MONE (MOHUN), John (c.1403-79), of Hammoon and Wolfeton, Dorset and Salisbury, Wilts.

Hammoon (originally Ham Mohun), a vill situated on the banks of the river Stour in north Dorset, was granted to William Mohun by the Conqueror and continued in an unbroken male line in a cadet branch of his family from the late twelfth century until the death of our MP. The main line of the family was seated at Dunster castle in Somerset, and Hammoon was held of the barony of Dunster throughout the Middle Ages. Hutchins, i. 272-3. That for several generations the heirs to Hammoon were all named John has caused confusion to historians of the family. Our MP was at least the fifth John in succession, their separate identities being distinguished by the names of their wives and widows. Our John’s great-grandfather married first Mathia, daughter of Sir William de Stoke, and then Hawise, who after his death took as her next husband Walter Perle†; his grandfather, a minor in 1361, left a widow named Joan; Honour of Dunster, 85; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 54-55. while his father, who died in about 1403, was married to Sibyl, who probably came from the gentry family of Filoll. He himself may have been born after his father’s death, for in 1407 he was said to be aged three. The infant’s wardship and marriage were sold in 1410 by the lord of Dunster, Sir Hugh Luttrell†, to the Dorset lawyer John Jordan of Wolfeton, Honour of Dunster, 114, 130, 131, 136, 142, 146. although by then his mother Sibyl had married the Hampshire esquire John Harris† of Whitchurch, who had therefore come into possession jure uxoris of a third part of Hammoon as well as another portion of John’s inheritance, the manor of ‘Byestwall and Stoborough’ in East Stoke, said in 1412 to be worth £20 p.a. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 297-8; Feudal Aids, vi. 422. The title of John and Sibyl Harris to this latter property, lying outside the walls of Wareham, and allegedly entailed on the descendants of John Mohun and Mathia de Stoke in 1344, had been subject to legal challenge, but in that same year, 1412, it was agreed that they might hold the manor for term of their lives, with remainder in tail to our MP. If the latter died without issue it was to be partitioned between the other claimants, Christine Jordan (his guardian’s wife) and her sister Joan, wife of John Cheverell† (the two women claiming title through their father John Chantmarle). See Hutchins, i. 415, but Hutchins had no knowledge of the entail of 1412: Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 270-1. Our MP inherited it after the death of his stepfather Harris in 1429. He may have spent some of his childhood at Harris’s home, for towards the end of his life he took a lease of the manor of Whitchurch. VCH Hants, iv. 301. John Roger I* was granted a lease for 44 years of the demesne land at Whitchurch in 1455; presumably Mone acquired the remainder of the lease after Roger’s death in 1460. He died in possession of the manor: C140/71/51. He probably came into the rest of his paternal inheritance in the early 1420s, and had certainly done so by 1428. CIPM, xxiii. 53, 554; Honour of Dunster, 199.

Another part of Mone’s inheritance apparently came from his grandmother Joan, who was a member of the family of Norris of Normanton in Wiltshire. CP40/882, rot. 337 (assize of novel disseisin of 1454 in which he claimed to be gds. of Joan, given in the proceedings as sis. of Isabel Overton); Hutchins, i. 273, 708. VCH Wilts. xv. 87 confuses the John Mones, giving our John (fl.1428) as Joan’s son. In 1409 this manor, some seven miles from Salisbury, had been in the possession of Joan and her then husband Robert Craford† (fl.1419) of Wareham, The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 687-8; Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), no. 297; VCH Wilts. xv. 87; CIPM, xxiii. 283. but it fell to our MP before 1428. Antrobus Deeds (Wilts. Rec. Soc. iii), no. 45; CIPM, xxiii. 283. His grandmother had also had an interest in property in Hampshire: a third of the manor of Preston Vavasour, and rents in Southampton and at South Sandown, Sutton and Brightston on the Isle of Wight, some, if not all of which were in his possession by 1434, Wilts. Feet of Fines, no. 297; I.o.W. RO, Oglander mss, OG/D/8. and he also laid claim to property in Hornyngford in the same county, which had once belonged to his grandmother’s sister, Isabel Overton. CP40/882, rot. 337.

