MUSGRAVE, John, of Kirkby Stephen, Westmld.

John Musgrave’s place in the pedigree of one of the leading gentry families of the north-west is established in a petition presented by (Sir) John Pennington* to John, duke of Bedford, as guardian of England, at a date between 1418 and 1420. He complained of a violent assault upon him by Sir Richard Musgrave and Sir Richard’s brother, John, as he made his way to garrison Berwick-upon-Tweed. Earlier our MP had joined Richard and another of his brothers, Thomas, in the retinue of Sir John Neville, son and heir-apparent of Ralph, earl of Westmorland, for the French campaign of 1417. SC8/65/3243; E101/51/2, m. 21. Thereafter, however, John makes only very intermittent appearances in the records. He presumably owed his election for Westmorland to his eldest brother’s influence, for it was Sir Richard, as deputy sheriff of Westmorland, who conducted the election of 18 Sept. 1427. C219/13/5. No more is known of him until 1435, when, in company with Sir Richard, he acted as feoffee for the settlement of jointure on the latter’s daughter, Margaret, on her marriage to the Northumbrian esquire, Thomas Ilderton*. Two years later he was returned for Appleby. DURH3/36, m. 8; C219/15/1. His brother was no longer deputy sheriff, but his status as a Musgrave must have been attraction enough for the electors. Although he was not among those assessed to the subsidy of 1436, which taxed incomes down to £5 p.a., it must be assumed that he had benefited from a settlement of Musgrave property. His occasional appearances as a litigant in the central courts hint at these interests: in 1436 he claimed £20 against each of three yeomen of Kirkby Stephen, and, more significantly, by 1443 he was farming the tithes of the church of that parish. E179/195/32; CP40/703, rot. 490; 740, rot. 61d; 741, rot. 175d. This is the last certain reference to him. Later, on 17 Feb. 1453, the earl of Westmorland ordered a John Musgrave, as one of his receivers, to make a payment to a London poulterer, but this is more likely to have been the MP’s nephew, a younger son of Sir Richard. Cotton Vesp. F XIII, art. 63.