PENYCOKE, John (d.1461), of Byfleet and Weybridge, Surr.

Coming from an obscure and probably modest background, John would appear to have been a close kinsman, perhaps even a son, of Adam Penycoke, a servant in the court of Henry V and yeoman of the Crown to Henry VI. Adam nominated John as his executor, CPR, 1422-9, pp. 43, 410; 1429-36, p. 213; E403/755, m. 1; E404/59/134. and may well have been responsible for his introduction to the royal household. This occurred at some point before the coronation of Queen Katherine de Valois in February 1421, for at that ceremony John wore the robes of a page in Henry V’s chamber. In commendation of the MP’s devotion to the Lancastrian Kings it was to be stated much later, in 1452, that in his youth he had served Henry V in France, Normandy and England, before constantly attending on Henry VI until advanced into old age, E101/407/4, f. 22; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 547, 565. and there can be no doubt that it was to this personal commitment to Henry VI that he owed his prosperity and enhanced status in Surrey and elsewhere. Like Adam he was promoted to be one of eight grooms of the boy King’s chamber before May 1426, when he was allotted a corrody at Winchcombe abbey. This was the first of very many gifts and grants made to Penycoke over the years to supplement his basic wages. As newly-promoted yeoman of the robes, four years later, in May 1430, the Council authorized a grant of 6d. a day to him payable at the Exchequer, to add to the £5 a year he already received from sinecure posts in Wales. E404/41/143; 42/274; 43/347; CCR, 1422-9, p. 314; E403/683, m. 1; CPR, 1429-36, p. 35. That spring he joined the expeditionary force accompanying the King to France for his coronation, thus remaining absent overseas until 1432. E403/693, m. 16; 695, m. 6. After his return to England, Penycoke’s wages were paid from the revenues of Somerset and Dorset instead of by the Exchequer, and to these were added the benefits of a second corrody, this one at Muchelney abbey, which he shared from 1434. CPR, 1429-36, p. 286; CCR, 1429-35, p. 314. He relinquished the Muchelney corrody in Jan. 1453: CCR, 1447-54, p. 452.

In that year began Penycoke’s long association with Byfleet in Surrey, a manorial estate pertaining to the duchy of Cornwall, and it was there that he formed amicable relations with his future father-in-law, Richard Parker, who as a retainer of Henry of Monmouth as prince and King had been in charge of the park at Byfleet since 1409. Together, from November 1436 Penycoke and Parker shared both the keeping of Byfleet park and a corrody at Spalding priory, Lincolnshire, which Parker had also previously held alone. CPR, 1429-36, p. 443; 1436-41, p. 41; CCR, 1435-41, p. 103. Three months later Penycoke secured at the Exchequer formal custody of the lordship of Byfleet itself for a term of seven years, but this proved to be a temporary arrangement, for later in the spring of 1437 the King, having now attained his majority, hastened to reward his yeoman of the robes with a grant for life of the lordship, manor and herbage of the park (for an annual rent of £10 payable to the duchy). At the same time royal letters patent conferred to Penycoke his daily wage of 6d. until he died. Clearly, Penycoke had established an intimate relationship with the King, symbolized by regular gifts at New Year as well as by formal grants. CFR, xvi. 316; CPR, 1436-41, pp. 47, 58, 376-7; Excerpta Historica ed. Bentley, 150. His steady devotion to his master ensured that he kept his place at King Henry’s side until the Yorkists, making sweeping changes to the personnel of the Household after their victory at Northampton in the summer of 1460, evicted him from the royal presence. Henry, ever generous to his personal servants (however unwise that may have been), gave Penycoke an annuity of £10 from the duchy of Lancaster manor of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, which was soon after increased to £15, and as he was assigned the farm of that lordship he effectively held it rent-free. From the spring of 1440 the farm of Walton was shared by Penycoke and his wife Joan in survivorship, and together they also enjoyed by the King’s grant a pipe of Gascon wine every year. By that date his annual income had risen to at least £35 from fees and annuities, DL42/18, ff. 96, 109v, 139, 140v; CPR, 1436-41, pp. 224-5, 242; E159/220, recorda Hil. rot. 1. to which were added more corrodies (at the abbeys of Faversham and Abingdon), and from May 1440 the grant of a substantial messuage (created from two adjacent tenements) in Watling Street in London. CCR, 1435-41, p. 272; 1447-54, p. 98; CPR, 1436-41, p. 416. With the King’s licence he later conveyed the London property, which had been granted to him in fee simple, to Ralph Holland: CPR, 1441-6, p. 100; Corp. London RO, London hr 172/22, 23. Furthermore, it was not only farms, annuities and corrodies that Penycoke was granted for term of his life. The King even went so far as to give him life-tenure of lucrative offices, such as that of tronager and pesager in Kingston-upon-Hull. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 398, 403, 495. Nor was he expected to perform the duties of tronager himself, for at the same time he was tasked with the escheatorship of Surrey and Sussex. There too he was less than assiduous: after the end of his term as escheator he was released from all debts and accounts due by reason of the office, so that he would not be called to account at the Exchequer for a ‘few small amounts which he had been unable to levy’. CPR, 1436-41, p. 485.