In Mone’s youth his guardian, John Jordan, married him to his daughter Joan, who although she was not an heiress at the time was nevertheless destined to inherit the estates of her parents at some point in the late 1430s or early 1440s. When her father, who for many years held the post of steward of Dorchester, died in 1427, he left a son and heir, John, with whom our MP had dealings regarding a moiety of the manor of Freeland in Piddletrenthide three years later. It is uncertain whether this younger John Jordan died without issue or whether he voluntarily relinquished his lands to his brother-in-law, but not long after 1439 the entire Jordan inheritance passed to the Mones. Our MP conveyed Freeland to Cardinal Beaufort and others in 1444, to facilitate its transfer to Hyde abbey. Winchester Coll. muns. 14768, 14770-1. Besides her father’s estate, Joan inherited from her mother other properties in east Dorset, which Mone came to share with her cousin Walter Cheverell*. Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 387. The lands of his paternal inheritance together with those brought to him by marriage gave Mone the status of esquire, and he was often distrained for refusing to take up knighthood in accordance with his substantial income. After his death his holdings in Dorset alone were said to be worth £63 p.a., but this was undoubtedly an under estimate, for when his grandson and heir was attainted just four years later they were valued at £98 p.a. CIMisc. viii. 504, 506.

The early part of Mone’s career is poorly documented, although it may be speculated that during Henry V’s reign he spent time in Normandy serving with his lord Sir Hugh Luttrell. He was evidently not the John Mone recorded among the servants of the households of Henry V and Henry VI. That John was serj. of the scullery bef. 1422-aft. Oct. 1429, went to France on the coronation expedition, 1430-2; serj. of the hall by Nov. 1433; gauger of Bristol Feb. 1434-d.; and constable of St. Briavell’s castle May 1436-d.: PROME, x. 344-6; xi. 27; CPR, 1422-9, p. 463; 1429-36, pp. 1, 324, 331, 513; 1436-41, pp. 153, 196; E403/693, m. 15. He was still alive, but ‘broken with age’ in 1448: CPR, 1446-52, pp. 151, 221. His first ad hoc royal commission, at home in 1428, by no means led to steady employment in local administration, for 40 years were to elapse before he was appointed to another. Yet his interest in the parliamentary representation of his home county is clear from his attendance at the shire elections in Dorchester on a remarkable 12 occasions from 1429 onwards, and in the early 1430s he also sometimes served as a juror at local inquisitions post mortem. C139/49/38; 55/39; 65/39. Naturally, given his standing in Dorset, he was among those required in 1434 to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain law-breakers, CPR, 1429-36, p. 382. but, curiously, it was not Dorset, or one of its boroughs that returned him to Parliament: Mone first entered the Commons, in 1442, as a representative for Old Sarum. He was in breach of the electoral statutes not only because he attested both the Wiltshire and Dorset elections to this Parliament, but also because he was not resident in the borough which returned him. He did, however, own a house fairly close by, in Minster Street, Salisbury, and elsewhere in that city he subsequently held a number of tenements and shops. Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 151, 232, 238; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 75. Mone’s links with John Stourton II*, the future Lord Stourton, who was one of the most influential landowners in Wiltshire, may have been a factor in securing his election, but although he was later a trustee of some of Stourton’s lands, he seems never to have been a prominent member of his circle. CCR, 1461-8, p. 125. Probably much more significant was his connexion with the Staffords of Southwick, a Wiltshire manor of which both he and Stourton were feoffees. This manor had been the birthplace of their co-feoffee the chancellor of England, John Stafford, at that time bishop of Bath and Wells. Mone’s association with Bishop Stafford had begun earlier, in the lifetime of the bishop’s half-brother, Sir Humphrey Stafford* of Hooke, the wealthiest non-baronial landowner in Dorset, who when the Parliament of 1442 met was close to death (he made his will in December 1441 and died the following May, not long after the dissolution). Sir Humphrey had named the bishop and Mone among the trustees of estates in Dorset and London for the purpose of settling them in jointure on his only surviving son, William Stafford*, and the latter’s wife Katherine, the daughter and coheir of Sir John Chideok*. C140/71/47; CCR, 1476-85, no. 491.

Mone’s close involvement in the affairs of William Stafford and his wife were to continue until his death 30 years later, and on at least one occasion led him to break the law. When Stafford quarrelled with his niece’s husband, Sir James Butler, heir to the earldom of Ormond, Mone stood by him, even when the quarrel erupted into violence. He was allegedly among those of Stafford’s associates who stole from Butler 16 horses worth £30 and goods worth £10 at Nether Kentcombe on 5 Sept. 1444, in the course of a raid in which Butler’s servants suffered assaults, CP40/738, rot. 339d. and together with others who had been indicted with Stafford for these and other offences he obtained a royal pardon on 11 May 1446. As an added insurance from the effects of prosecution, he took out another such pardon on 8 July following. CPR, 1441-6, p. 438; C67/39, m. 31. His personal acquaintance with Chancellor Stafford, by now archbishop of Canterbury, had no doubt smoothed the way for him to secure these concessions; earlier that same year he and the archbishop had taken on the trusteeship of William Stafford’s estates. Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/493. Mone’s commitment to Stafford and his family is further revealed in the Trinity term of 1447, when they joined in bringing a suit in the common pleas against the abbot of Cerne regarding the manor of Burton near Dorchester. CP40/746, rot. 329; see also Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 366.

