POYNINGS, Robert (c.1418-61), of Wrentham, Suff. and Twineham, Suss. and Croydon and Southwark, Surr. and Maidstone, Kent.

The suggested date of birth of Robert and his twin brother, Edward, is based on their ages as given in their father’s post mortem. However, it may be that they were born earlier than 1418, and that they were the outcome of the pregnancy of Lord Poynings’s wife Eleanor recorded in 1416. Reg. Chichele, iii. 455. There is no doubt that they were considerably younger than their brother Sir Richard, Lord Poynings’s eldest son and heir apparent; indeed, they were almost contemporary in age to the latter’s daughter and eventual heir. As fellow commoners with Sir Richard’s stepson, William Arundel (who was to succeed to the earldom of Arundel in 1438), the twins were educated at Winchester College, and the arms of Poynings are depicted in Fromond’s chantry there, with Poynings quartering Fitzpayn. Archaeologia, lxxv. 151-2; CP, v. 685. Robert’s twin went on to study, for ten years altogether, in arts, civil law and canon law at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and was permitted to lecture in Oxford on the Libellus Institutionum and the Decretals in 1449. Although his degree was in law, Edward entered the Church, and served as rector of the family living at North Cray in Kent from 1446, and of Crayford from 1450 to 1457. Yet despite his education and noble birth, he rose no higher than the mastership of Trinity College, Arundel, and it must be assumed that his career, like that of his twin brother, was blighted by the disputes over the family estates which erupted at their father’s death. Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1512.

As a younger son, Robert was entitled to inherit nothing from his father except for a share in the lands in Kent which Lord Robert held in gavelkind. However, in May 1424, Lord Poynings made an entail of his manor of Wrentham in Suffolk, so that after his death this property should descend not to his eldest son, but successively in tail to the three younger ones, William, Robert and Edward. As he survived William, Robert eventually inherited this manor. C139/126/24. His prospects were also affected when his oldest brother Sir Richard was killed at the siege of Orléans in 1429, especially as Sir Richard’s heir was a daughter, Eleanor, who was also now the principal heir to the main Poynings estates. This much was clear from the settlements Lord Poynings made in June 1434. In these he not only made provision for his current wife (Margaret Squiry, the widow of William Cromer†, a wealthy London draper and landowner in Kent), but more importantly completed the legal arrangements for his grand-daughter’s prestigious marriage to Henry Percy, the son and heir apparent of the earl of Northumberland. Thus, he granted his manor of Terlingham in Kent to his wife as part of her jointure, with reversion to Eleanor and her husband, and in the following November and in June 1435 formal enfeoffments were sealed, assuring the earl that his son and the latter’s issue by Eleanor would in due course inherit some 19 other manorial estates in Kent, Sussex and Surrey. Lord Poynings promised not to change his will henceforth. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 699-71; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 368, 414; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 95-96; C139/126/24; J.M.W. Bean, Estates Percy Fam. 112-13.

Yet certain of his properties were not included in the settlement on his grand-daughter. This was evidently because he intended them to go to Robert as his now eldest surviving son, although he left it very late before making the necessary legal arrangements. A fine was levied in Michaelmas term 1445 whereby the Poynings manors of Twineham, Linde and Westmeston, two parts of that of Truleigh and part of three messuages, some 700 acres of land and pasture for 200 sheep in Sussex, together with the manor of Wilton Hockwold by Brandon Ferry and the advowson of the church there, and two messuages, 210 acres of land and £5 rent in Norfolk, were put in the hands of feoffees headed by the eminent lawyers William Westbury, j.KB, and Walter Moyle*, apparently with the intention that they should hold them to Lord Poynings’ use for the rest of his life, and then transfer them to Robert. Lord Poynings died on 1 Oct. 1446, CP25(1)/293/71/303; C139/126/24. and less than three weeks later, on 20 Oct., certain of the feoffees (not including Westbury) duly granted Robert seisin. (Nevertheless, he subsequently petitioned the chancellor, Archbishop Stafford, claiming that the enfeoffment had been made to his use, and that although the feoffees had made estate to him, they still refused to release all their right and title.) CCR, 1441-7, p. 435; C1/17/346-7. It seems, too, that he expected more from his father’s estate, and had some reason to do so. Two days later, a family retainer, the clerk William Russell, made a statement in Chancery regarding Lord Poynings’ intentions in respect of the manor of Great Perching in Sussex. He stated that Lord Robert had put him in possession of the manor in the name of the feoffees thereof, and had said in the presence of various witnesses that it should never be sold or entailed, but be given to one of his sons, ‘such on as he might best love’, and that the last time Lord Poynings had spoken to him he had told him that this was Robert. CCR, 1447-54, p. 22.

