ONEWYN, Robert II (d.1454), of Horton, Wilts.

Onewyn’s family background is obscure, but he was called ‘of Horton, gentleman’, C67/39, m. 23 (7 Nov. 1446). and almost certainly trained to be a lawyer, as is suggested by his appointment to the quorum of the peace commission. Horton is some three miles from Devizes and not far from Marlborough, the borough he represented in Parliament. By 1434 he was prominent enough in Wiltshire as to be required to take the oath not to maintain malefactors, CPR, 1429-36, p. 371. and in later years he was listed among the attestors of four of the county’s parliamentary elections. According to the assessments for the subsidy of 1450-1 he then held lands in Wiltshire worth as much as £29 p.a., but some of these holdings belonged to a minor currently in his wardship rather than to him personally. E179/196/118. How he had acquired his property at Horton – by inheritance, marriage or purchase – is not known. Elsewhere, he had land at Melksham (to the west of Horton) and near Tisbury (in the south-west of the county), interests which he protected by bringing suits for trespass in the law-courts at Westminster. KB27/761, rot. 32d; 762, rot. 82; CP40/768, rot. 208d. His official position as bailiff of the estates of Amesbury priory led to his involvement in dealings in property in the vicinity. Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/533-4.

First recorded as a juror at a post mortem conducted at Wilton in January 1431, Onewyn appeared in the Exchequer six months later to stand surety for a lessee of land at Old Sarum. His fellow mainpernor was John Giles*, the clerk of the peace in the county, CIPM, xxiii. 579; CFR, xvi. 46-47. and he later provided mainprise for Giles himself, when he was given keeping of lands in Berkshire. Onewyn also made the acquaintance of another clerk of the peace, William Bochell*, who occupied that position in neighbouring Somerset, CFR, xvii. 44; CCR, 1435-41, p. 159. and of John Gloucester II*, a prominent clerk of the Exchequer, for whom he acted as a feoffee of property in Middlesex. E40/5752, 5773. Yet the most important of Onewyn’s associates in the 1430s and 1440s was undoubtedly John St. Loe*, one of the esquires for the King’s body, to whom he long remained closely attached. St. Loe employed him as his under sheriff not only in Somerset and Dorset in 1432-3 but also in Wiltshire in 1439-40, and it may well be the case that Onewyn also served him during his other shrievalties, for which the name of the under sheriff is unknown. He stood surety for St. Loe at the Exchequer in May 1437, CFR, xvi. 333. and when, in July 1446, St. Loe obtained licence from the King to found a chantry in St. Mary’s church at Calne, Onewyn was among the named individuals for whose spiritual welfare the chaplain was to offer prayers. CPR, 1441-6, p. 459. It was along with St. Loe and his son Nicholas that Onewyn attested a deed in Somerset in November that year, and at the Wiltshire elections held on 10 Jan. 1447 he provided guarantees that St. Loe would attend the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds as one of the shire-knights. CCR, 1441-7, p. 447; C219/15/4. Among the bequests St. Loe made in his will of 26 Feb. 1448 were a silver cup with a cover to our MP and a round silver basin to Isabel Onewyn (perhaps his wife). Furthermore, he named Onewyn as an executor along with his own son Nicholas and the latter’s wife, each of them receiving the sum of £10 for their trouble. Probate was granted on 30 Apr., and the executors were dismissed in June. Som. Med. Wills 1501-30 (Som. Rec. Soc. xix), 346-7. In both May and November that year Onewyn stood surety for Nicholas St. Loe, his co-executor, when he was granted keeping of the wardship of the young heir of Thomas Mounfort, a tenant-in-chief of the Crown, CFR, xviii. 90; CPR, 1446-52, p. 275. and it was this wardship which was to be in Onewyn’s hands at the time of the subsidy assessment of 1450-1.

On the occasion of his return to the first Parliament of 1449, as a representative for Marlborough, Onewyn was once more present at the shire court at Wilton to attest the county elections. Besides his administrative experience as under sheriff, for at least three years previously he had been bailiff of the liberties of Amesbury priory and serving as receiver in the Wiltshire estates at Brixton Deverill and Tilshead belonging to Henry VI’s foundation of St. Nicholas College, Cambridge (later known as King’s). His appointment to the latter post had most likely been arranged by John St. Loe, one of the King’s intimate servants. After his Parliament, Onewyn was given further assignments by the Crown. For instance, in July 1450 he was associated with Sir William Beauchamp*, Lord St. Amand, in a commission to take possession of the moveable goods of Bishop Aiscough, who had been murdered by a mob at Edington; it was clearly intended that they should safeguard them for Beauchamp’s brother Richard, destined to be translated to the see. Then, in March 1453 he was named on the quorum of the Wiltshire bench, and in the following year commissioned to deliver the gaol at Old Sarum castle. At an unrecorded date he was also made a verderer of Savernake forest, a role which led to his occasional association with (Sir) John Seymour I*, the hereditary warden of the forest. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Savernake Estate mss, 9/6/22.

Onewyn died before 15 Nov. 1454, when the sheriff of Wiltshire was instructed to arrange for the election of a verderer in his place, and his name was omitted from the commission of the peace appointed a few days later. CCR, 1454-61, p. 11; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 680-1. Thomas Onewyn (d.1491), who served as a juror at Marlborough in September 1457 at the post mortem of Lord St. Amand, and was appointed escheator in Hampshire and Wiltshire in 1470, sheriff of Wiltshire in 1488, and a j.p. in 1490, was probably the MP’s son. C139/164/18; CFR, xxii. no. 332.