Earlier that same year Mone had entered the Commons for the second time, sitting in the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds as a representative for the city of Salisbury. There is no ready explanation as to why the citizens chose him, rather than one of their mercantile elite, although his links with the chancellor may well have been a factor in their decision. Yet, he was no stranger to the deliberations of the city’s assembly. As John Mone ‘gentleman’ he had been a member of the council of 48 for nearly three years, and had served the city as an auditor; indeed as recently as November 1446 he had been employed in this capacity and active with regard to securing a reduction of the parliamentary subsidies expected from the city by the Crown. First General Entry Bk. no. 405. He was not the citizens’ first choice to accompany Thomas Temys* to the Parliament: at an assembly on 18 Jan. 1447 Philip Morgan*, the town clerk, was elected to do so. However, Morgan’s name was subsequently crossed out of the record, and that of John Mone ‘gentleman’ inserted in its place. He and Temys agreed to take no more than 1s. a day each as their wages, and the two men eventually received £4 between them for a Parliament which lasted 22 days. Ibid. nos. 408-9. Mone may have intended to use the opportunity of his attendance at Parliament to find other patrons at the centre of government, for it was around this time that he arranged that his daughter Christine should marry Henry Trenchard*, the constable of Carisbrooke castle, who was known to be an associate of the King’s chief minister the duke of Suffolk. Yet if he did indeed hope to find a place at Court, nothing came of his aspirations.

Following William Stafford’s death in 1450 at the hands of the rebels under Cade, Mone provided constant support for his widow, Katherine, who had only shortly before entered her share of the valuable Chideok inheritance. In the following year, on her second marriage, to John Arundell of Lanherne, she appointed Mone as her attorney to receive seisin of the numerous manors Arundell had given to her at their betrothal, and in July 1452 he conveyed to the couple the Stafford manor of Southwick, which Katherine was to hold for her lifetime. Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR/19/9-11; C140/71/47. Settlements to which he was party in 1458 guaranteed Katherine’s interest in certain Stafford estates until she died. Arundell mss, AR1/940-1. Meanwhile, in 1453 he had again clashed with Sir James Butler, created earl of Wiltshire four years earlier, who alleged with his wife Avice Stafford that Mone and other feoffees were unlawfully detaining two muniment chests containing documents relating to her inheritance. CP40/768, rot. 264.

Yet while always ready to support his friends, Mone had his own business interests to consider, and foremost among these were his activities as a sheep farmer and exporter of wool. At Normanton he had ‘le lez’ for 200 sheep, and a discredited report of 1473 held that there were as many as 14,000 grazing on his lands in Dorset. The 1,100 recorded there shortly after his death seems a more realistic number, yet there can be no doubt that sheep-farming was a prime source of his wealth. Antrobus Deeds, no. 45; CIMisc. viii. 504; CPR, 1476-85, pp. 38-39. Participation in the wool trade may account for several of his suits for debt in the court of common pleas, including one against William Bathe* for the sum of £40. CP40/708, rot. 52d; 715, rot. 39d; 728, rot. 153d; 757, rot. 181d; 789, rots. 39, 46; 793, rots. 172, 175d. The few surviving customs accounts for the Dorset ports cannot reveal the full extent of his trading activities, but an incident of alleged smuggling provides a glimpse of them. Misleadingly styled ‘of Charminster, merchant’, Mone was attached to answer at the Exchequer for 13 sacks of wool which he had supposedly discovered being smuggled out of Weymouth on 4 Nov. 1452. However, it was later alleged that on that same day he had himself shipped wool worth £44 in Le Hulk de Camfer, but had failed to pay customs duties. E159/230, recorda, Hil. rot. 42; E143/24/7. Mone also later emerged as a money-lender of some substance, so it may be speculated that he was the man of this name who stood as a guarantor for repayment of a loan of £40 made by the Southampton merchant John Payn I* to the duke of Somerset, at some point in the early 1450s. The litigious Payn held that ‘untrew menes’ were employed to defraud him of his money. C1/22/176. Another lawsuit arose from disagreements between Mone and one of his neighbours, William Leyot*, who was brought to court early in 1458 to answer accusations that over a three-year period he had trespassed on Mone’s land at Hammoon, depastured crops worth 40 marks with his livestock, and assaulted his servants. Mone claimed damages of £100. The quarrel stemmed in part from liability to repair the banks of the river Stour, which ran between Mone’s land at Hammoon and Leyot’s at Manston, but wider issues were also involved. These concerned possession of the manor of Manston itself, which belonged to Leyot’s father-in-law Thomas Manston. Ignoring an entail in favour of Leyot and his wife, Manston had granted the manor in fee simple to Mone and others, thus disinheriting his daughter. Despite Mone’s subsequent participation in a settlement whereby the Leyots were permitted to lease the manor until Manston’s death, he refused to make the formal conveyance. Petitions complaining about his recalcitrance were sent to the chancellor during Leyot’s lifetime, and by his widow later. CP40/788, rot. 416; 789, rot. 311; C1/28/58; 29/475; Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 374.