The most unusual grant made to Penycoke, and a remarkable sign of royal favour, issued on 8 Jan. 1441, when the King stated that he should have his post of yeoman of the robes for life, receiving full wages, fees, robes, lodging, food and drink in the Household until his dying day. The grant does not appear to have had a precedent, and if carried through as specified was intended to commit Henry VI’s successors to caring for his servant even in retirement. CPR, 1436-41, p. 489. This was followed by yet more bounty, including the reversion of the parkership of Havering atte Bower in Essex, a pardon of any felonies and concealments (granted by authority of the Parliament of 1442), and the office of parker of Byfleet to share with his father-in-law. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 555, 560; 1441-6, pp. 50, 57. A few years earlier, Penycoke had been granted for life the reversion of the keeping of Swallowfield park in Berkshire, formerly held by the King’s uncle the late duke of Bedford; now, in 1443, this reversionary interest was settled on him in tail-male. CPR, 1436-41, p. 306; 1441-6, p. 196. The fact that Penycoke was frequently given the post of parker on Crown estates, one such being as far away as Northumberland, and that he was also made surveyor of game in a park in Warwickshire, CPR, 1441-6, pp. 332, 437. perhaps points to the sphere of activity where he displayed most aptitude, and suggests that he and his royal master enjoyed hunting together. By Henry’s command he carried out extensive repairs to the buildings in the park at Byfleet, including the erection of a bridge which cost the Exchequer more than £64. In the spring of 1447 he received a gift of £40 as reward for his daily attendance on the King, E404/63/10, 62. in a period during which Parliament had met at Bury St. Edmunds. While Parliament had been in session that February, Penycoke had been licensed with William Hall to ship 100 sacks of wool overseas in the course of the next ten years free of subsidies, as compensation for damage done to Hall’s ship which had carried Sir William Bonville* and his retinue to Normandy; and in the following autumn Penycoke alone obtained another generous trading concession with regard to the export of 200 sacks of wool, for which he was required to pay a subsidy of just 20s. per sack (as compared to the fixed rate for denizens of 33s. 4d.). DKR, xlviii. 373; E159/225, brevia Trin. rot. 3d; E122/141/29, f. 62d.

