MIDDLETON, Sir John

Middleton had military experience not mentioned in the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 731-3. On 6 May 1420 he mustered with a small retinue at Southampton, but he was back in England by the following November when he attested the Northumberland parliamentary election. E101/49/36, m. 1; C219/12/4. He is wrongly identified in the earlier biography as a juror at the inquisition post mortem of the wealthy Newcastle merchant, Roger Thornton†, the father of his eldest son’s wife, in 1430, although he occasionally acted as a juror at such inquisitions, as he did in March 1422 in the case of Sir John Heron. CIPM, xxiii. 378; C138/44/17.

In the subsidy returns of 1436, Middleton was assessed on an annual income of only £23, said to have been derived from lands in Northumberland and Nottinghamshire. It is not known why he should have been so markedly underassessed. E179/158/38.