointure from William Cotes: Carpenter, 127n.; Jurkowski, 258. By virtue of her holdings Edward played a fairly prominent part in Warwickshire affairs: he was escheator there in the 1390s, later served as a j.p., albeit briefly, and attested the county parliamentary election in 1413. The pattern of his career suggests that he was a lawyer, although he was not of the quorum while a j.p. CFR, xii. 57; CPR, 1399-1401, 565; C219/11/2; C66/363, m. 15d. In 1392 he stood as godfather to (Sir) Edward Doddingselles* in the church of Wappenbury near Hunningham. He gave evidence at his godson’s proof of age in 1414, underestimating his own age as 45: CIPM, xx. 267. For his alleged involvement in a murder in 1401, perhaps committed during a dispute over his wife’s inheritance: Jurkowski, 255-61. However this may be, he and his son were fortunate in Margaret’s longevity. She survived them both, and, if her survival did not exactly put her estates at Nicholas’s disposal after Edward’s death, they seem to have given him a stake in Warwickshire before he made extensive purchases of his own there.

Nicholas was almost certainly born in the late 1380s: his parents were married, probably newly so, by 1 May 1386, when they jointly leased the manor of Lessingham in Norfolk from the alien priory of Bec Hellouin in Normandy. CPR, 1385-9, p. 329. In 1404 Nicholas’s sister, Elizabeth, was contracted in marriage to Thomas Sydenhale of Tanworth, Warws., implying that she too was born in the late 1380s: Add. 28564, ff. 138-9. He entered the legal profession, probably following his father and receiving his education at the Middle Temple. As with most lawyers almost nothing is known of the early years of his career, and it was not until the mid 1420s that he emerged as an established practitioner. In 1425 he was offering legal advice to the civic authorities in Coventry. Two years later, when John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, sued the farmer of his manor of Caludon near Coventry for waste, Metley was one of those to whom the duke made gifts for counsel ‘ut homo peritus de lege’. Coventry Leet Bk. ed. Harris, 99; E101/514/7, mm. 2, 3. By 1435, and probably for some years before, he was in receipt of annual fees of five marks from Sir William Ferrers of Chartley and three marks from John, Lord Scrope of Masham, and better evidence would no doubt reveal several other similar fees. E163/7/31/1; 2, no. 23. They mark him out as a man who had advanced to the higher learning exercises of his inn, and he was no doubt a reader. He is to be identified with the ‘Meteley’ who spoke at an undated reading, and he is named as a pleader in Year Book cases of 1430 and 1433. Readers and Readings (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xiii), 144, 278.

Metley’s standing in the legal profession was the basis of his short but intense parliamentary career. He was elected to represent Warwickshire in three successive Parliaments between 1432 and 1435. C219/14/3-5. In his third Parliament he was named by the prior of Coventry to act as his proxy in the Lords, and he also received some employment from the Crown. On 2 Dec. 1435, three weeks before the dissolution, he was one of several lawyers rewarded for expediting royal business in Parliament. Described as an apprentice-at-law, he was paid five marks. SC10/49/2428; E403/721, m. 7. Earlier he had received another form of recognition from the Crown when, during the second session of the Parliament of 1433, he was added to the quorum of the Warwickshire bench. CPR, 1429-36, p.626. He was, however, too intent on further professional advancement to make his career in local administration. Late in 1435 or early in 1436, when Alexander Anne* was promoted to the recorder-ship of London, he was elected by the city authorities to replace him as common serjeant. Guildhall Misc. ii. 384, quoting Corp. London RO, jnl. 3, f. 127v. Anne became recorder between 7 July 1435 and 9 Feb. 1436. Some confusion has been occasioned by our MP being mistakenly named here as ‘John’. There can be no doubt that ‘Nicholas’ was intended. Not only was there no suitable candidate called John, but the next common serjeant was elected on 11 Nov. 1437, as our MP lay dying in the New Temple. The holders of that office were generally assured of further advancement in the profession, and Metley was now a likely candidate to be called to the degree of serjeant-at-law.