The excessive favour shown to Penycoke by the King and the influence he was thought to have in the Household prompted others to cultivate his friendship and good will. The fraternity of St. John the Baptist pertaining to the Taylors Company of London welcomed him and his wife to their fellowship without payment; Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 319v. Queen Margaret of Anjou gave him money and New Year’s presents; A.R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parl. 225. the duke of Norfolk granted him for life the keeping of Knepp park in Sussex, with wages of £4 11s. p.a.; CPR, 1446-52, p. 38. and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, doubled this by giving Penycoke an annual fee of £9 2s. for life, payable from his estates in the same county. Petworth House, Suss., mss, 7214-16; J.M.W. Bean, Estates Percy Fam. 88. It is uncertain what the earl expected from Penycoke in return for this fee, although on at least one occasion the squire proved useful in receiving reassignments at the Exchequer for Percy’s remuneration as warden of the east march: E403/800, m.1. The rise of this gentleman-yeoman reached its apogee in March 1448 on his promotion to be one of the select group of four esquires for the King’s body, a role which warranted an annual fee of 50 marks, in Penycoke’s case initially charged on the town of Gloucester, then on the fee farm of Southampton. CPR, 1446-52, pp. 150, 163.

Household men were expected to play an important role in the localities, bolstering the royal administration. Penycoke did so as escheator of Surrey and Sussex in 1439-40 and in Lincolnshire in 1447-8 (he was subsequently pardoned £10 due on his Lincolnshire account, and all debts and trespasses for which he was responsible while in office). CPR, 1446-52, p. 211; E159/225, brevia Hil. rot. 2. Immediately after relinquishing the latter escheatorship he was appointed sheriff in Oxfordshire and Berkshire (counties in which he had no personal interests as a landowner), and as such he conducted elections to the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 12 Feb. 1449. It may not have been entirely coincidental that those elected for the two counties included his fellow members of the Household: Edmund Hampden* and John Pury* for Oxfordshire and another esquire for the body, John Norris, for Berkshire. C219/15/6. Significantly, despite the ordinance which forbade the return of serving sheriffs, Penycoke himself was elected for Surrey. His credentials for election as a knight of the shire included his earlier service as escheator, and he had been in possession of the lordship of Byfleet and offices there for several years. Besides this he held the farm of Walton-on-Thames and by the late 1440s he had acquired for himself other landed holdings in the county, notably at Weybridge (where he presented to the parish church in the following year), and Wisley. VCH Surr. iii. 479; O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. ii. 792-3; iii. 120. While there is a hint that he did not come by some of his landed estate by fair means (certain lands in Chertsey and Walton were sold him by one John Ferrour, who later confessed to forging title deeds), it was not alleged that Penycoke himself had actually been party to the deception. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 504-5; 1454-61, p. 57.

Yet, although qualified to represent Surrey by virtue of his interests there, Penycoke was undoubtedly elected because of his access to the King and the expectation that by personal intervention he might obtain favour for his acquaintances. Indeed, six days after the Parliament opened he secured a royal pardon for one such petitioner, a monk who had violated the statute of Praemunire; King Henry himself signed it at Penycoke’s request. PPC, vi. 66-67. Penycoke’s presence in Parliament worked also to his own advantage, as when the ordinance regarding subsidies charged on shipments of wool to the staple of Calais was deemed not to apply to him, Thomas Walsingham† and Thomas Brown II* (the under treasurer), as their letters patent permitted them the privilege of shipping their wool directly elsewhere, avoiding the staple. PROME, xii. 57-60. He was still sheriff when elections were held to the next Parliament, and at Oxford on 23 Oct. 1449 he returned Hampden again together with Thomas Stonor II*, who is thought to have been married to the natural daughter of the King’s chief minister, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk. C219/15/7. Penycoke himself was never particularly close to Suffolk (perhaps because of their disparity in status); although he had been recorded with him three years earlier, as a co-grantee of the manor of Great Oxendon by nomination of Thomas Mulsho of Geddington. Nevertheless, in a poem written soon after the duke’s murder in May 1450, he was named among the courtiers belonging to his affinity. Inevitably, his position at court won him enemies. CCR, 1441-7, p. 437; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxviii), 101. Not surprisingly, Penycoke was among those virtually exempted from the workings of the Act of Resumption passed in the final session of the Parliament of 1449-50. At that time his fees and annuities by grant of the Crown were estimated to be worth £95 9s. 6d. p.a., but of this sum only his original basic wage of 6d. a day as a yeoman of the chamber was withdrawn; the King’s favour ensured his exemption with regard to the rest. E163/8/14, m. 2; PROME, xii. 122.