During the period of the civil war from 1459 to 1461 there is nothing to show whether Mone offered tangible support to either side, although it may be supposed that his long-term disagreements with the earl of Wiltshire would have predisposed him to oppose Lancastrian rule. This predisposition was perhaps reinforced by his long involvement in the affairs of the Staffords and role as mentor to the son and heir of his old friend William Stafford. He, Humphrey Stafford IV*, became a favourite of Edward IV, and having risen to be Lord Stafford of Southwick was created earl of Devon by him. As a feoffee of the Stafford estates, Mone made settlements on Humphrey’s marriage to Isabel de la Barre, and in 1466 he asked him to be a trustee of his own property. CCR, 1461-8, p. 369; C140/32/30. Furthermore, he lent the earl money (at least £100). C1/91/24-26. However, his proximity to the wayward young man threatened to draw him into litigation after Humphrey was killed at Edgcote in 1469, even though the litigants, notably the abbot of Glastonbury, do not seem to have held him personally responsible for the earl’s misdemeanours. C1/38/214.

While there was no doubt of Earl Humphrey’s loyalty to Edward IV, others of the gentry of Dorset clearly became divided in theirs the following year, when the duke of Clarence openly opposed the rule of his royal brother. Mone appears to have been one of those suspected of outright disloyalty. When, in April 1470, John Twyneho† was bound to the King in 1,000 marks to attend upon the constable of England, Mone, together with another long-term member of the Stafford circle, Thomas Martin*, joined Twyneho’s father in bonds in 500 marks as security for his good behaviour while in custody. CCR, 1468-76, nos. 541-2. It is worthy of note that following the King’s departure into exile that autumn, and the restoration of Henry VI put into effect by Clarence and the earl of Warwick, Mone was appointed to the Dorset bench for the first time. Others of his circle were even prepared to fight for the Lancastrian queen and prince on their return from France the following spring: Katherine Stafford’s husband, Sir John Arundell, did so, with catastrophic effect on his family and fortune. After the battle of Tewkesbury the victorious Edward IV fined Arundell the huge sum of 6,000 marks, which had to be raised from the estates of which Mone was a feoffee. Nor was this the only difficulty caused him by his involvement in Arundell’s affairs. The knight died owing £800 to a London goldsmith, Robert Hardyng, and his widow Lady Katherine assigned one Richard Tomyow £200 a year from the issues of her estates with which to pay off the debt. When Hardyng demanded more speedy repayment, Mone came forward to lend Tomyow 350 marks, but the latter failed to reimburse him, forcing him to bring an action of debt against Tomyow’s sureties – two Lincoln’s Inn lawyers and Arundell feoffees, Thomas Tregarthen* and Thomas Lymbery*. C1/59/123. Even this did not shake Mone’s devotion to Arundell’s widow, for whom he witnessed deeds in 1475; CCR, 1468-76, no. 1385. and in her will, made on 2 Apr. 1479, Katherine left instructions that his executors were to be the first to be contented from her estate, before any of her other creditors were satisfied. Arundell mss, AR21/7. Mone was not yet dead; presumably Katherine had heard he was dying.

