MULES, John (d.1443), of Irishborough in Swimbridge, Devon.

The identification of this MP presents some problems, as there were several namesakes active in Devon at the time. It is, however, likely that the eventual knight of the shire was John Mules of Irishborough, a lawyer descended from a younger cadet branch of an old Devon family of baronial rank. The two most prominent of these namesakes (possibly father and son) were merchants from Barnstaple, where one of them served as mayor in 1443-4. It was probably the elder of them who in Nov. 1431 (when the MP was made escheator of Devon and Cornw.) was appointed dep. butler in the port of Barnstaple and controller of customs at Exeter: C147/150; C146/3283, 3401; KB27/703, rots. 32, 67; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 179, 181. There may nevertheless have been a family connexion between the MP and the merchants, who at various times were associated in property transactions: CP25(1)/46/84; Portman mss, DD\PM/5/2/9. The main line of the family had ended with two coheiresses in 1337, and by the fifteenth century their lands had fallen to the Hungerfords and Dynhams. CP, ix. 8; H. Kleineke, ‘Dinham Fam.’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 82. The surviving cadet branch had settled at Irishborough in Swimbridge, four and a half miles to the south-east of Barnstaple, and in 1422 the later MP and his second wife were granted a licence to have divine service celebrated there. A few years later, perhaps as a consequence of extensive professional travel, the licence was extended to cover Mules and his wife, children and servants anywhere in the diocese of Exeter. Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 21; Reg. Lacy, i (Canterbury and York Soc. lx), 191. His residence at Irishborough aside, Mules’s estates included the manor of Puddington, as well as scattered holdings in Great Torrington, Exeter, Bradninch, South Molton, Kingstree, and Brixton. This property was greatly augmented by the lands he acquired through his two marriages. His first wife brought him the manor of Brixton Reyne, a third part of Holbeton and a moiety of Offwell, as well as smaller parcels in Whitchurch, Plympton Erle, Upton Hellions and Northleigh, valued at the time of Mules’s death at just under £10 p.a. Able to retain these holdings by courtesy of England, Mules went on to marry a wealthy Somerset widow, Joan, the former wife of William Orchard. Orchard’s eventual heiress, his daughter Christine, had married Philip*, the son and heir of Robert Cary* of Cockington, and it was not long before Mules and Cary came to an agreement under which Mules was able to round off his new wife’s dower lands by leasing additional parts of the Orchard estate from his stepdaughter and her husband. Mules’s combined holdings provided him with an annual income far exceeding the £40 deemed the benchmark for knightly rank. C139/115/32; E372/284; Portman mss, DD\PM/5/2/6, 7, 9, 11.

No details of Mules’s education have been discovered, but it is clear that he trained in the law, and was among the more highly regarded men of his profession in his native county. From the 1420s he served as a justice of oyer and terminer, and when he was added to the county bench it was as a member of the quorum of qualified men-of-law. Mules regularly sat as a j.p.: C244/25/46; E101/555/23, 42, 45, 47. Mules’s private practice saw him employed as a feoffee or arbiter by many of the leading gentry of Devon, often in association with the most prominent lawyers of his day. Thus, by 1421 he was one of the feoffees of John Hacche* of Wolleigh, and in 1428 he served alongside Nicholas Radford* as an arbiter in a dispute between John Bernehous and Agnes, the widow of John Beville† of Woolston. Bernehous was advised by the prominent John Copplestone*, alongside whom Mules served two years later as a feoffee of John Fitzpayn, whose lands were later to fall to John Austell* of Badgworth (who represented Wells when Mules sat in Parliament for Devon in 1432). By the end of 1428 he was also retained by the leading Devon landowner Richard Hankford as steward of his estates. When Hankford died in 1431, he appointed Mules one of his executors, and when Hankford’s wife Elizabeth also died in the same year, he, together with Copplestone and John Fortescue*, received custody of her estates. Also in 1431, Mules joined Thomas Giffard* as a feoffee for his kinsman John Giffard and his wife, Thomasia, The following year he was associated with Anne, countess of Stafford, to whom the keeping was then granted. By 1435, Mules was a feoffee of Sir Thomas Beaumont and his former associate Radford, and he also acted similarly on behalf of John Chichester. Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 9, 127, 148, 158, 160, 196, 224, 228-9, 233, 247-50, 256, 259, 334; CFR, xvi. 45, 46, 83, 141; xviii. 202; CPR, 1429-36, p. 206; CP25(1)/46/82/62, 79; 86/177; CP40/696, rot. 130; 700, rots. 132-132d; JUST3/205, rot. 19; Harvard Law School Lib., English deeds, BEX8592; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR37/17-19; Devon RO, Moger mss, D1508M/Moger/83; Seymour of Berry Pomeroy mss, 3799M-0/ET/7/6-7; N. Devon RO, Incledon-Webber mss, 3704M/EL1/9; Chichester of Arlington mss, 50/11/14/8, 10; Som. RO, Crowcombe Ct. mss, DD/TB/36/1. This latter employment brought Mules into conflict with the Crown: in late 1439 he was accused jointly with Nicholas Keynes of Winkeley Keynes of having abducted Richard Chichester, one of the heirs of John Dymmok, a minor whose marriage and wardship belonged to the King. KB27/714, rex rot. 5d; 715, rex rot. 24. The difficulties arising from the complex Chichester affair continued after Mules’s death, and were then left for his widow to deal with. C1/17/355. Resident in Exeter, Mules was among the prominent lawyers employed by the city authorities to arbitrate in their long-lasting dispute with the dean and chapter of Exeter cathedral and regularly paid rewards and provided with meals at the city’s expense. Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receivers’ accts. 9-10, 11-12 Hen. VI. Similarly, the men of Launceston gave him gifts of wine for his counsel. Cornw. RO, Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/137.