When the duke of Suffolk met his end and rebellions broke out in the summer of 1450 Penycoke was holding office as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, and thus should have been required to take military action in his bailiwick in an attempt to restore order. Yet the south-east was to remain unsettled for months to come. If Penycoke tried to influence the parliamentary elections of October that year on behalf of his fellow members of the Court he proved unsuccessful – so unsuccessful, in fact, that one of those returned for Sussex was Robert Poynings*, who was later alleged to have been Cade’s sword-bearer. C219/16/1. The disturbances left the King’s ministers facing challenges to their authority, most notably from Richard, duke of York, and presented Penycoke with a crisis in his own affairs, which was not immediately resolved even despite the intervention of the King himself. In a letter of 6 Oct. 1450 written by Justice Yelverton*’s secretary to John Paston*, it was noted that in the course of a cordial encounter the previous day between Henry VI and Sir William Oldhall*, the duke of York’s councillor, the King had requested Oldhall to ask York to help Penycoke: the duke’s tenantry needed persuading to allow Penycoke’s bailiffs to collect rents from those of his lands located in the duke’s lordships. Oldhall put the King off by saying that York’s tenants would disobey any instructions of that sort. Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, ii. 174-5. It is indicative of the radical alteration in the balance of power that Lancastrian courtiers were forced to seek the good offices of such as Oldhall at this time. Early in the first session of the Parliament which opened on 6 Nov. a petition was presented to the King by the Commons demanding the permanent removal from his presence of certain named persons, headed by Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and the dowager duchess of Suffolk and including Penycoke, who were said to have been ‘mysbehavyng about youre roiall person’, and by whose means ‘your possessions have been gretely amenused, your lawes not executed and the peas of this your reame not observed’. In response, however, Henry excluded from those to be expelled all the lords and those ‘accustumed contynuelly to waite upon his persone’. PROME, xii. 184-6. Penycoke, falling into the latter category, escaped banishment.

Within a year Penycoke and his fellow courtiers recovered lost ground, and the duke of York’s followers were temporarily eclipsed. In the autumn of 1451 the keeping of the manor of Byfleet (which previous to the Act of Resumption he had held on a life-tenancy), was returned to him on a 40-year-lease (effectively on equivalent terms), and that of Swallowfield for ten years, and in April 1452 the Exchequer was ordered to allow him a rebate of £40 set against these farms as a reward for his daily attendance on the King. He was allowed a further £40 as a deduction from his charge as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, and it was again stressed that he was ‘dayly occupied aboute oure persone’ when the Exchequer was ordered to allow him to finalize his shrieval account by attorney. He obtained formal confirmation of his annual fee of 50 marks as an esquire for the body, CFR, xviii. 227-8, 238; E159/228, brevia Mich. m. 9, Trin. mm. 1, 15d; 229, brevia Mich. m. 3. and on 12 Apr. a comprehensive general pardon as a mark of appreciation for his good service to the King and his father from his youth to the present day, ‘that he may the longer enjoy his age in peace’. Besides bearing the King’s signet, the warrant for the pardon was signed by the duke of Somerset, the earl of Wiltshire and other dignitaries close to the monarch. Furthermore, a month later he received a grant of two parts of the lordship of Swallowfield to hold in tail-male, along with the reversion of the other third (still held by the duchess of Bedford), with effect back-dated to Michaelmas 1450. CPR, 1446-52, pp. 547, 565, 567; CFR, xviii. 262-3; Add. 21505, f. 2. Another notable mark of royal favour came in the following autumn, with the commitment of the lands of John Lye* of Flamston in Wiltshire, during the minority of the heir, John†, and the marriage of the latter, for which Penycoke paid £100. CPR, 1446-52, p. 569; 1452-61, p. 37; CFR, xix. 18; CAD, vi. C5460.