There was remarkably little delay between Lord Poynings’ death and the holding of inquisitions post mortem, with the exception of those needing to be conducted in Kent, and as early as 16 Nov. the Percys received royal licence to enter all his castles, lordships and manors which ought to descend to Eleanor, without suing for livery out of the King’s hands. The grant, that they might enter and occupy all properties Lord Poynings had held in fee simple, fee tail, for life or otherwise, notwithstanding any inquiries then or after taken, and notwithstanding any statute, act or ordinance to the contrary, represented an extraordinary concession. For one thing, it gave Eleanor and her husband a special advantage over her two uncles in Kent, where most of the Poynings manors had sizeable gavelkind appurtenances, even though the manors themselves descended either by entail or by common law. CPR, 1446-52, pp. 24, 236. The Percys could look for support to influential friends at court, including Eleanor’s stepfather, Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, a former treasurer who still regularly attended the King’s Council. But Robert himself did not lack for friends among the nobility: he was said at that time to be ‘with my lord of Canterbury’, the implication being that he was attached to the service of Archbishop Stafford (as was certainly the case not long afterwards). Perhaps Stafford was prepared to help him establish his claims, but he was up against formidable opponents. CCR, 1447-54, p. 22. For his place in the chancellor’s service, see KB27/752, rot. 26, and for what follows R.M. Jeffs, ‘The Poynings-Percy Dispute’, Bull. IHR, xxxiv. 148-64.

In August 1447 orders were sent to the escheator of Kent to divide the lands held in gavelkind equally between Eleanor Percy and her twin uncles. It is now impossible to estimate the value of Robert’s third part, but in rental income alone it was worth £24 p.a. CCR, 1441-7, pp. 421-3. Litigation over the other Poynings estates began almost immediately, with Robert’s stepmother Lady Margaret bringing a plea that Trinity term for a dowager’s portion of the lands that had fallen to him. CP40/746, rot. 128d. The attendants who had witnessed his father’s nuncupative will were examined in Chancery two months later, and Robert entered into possession of Great Perching, although this action was contested in the common pleas by the Percys, who instead of waiting for judgement ordered their servants to seize the manor by force in March 1448. CCR, 1447-54, p. 22; Jeffs, 152. Further complications arose when Robert’s stepmother died on 3 Nov. following, C139/135/31. In her will Margaret had left her ‘daughter’ Eleanor Poynings £10, but did not mention her stepsons, nor her late husband Lord Poynings, only ‘my good husband Crowemer’: Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 167. yet the Poynings brothers achieved a small success when, on 21 Nov., the escheator of Kent was ordered to divide up the lands Lady Margaret had held in gavelkind equally between the three heirs, and to release their shares to Robert and Edward, but retain until further notice the part due to Eleanor Percy. Robert straightaway brought a suit in Chancery over ‘Benfield’s Place’ in Shoreham, Sussex, and a more imposing mansion in Southwark, which his father had settled on Lady Margaret for life with remainder to him in fee simple. With regard to the Shoreham property, his petition was not contested and one of the feoffees transferred possession to him almost immediately, but he encountered more serious difficulties regarding the Southwark house. His petitions to his lord the chancellor were supported by two of his father’s feoffees, and a writ of sub poena was sued against another of them, the cleric Thomas Lisieux, to give evidence, but the Percys challenged his claim, saying that Lord Robert had intended them to have the property, and ‘as it is well knawen’ an entail had been made to this effect. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 84-85, 97; C1/13/102-3; 16/646; 22/132. They also took steps to seize what they regarded as Eleanor’s inheritance by force. In September 1449 a band of Percy men, led by none other than the earl of Northumberland and his son Henry in person, entered the manor of Newington Bertram, which was then held by Robert’s feoffees. The fact that the latter were headed by his lord the archbishop of Canterbury (still chancellor) and included such notable figures as Sir William Bonville*, Lord Bonville, and the archbishop’s nephew William Stafford*, does not seem to have helped him to keep possession. Jeffs, 155-6.

