The Philipots owed their wealth to their ancestor, the grocer Sir John Philipot† (d.1384), one-time mayor of London and in his day perhaps the richest merchant in the city. For two generations after Sir John’s death the family’s fortunes had been marred by the longevity of his second wife, Margaret Stodeye, a formidable matriarch who saw no fewer than four husbands to their graves, and after the death of the last settled down to enjoy her dower (which included all of the Philipots’ holdings in London and Middlesex) for more than 30 years of widowhood.
It was thus that the wardship of the young Philipot heir and his lands were taken into the King’s hands. In February 1437 his marriage was sold for 255 marks to Richard Newport* of Soberton, son or stepson of John’s godmother Elizabeth Newport, who a week later also acquired the farm of the Philipots’ Hertfordshire manor of Woodhall in Kelshall. Two and a half years later, on 8 Dec. 1439, Richard surrendered his interest in both marriage and farm to Elizabeth.
Only in November 1453 was Philipot, now over 22 years old, finally able to prove his age and gain livery of his inheritance.
Almost immediately, Philipot set about extending his holdings further. In the spring of 1455 he acquired the Hampshire manor of Compton ‘Wasseling’, where he was soon to make his principal home, from William, the son of William Yalton. There may have been something disreputable about the circumstances of this acquisition, for although the transaction was enrolled in Chancery, the young William Yalton (several years Philipot’s junior and still under age) petitioned Archbishop Bourgchier for help, claiming that he had been forced to grant away his property by duress. According to his version of events, Philipot and an ally, Richard Strode, had contrived to bring him to an isolated meeting place in Kingswood forest, from where Philipot had taken him to Soberton and forced him to sign away his inheritance.
Up to this point, Philipot had played little part in public life, and only in the autumn of 1457 did he attract even a minor Crown appointment, in the form of membership of a commission of array in three Hampshire hundreds, issued following reports of a renewed military threat from the French. Before long, however, events closer to home drew Philipot to the heart of county politics. In the second half of the 1450s the divisions between the lords supportive of Richard, duke of York, and those associated with the court around Queen Margaret grew ever deeper. In the spring of 1458 a last-ditch attempt at a peaceful settlement failed, and the country proceeded to slide into open civil war. In early October 1459 a royal army routed York’s supporters outside Ludlow, and York, his two eldest sons, the earls of March and Rutland, and their principal supporters, the Neville earls of Warwick and Salisbury, were forced to flee into exile. By then a Parliament had been summoned to meet at Coventry in November, and the attainder of the Yorkists now became central to its business.
The circumstances of Philipot’s return to the Coventry assembly for the city of Wells are obscure. He was qualified to represent the community in so far as he had been admitted to the freedom four years earlier, but there is no indication that he had played any part in civic life in the intervening period.
In the light of Philipot’s evident proximity to Queen Margaret’s regime, it is not surprising that he once more disappeared from local government after Edward IV’s accession. He seems to have spent the 1460s in private seclusion managing his estates, but duly re-emerged in the autumn of 1470, when the earl of Warwick’s disaffection with King Edward’s rule saw Henry VI returned to the throne. Within days of Henry’s restoration, Philipot was included in the general judicial commission issued throughout the shires of England, and other ad-hoc commissions followed later in the year. Yet, unfortunately for Philipot, the Lancastrian restoration proved short lived, and if Edward IV’s return in April 1471 heralded no reprisals against him, it certainly saw him once more returned to obscurity. He occasionally attested his neighbours’ property transactions and accepted periodic nomination as a feoffee, but played no further part in public life.
Philipot made his will on 24 Nov. 1484. He assigned the revenues of his manors of Compton ‘Wasseling’, Lymington, Hoxton and Woodhall to the construction of a new chapel dedicated to the Trinity and the Virgin at the east end of Compton ‘Wasseling’ church. In this chapel, he asked to be buried with his wife in a tomb ‘with stone and portrature’ of himself, his wife and their 17 children. Bequests of 20s. each were assigned to Winchester cathedral, Hyde abbey and Southwick priory to provide for intercessions for the testator’s soul. The sum of £4 was to be distributed among the poor to provide for further prayers, while Friar William Wynchestre was left 20s. for the same purpose, and £10 was set aside for a priest to say an entire trental for the souls of Philipot and his wife. Among his servants, Philipot particularly remembered his cook, William Brice, to whom he left the sum of 20s. Philipot’s surviving daughter, Margaret, was left £200 for her marriage, and she was in addition to have 20 marks worth of household goods for her chamber, or the same sum in money. Her brother, Thomas, was assigned an annuity of £10 until Philipot’s son and heir, John, should have endowed him with newly-purchased lands to the same value. After the construction of the chapel at Compton had been paid for and Philipot’s debts had been settled, his estates were to come to his son and heir, with remainder in default of offspring to the lines of his younger children. The exception to this was the Hampshire manor of Penyton, which was assigned to the younger John Philipot, but was in the event of his childless death to provide an endowment for a chantry at Compton.