At this point Penycoke was returned to his second Parliament, an assembly summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453. The Lower House was dominated by members of the Lancastrian court. Assignments issued at the Exchequer had not enabled Penycoke to recover a loan of £167 7s. 4d. he had made to the King in his chamber three years earlier; now, during the second session at Westminster on 5 June, he was granted a licence to ship wool from Hull to Calais, paying reduced subsidies until he recovered his money. Further, when Parliament was prorogued on 2 July and the King handed over certain schedules of parchment signed by his own hand to be inserted in the parliament roll, among these schedules was one to Penycoke’s advantage: it was deemed that any acts passed in the Parliament should not be prejudicial to him in respect to any grants made to him. Even after the King’s mental collapse just a few weeks later, Penycoke retained his privileged position. A petition presented in the final session in the spring of 1454, and perhaps while the duke of York was Protector, pointed out that in contravention to a statute of Richard II a number of persons had been granted offices in the ports for life, and asked that all such grants should be voided. This ruling affected Penycoke’s tenure of office as tronager and pesager at Hull, but the petitioners asked that the act should not apply to him as well as to certain other more exalted personages, such as the queen, the baby prince of Wales and the duke of Buckingham. E404/69/171; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 103-4; PROME, xii. 249-50, 313-14. During Henry VI’s illness, Penycoke remained at his side, and his place as an esquire for the body was later confirmed in ordinances for the regulation of the Household drawn up on 13 Nov. 1454. The King made a recovery a few weeks later, and the duke of Somerset was released from the Tower of London early the following year. On 16 Apr. 1455 a great council was called to meet at Leicester on 21 May, with named representatives from the shires in attendance: Penycoke and Nicholas Carew* were the two men summoned from Surrey. PPC, vi. 223, 341. In the event, the confrontation between the supporters of the dukes of Somerset and York at St. Albans on 22 May meant that the council never met. If Penycoke stood by the King when the battle was fought, he failed in his duty to protect him, for Henry received a wound.

In material terms, Penycoke appears to have been little troubled by the Yorkist victory at St. Albans; he gained exemption from the Act of Resumption passed in the Parliament of that year with regard to his life annuity of 50 marks, and his farms at Byfleet and Swallowfield were eventually renewed in the following year. As the Lancastrian court regained its ascendancy in the late 1450s so did the leases Penycoke negotiated at the Exchequer become once more highly favourable to him: thus, although grants for life or in tail-male were now out of the question, the leases he secured were to last for as long as 40 years, well beyond his expected lifespan. Royal pardons granted to him in October 1455 and July 1457 guaranteed protection from unwelcome lawsuits and demands at the Exchequer, PROME, xii. 410; CFR, xix. 156-7, 184-5; C67/41, m. 16; CPR, 1452-61, p. 360. while letters patent exempting him from serving as a juror or on official bodies unless he chose to do so, enabled him to limit his duties, and he was never again required to officiate as sheriff. A ceremonial position as rod-bearer at the feast of St. George at Windsor, which he held from April 1459, was granted in reversion to his son John Penycoke the younger three months later. CPR, 1452-61, pp. 432, 484, 505; CCR, 1454-61, p. 331.