Although Mules appears to have been diligent in serving his clients, his advice did not always prove to their liking. In 1430 Stephen Giffard and John Spenser had employed him as a neutral trustee to safeguard two obligations they had made to each other. By Easter 1440 Giffard was suing Mules for return of the obligations, but Mules refused on the grounds that he was unsure whether the conditions set had been fulfilled on the part of Spenser, and insisted that Thomas Spenser, John’s executor, should be summoned to give evidence. CP40/717, rot. 319. Giffard employed Mules on more than one occasion in his professional capacity: CP40/714, rot. 289d. Litigation against, as well as for, his clients was part of Mules’s daily business. On 1 Mar. 1435 the abbot of Tavistock retained him as legal counsel at an annual fee of 20s. But the abbot proved to be an unreliable paymaster: in the summer of 1439 John was forced to sue him in the court of common pleas for payment of his fee which was still outstanding from the day when he had first entered the abbot’s employment. CP40/713, rot. 168d; 714, rot. 339d. More serious were the implications of a disagreement with one John Wylkdon of Fenton, who on 27 Sept. 1434 was said to have assaulted Mules and his wife, injuring the latter in the process. C116/29, rot. 1.

Alongside his private business Mules was also active in local government. He regularly served on royal commissions and in 1431 was appointed escheator of Devon and Cornwall. It was while he held this office that he was returned to Parliament, although he must have owed his election as much to his contacts among the local gentry as his already considerable administrative experience. It is not clear how Mules came to be elected, but personal motives may have played a part for shortly beforehand Joan Ford, a resourceful widow from South Molton, had complained to the King’s Council that he had expelled her from her landed property, and he may have wished to clear his name. SC8/47/2331. Although Mules only sat in Parliament once, he regularly attended the Devon shire elections at Exeter castle, doing so on at least 12 occasions between 1419 and his death. C219/12/3-6; 13/1, 2, 4, 5; 14/1, 4; 15/1, 2. Elections aside, he was present in the shire court at other times, such as when in 1434 he figured among the men sworn not to maintain malefactors, taking the oath before Bishop Lacy and his fellow commissioners alongside the others who happened to be present in the court on that day. Reg. Lacy, i. 276, 278; CPR, 1429-36, p. 399. In his later years Mules continued to be appointed to commissions, particularly those of a judicial nature, but also maintained a wide private legal clientele. CP25(1)/46/85/171.

Mules died on 13 Sept. 1443. He was survived by his second wife, Joan, who became his executrix. Assignment of her dower was ordered in January following. CCR, 1441-7, p. 174; C1/17/355; CIPM, xxvi. 221. She was still engaged in legal action over various of her husband’s debts for several years after his death. CP40/737, rots. 241d, 372d; 740, rot. 42; 745, rots. 53, 101d, 110; 748, rot. 102; 750, rot. 506; 752, rot. 80; C1/17/355. She may have later married Sir John Norbury*, whose nephew another Sir John Norbury† eventually married Joan Gilbert, one of the Mules coheiresses: J.S. Vivian, Vis. Devon, 16; CCR, 1500-9, nos. 196, 400. Both of Mules’s daughters predeceased him, and as a consequence his lands fell to his three grandchildren: William, son of his daughter Alice and Otto Gilbert, and Joan and Elizabeth, daughters of his daughter Isabel and Thomas Dabernon. C139/115/32. As all three were minors at the time of their grandfather’s death, the lands were placed in the custody of Otto Gilbert. CFR, xvii. 281-2, 291; C139/115/32; CP40/752, rot. 331. Joan Dabernon married John Batyn, and having proved her age she obtained seisin of her share of the Mules lands in November 1448. Two years later, her sister Elizabeth, who had married John Giffard, also gained possession of her inheritance. William Gilbert died a minor before 8 Nov. 1453, whereupon his elder sister Joan was granted seisin of the last of the Mules estates. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 87-88, 208-9; CFR, xix. 79.