Metley’s success provided him with the resources to establish the family among the county gentry, leaving them no longer dependent on his mother’s lands that would soon be lost to them. Indeed, by 1436 his income comfortably exceeded hers: in the subsidy returns of that year she was assessed in Warwickshire at £30 p.a. and her son at as much as £53. Part of his income was derived from legal annuities, but he also had a respectable landed income drawn exclusively from purchases he had made on his own account. E179/192/59. A later source asserts that he ‘purchaced faire lande in the tyme of Kyng Herry the sixte .... which amounted to the somme of cc li. and more, ut per indenturam inter’: E163/29/11, no. 1. The following words are torn away, but there can be no doubt that this valuation was a marked exaggeration. The dispute that followed his death shows that he purchased manors at Wolston, Marston, Baddesley Clinton and Wappenbury in Warwickshire together with one at Ullesthorpe just over the border in Leicestershire. All these acquisitions occurred in the mid 1430s. The manor and advowson of Baddesley Clinton he acquired through a family connexion. On 8 Aug. 1434 his maternal aunt, Joan, widow of Robert Burdet of Baddesley Clinton, granted him the property, reserving to herself the use of certain buildings for her lifetime. Shakespeare Centre Archs., Baddesley Clinton mss, DR3/216. The manors of Wolston and Marston had latterly been in the hands of Thomas Stafford† of Baginton, a cadet of the earls of Stafford. He held them in right of his wife, Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir William Bagot†; and, on her death in about 1418, he alienated the two manors to Kenilworth priory (saving his life interest), perhaps in implementation of Isabel’s will. He neglected, however, to secure the necessary royal licence, and on his death the manors were seized by the Crown. In 1428 they were leased to John Verney, later dean of Lichfield, and John Throckmorton I* for the term of 12 years, but before the end of this term they were in the hands of our MP, probably by purchase from Isabel’s heirs. Dugdale, i. 34-35; VCH Warws. vi. 275. There were doubts about title to Wolston. In 1446 Edward, Lord Grey of Groby, and his wife, Elizabeth Ferrers, claimed the manor, in her right, under the terms of a final concord of 1326: CP40/741, rot. 139. This led to the levying of another fine barring her claim, presumably after Metley’s widow and daughter had bought her out: Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xv), 1629. The manor of Wappenbury came to Metley from another Thomas Stafford via the Leicestershire esquire, Ralph Bellers, and probably not until the last months of Metley’s life. Dugdale, i. 294. For the two Thomas Staffords: The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 446. It is not known from whom he acquired his manor in Ullesthorpe (wrongly identified as Woolsthorpe in Carpenter, 104, 492). The property he purchased there has been identified as that owned by the Burnebys of Watford (Northants.), where our MP’s mother held land: J. Nichols, Leics. iv (1), 118. This cannot be correct as the Burnebys continued to hold their manor in Ullesthorpe. All that is certainly known of Metley’s purchase is that it was known as ‘Grevels’ manor: E163/29/11, m. 15.

At the same time as Metley was building up this estate he made a marriage to a wealthy lady, described in a later hostile source as ‘a stybourn and a gret-herted woman’. E163/29/11, m. 1. Unfortunately her family is unknown, but an indication of her wealth is given by an action brought by the couple in Michaelmas term 1435: they claimed that, on the previous 3 Mar., while she was yet single, William Mountfort, vicar of Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and two tradesmen of the same place, Nicholas Jones and William Skytte, took from her the considerable sum of £400 in cash and goods worth a further 100 marks. Mysteriously, this offence is placed at Hunningham, the theft presumably being from the home of our MP’s mother. CP40/699, rot. 578; KB27/700, rots. 60, 75; 705, rot. 47d. Equally baffling is the context of the alleged offence, although it is fairly clear that this issue was disputed ownership rather than simple theft. The defendants appeared to answer in Easter term 1436: they claimed that, by an agreement made with Joan at Kidderminster on 1 Feb. 1435, they had undertaken to give her certain goods in satisfaction of trespasses she alleged against them; they had immediately discharged their undertaking and were guilty of no later offences against her. A jury, sitting before the justices of assize at Coventry on 26 Nov. 1436, found differently, awarding damages of £440 against them. When he came to make his will our MP appears to have felt some guilt about receiving so great an award, perhaps because the value of the goods had been exaggerated in the plea: he instructed Joan to release £200 of the sum to the defendants. Remarkably, the damages were eventually paid. On 28 Nov. 1455 Joan and her second husband, Richard Hotoft, acknowledged themselves satisfied of the whole sum: KB27/770, rot. 75. In the meantime the unfortunate defendants had suffered outlawry and forfeiture of goods: CPR, 1436-41, p. 221; KB27/763, rot. 23d.