Following the attainders of the Yorkist lords at the Coventry Parliament of 1459, and their escape to Calais, Penycoke was named on a commission of array in the spring of 1460 to assemble and lead the men of Middlesex to resist their incursions, and it may be that he was with the King at Northampton in July, when the Lancastrian forces suffered defeat. The victors brought King Henry to London and placed their own supporters about him in the Household. This was the signal for Penycoke to be removed from the privileged place he had occupied for more than 35 years, and he was also summarily removed from office at Hull. Nevertheless, the King was able to grant him a pardon on 28 Oct. of all treasons, felonies and trespasses committed before the beginning of that month. CPR, 1452-61, pp. 603, 629. Penycoke’s whereabouts in the winter of 1460-1 are hard to discover, but it seems likely that he re-joined Henry VI as he journeyed north with Margaret of Anjou’s forces in the following February, after their victory at the second battle of St. Albans, for he was subsequently held to have fought against the newly acclaimed King Edward IV at Towton on 29 Mar. Twelve days later the Yorkist regime issued an order for his arrest as a rebel, and in July the escheator of Surrey and Sussex was ordered to seize all his possessions. Nicholas Gaynesford*, usher of the new King’s chamber, was appointed to approve and survey all Penycoke’s lands in Kent and Surrey, and receive their revenues on the Crown’s behalf. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 28, 36; CFR, xx. 35-36. It is uncertain when Penycoke died. On 28 July when his corrody at Abingdon was granted to another he was said to be ‘deceased’, yet when two weeks later a grant in fee simple was made to Joan Penycoke of all the lands of which her husband had been seised in her right, she was called ‘wife’ not widow. CCR, 1461-8, p. 104; CPR, 1461-7, p. 45. Whether posthumously or not, Penycoke was attainted for treason in Edward IV’s first Parliament, and his estates declared forfeit. PROME, xiii. 42-51.

These estates included lands in north Lincolnshire, which Penycoke had acquired in the course of the previous two decades. Situated in the Isle of Axholme, at Low Burnham and Haxey and including the manor of High Burnham, they, together with land in Misterton, just across the border with Nottinghamshire, CAD, i. B750; ii. B2624; iii. D512; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 295, 346-7. were said to be worth £12 p.a. Initially granted to Gaynesford, early in 1462, they were later transferred to the Carthusian priory of Axholme, under the terms of a judgement in the King’s bench. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 91, 484; C145/322/6; E210/1593. The King’s cousin Sir Thomas Bourgchier was granted Penycoke’s houses in Watling Street, in tail-male, as well as the lands he had held in Felstead, Essex. CPR, 1467-77, pp. 24, 46. Presumably, Penycoke had recovered the London property after Ralph Holland’s death. The Crown’s title to the latter was debateable. The lands had earlier belonged to Penycoke’s father-in-law Parker, who had settled them on his grandson Lancelot Penycoke in 1444, with remainder should Lancelot’s issue fail to his mother and siblings. Although a royal inquiry conducted in 1467 found that Penycoke had held the estate, this finding was subsequently challenged by Clement Spice*, who claimed that he had never done so: rather, Parker’s feoffees, of whom Spice was one, had retained title. CPR, 1441-6, pp. 254-5; 1476-85, pp. 364-5. Lancelot entered the Church: CPR, 1452-61, p. 460.

Penycoke’s principal heir was his other son, John. Perhaps this John was the namesake who in 1452, while aged about 16, had obtained a papal dispensation after he had been tonsured to hold for life any compatible benefices, CPL, x. 117-18. but if so he later chose secular life. As son and heir of our John Penycoke he presented to the church at Weybridge in 1463. It is not explained why the advowson and other properties at Weybridge had not been subject to forfeiture, but perhaps they had been kept in the hands of feoffees. This was the case with certain lands there which Penycoke senior had held jointly with Sir Henry Norbury* and others from 1438, and which his son relinquished 45 years later. Manning and Bray, ii. 792-3; CAD, iii. C2997; C146/1359. The son obtained a pardon from Edward IV in December 1471, C67/48, m. 26. but it was not until 1485 that he was able to secure the reversal of his father’s attainder, in Henry VII’s first Parliament. His attempts to recover the Lincolnshire estate at law led eventually to a compromise agreement with the prior of Axholme, to whom he formally surrendered his title in 1486. PROME, xv. 113; C1/38/161; E326/12897; Materials for Hist. Hen. VII ed. Campbell, ii. 58. A family claim to the Lincs. estate was revived in the 16th century: C1/556/32.