Other financial matters concerning Mone in his final years included the pursuit of (Sir) Nicholas Latimer* and John Newburgh II* for 500 marks owed him under a statute staple for merchandise sold at Poole in 1466, C241/258/47. and litigation in the law courts at Westminster against other debtors. CP40/867, rots. 217d, 399, 511d. It was only in the last ten years of his life that Mone was active in royal administration, notably as a commissioner to deliver the gaols of Dorchester and Salisbury, and member of the bench. Furthermore, for a number of years he served as steward of Dorchester, an office which had been held long before by his late father-in-law. This was also a time for putting his other affairs in order. In 1458 he had placed his lands on the Isle of Wight in the hands of feoffees, who included his son-in-law Trenchard and friends from Dorset such as John Filoll*, Thomas Martin and Walter Wothe*, Oglander mss, OG/D/8. although the purpose of the transaction is unclear. In Dorset he seized the opportunity offered by the attainder of Edward IV’s enemies to expand his landed holdings. Thus, by 1469 he had acquired a manor in Child Okeford formerly belonging to Sir Nicholas Latimer, Hutchins, iv. 78, 84. and from the estate of another attainted Lancastrian, William Godmanston (who was killed fighting for Henry VI at Barnet), he acquired the manors of Godmanston and Fifeld Quentyn. In January 1472 King Edward released these last two manors to Mone and his heirs, after he had proved his title to them and paid the Crown £100. CPR, 1467-77, p. 293; Hutchins, iv. 42, 45. This concession appears to have been connected with a curious event of October 1474. An inquisition held by the escheator of Dorset then found that not only had Mone taken the issues of Godmanston for about 15 years (a total of £150) but that on 10 Aug. 1473 at Cerne he had granted the King all the moveable possessions he had within the realm, these consisting of 14,000 sheep, 50 sacks of wool, and diverse gold and silver vessels, in all said to be worth a colossal £2,205, as well as £2,000 in coin. It was not until March 1477 that the King, having accepted that the inquisition of 1474 had been taken out of malice and the statements were untrue, pardoned Mone all the goods and the issues. CPR, 1476-85, pp. 38-39.

Our MP was the last of the Mones of Hammoon: when he died, on 6 May 1479, his heir was his grandson John Trenchard. Besides the normal writs de diem clausit extremum issued to the escheators of Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire on 6 June and 6 July to conduct inquisitions post mortem, a special commission of inquiry into his lands was appointed on 5 July, addressed to William Huddesfield†, the King’s attorney, and John Byconnell*, whose particular brief concerned the former Godmanston estate. CFR, xxi. nos. 512, 513; CPR, 1476-85, p. 182. Inquisitions held in Dorset in October established that Mone had placed his eight manors in the county as well as other holdings there, in the hands of feoffees, among them Doctor John Morton (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury), Richard Hill (afterwards bishop of London), Thomas Martin and Morgan Kidwelly. E149/240/10; C140/71/51. Mone’s will does not survive, but petitions sent into Chancery reveal that his executors included Hill and William Martin†, the son of his friend Thomas. The abbot of Cerne brought an action against them for wastes in the manor of Little Frome or Little Burton, which Mone had leased from the abbey for more than 40 years. Shortly before his death he had allegedly pulled down houses and a mill, sold the timber and stones and cut down 300 trees, to the damage of £200. On hearing that the abbot was intending to bring a suit against him, Mone had entreated him to defer the action, but had fallen ‘sore seke’ before the matter was settled. In his will and by declaration in ‘open market’ he had insisted that his executors should compensate anyone he had wronged. The executors protested that the abbot had already been satisfied, after intimidating Mone’s servant John Colnet to pay him £10 to settle their dispute. C1/56/27-29. Another item in Mone’s will problems of a different nature. He had left to the Greyfriars at Dorchester the sum of £100 for repairs to their house and to have masses said in perpetuity for his soul and those of his ancestors and benefactors. His executors decided that this sum should be levied from the estate of Humphrey Stafford, late earl of Devon, as repayment of money Mone had lent to the earl, and John Hymerford*, receiver of the earl’s lands, duly paid Bishop Hill the amount due. As Hill died in 1496 without having made payment to the friars, their warden had to start legal action against Hill’s own executors for the legacy, and made a personal appeal to the chancellor, Archbishop Morton, who, as the warden pointed out, had been named by Mone as supervisor of his will and should thus be personally concerned about his soul’s welfare. C1/91/24-26.

In the meantime, a major crisis had beset Mone’s family. Having rebelled against Richard III, his grandson John Trenchard was attainted in the Parliament of 1484, and his estates were forfeited and granted by the King to one of Mone’s former feoffees, Morgan Kidwelly. PROME, xv. 26-27; CPR, 1476-85, p. 453; CIMisc. viii. 504, 506. However, Trenchard lived to be restored to his inheritance and knighted by Henry VII. He married Margery, daughter of John Wyke II* of Bindon, and widow of his kinsman John Cheverell (d.1485), and died in 1495. PROME, xv. 102-5; CIPM Hen. VII, i. nos. 1114, 1207.