Metley did not long survive his marriage, although he did live long enough to see his daughter Margaret’s birth. His death appears to have been sudden: a later source claims that ‘sykenesse of pestellence’ came upon him and that, on 12 Nov. 1437 in the New Temple, he made a hurried will. If this was so he was not deemed contagious enough to be shunned by men of importance. The same source says that his will was made in the presence of his confessor, Friar William Mildenhale, master of New Temple, Thomas Young II* and Robert Rodes*, fellows of Middle Temple, William Venour, warden of the Fleet, John Throckmorton, then under treasurer of England, and many other ‘worshipfull men’. The circumstances and terms of his will are known from two sources. One of these must be considered partial. In the late 15th cent. a vivid narrative of the dispute which followed his death was drawn up by the Catesbys, who purchased some of his lands: E163/29/11. However, as far as the will’s terms are concerned, this source is supported by the other. In 1462 two of the witnesses, Young and Mildenhale, gave written testimony, stating the will in precisely the terms set out at the beginning of the Catesby narrative: Baddesley Clinton mss, DR3/258-9 (printed in Warws. Antiq. Mag. iv. 211-14). They witnessed a testament that was clear and comprehensive. Metley wished to be buried in the church of the Virgin, New Temple, either because he knew he would die in London or else because he thought of himself more as a lawyer than a member of the county gentry. The provision he made for his soul reflected his new purchases in Warwickshire: four chaplains were to pray for his soul for a year after his death in the church of Wolston, and another was to discharge the same task in the church of Baddesley Clinton. Further, as much as £100 was to be given in alms ‘ad pauperes agrorum cultura laborantes’ and the repair of roads and bridges in the locality of his new purchases. More intimately, he wanted those ‘michi in infirmitate mea attendentes et mecum laborem habentes’ to be remunerated at the discretion of his executors, and left a handsome legacy of 100 marks for the marriage of his bastard son, presumably born before his marriage to Joan.

These terms were unexceptionable; controversy, however, arose from instructions Metley left with regard to the disposition of the lands he had held so briefly. From the point of view of his widow, he made a settlement which was both generous and niggardly: for her personally ample provision was made, but the expectations of their baby daughter and heiress were greatly diminished. He instructed his feoffees, a priest and a schoolmaster of Wolston, to demise the manors of Wolston and neighbouring Marston to Joan for the term of her life, with remainder to their daughter, Margaret, in fee. But the rest of his property was to be sold for the benefit of his soul. Nor was Margaret to inherit her father’s lands in Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Northamptonshire, which had probably come to him from his parents: these were to be disposed to the children of John Metley, his brother, by the advice of their elderly mother.

If Metley had had greater leisure to make his will, he might have anticipated, and so avoided, the trouble to which these terms gave rise. He named as his executors, his mother (a curious choice in view of her advanced age), his widow and his cousin, Robert Catesby. Robert Catesby and Metley shared a grandmother in Margaret Watford. Our MP was a feoffee for Robert’s brother, John*: E40/10411. Trouble almost immediately arose between them. Catesby took advantage of his position to purchase the Metley manors in Wappenbury and Ullesthorpe for 300 marks, a sale that was very much to Joan’s distaste. Her marriage, almost immediately after our MP’s death, to another lawyer, Richard Hotoft*, put her in a position to resist. If a later complaint by the Catesbys is to be credited, she intimidated a priest, John Watson, one of the feoffees in Ullesthorpe, into refusing to convey to the purchaser and then made entry herself. This was the beginning of a long dispute as Metley’s daughter and her husband, John Hugford*, attempted to subvert the sale of both manors. It remained unresolved into the reign of Henry VII. Carpenter, 404-5; E163/29/11; C1/260/1. Like Judge William Paston, Metley left a will that was a long standing cause of rancour. C.F. Richmond, Paston Fam. The First Phase, 167-205.