At this stage in the dispute the wider political events of the time began to have an effect on its progress, and Robert’s actions in 1450 as the government met with serious challenges both from the Commons in Parliament and popular uprisings need to be set against the background of his personal setbacks. Although he was of sufficient standing in Sussex as to head the list of attestors to the parliamentary elections held at Chichester on 30 Jan. 1449, C219/15/6. he was not singled out for appointment to any office of shire administration. So it is strange that when, on 22 June 1450 at the height of Cade’s rebellion, an attempt was made to raise the county posse of Kent, Surrey and Sussex to arrest ‘soldiers’ engaged in robbery and lawless acts at Edenbridge, near Sevenoaks, the commission was directed to Poynings alone. The answer lies in his role as a servant of Archbishop Stafford, and the calamitous events of the previous four days. The rebels, faced by Henry VI’s army, had retreated from their camp at Blackheath on 18 June, but had then been confronted near Sevenoaks by a force led by the archbishop’s nephew William Stafford and their kinsman (Sir) Humphrey Stafford I*. Both Staffords were had killed. It looks likely that in the heat of the moment the archbishop dispatched his retainer Poynings to do what he could to restore order. According to allegations made against Poynings four years later, he promptly joined the rebels, and became Cade’s carver and sword-bearer; while at the same time an old family retainer, Thomas Bigg, agreed to be one of the rebel-army’s petty captains. CPR, 1446-52, p. 387; PROME, xii. 271-2; Jeffs, 152.

Whether or not this gloss put on Poynings’ actions long after the event was strictly true, he did have an immediate motive for taking advantage of the collapse of order in the region. This was his personal quarrel with his stepbrother, the universally detested William Cromer*, who was then serving as sheriff of Kent and was to be murdered by the rebels together with his father-in-law, James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, just 12 days after Robert’s commission was issued. The evidence for the quarrel is to be found in allegations made in the King’s Bench in Trinity term 1452 by the administrators of Cromer’s estate, who said that on 30 June 1450 one of Poynings’ servants broke into Cromer’s house in London and stole silver bowls, candlesticks, spoons and other moveables valued at 100 marks. The servant denied the charge, stating that these goods, once belonging to Robert’s father Lord Poynings (who intended that they should pass to Robert after the death of his widow), had on the contrary been unlawfully taken by Cromer from him while he was keeping them safe for his master. Jeffs, 152-3; KB27/765, rot. 78; CP40/773, rot. 124. Much later, in 1465, some of the events of those days were recounted in a letter written to John Paston by one John Payn, who at the time of the rebellion had been in the service of Sir John Fastolf. Payn recalled that he had been sent by Fastolf from his house at Southwark to the insurgents at Blackheath to learn about their grievances. On being brought before Cade, he said he had come to join the rebels, but was exposed as Fastolf’s man and accused of being a spy for ‘the greatest traitor in England or France’. Cade wished to execute him on the spot, but his life was spared when Poynings declared that 100 or 200 more would die if Payn was put to death, and so he was made to take an oath to go to Southwark to arm himself and then return to assist their cause. Paston Letters, ii. 314.

It would appear from this account that even though Poynings was at Cade’s side, he may have sought to temper the rebels’ violent actions. Significantly, he suffered no immediate retribution from the government when the rebellion was put down, and remained free to pursue his own concerns for several months longer. No legal action was taken to bring him to justice, and he himself instigated proceedings before the j.p.s in Sussex against the Percys’ followers for evicting him from Great Perching. According to documentary evidence produced at the inquisition post mortem following his son’s death in 1521, on 1 Oct. 1450 the two surviving feoffees of Lord Poynings’ estates in Kent (which included the manor of Terlingham which had been promised to Eleanor Percy and her husband), granted them to Robert and the heirs of his body. Bean, 113-14, taken from C142/38/39; E150/478/3. This may be true, as Robert was seised of these estates in June 1457: E149/183/14 m. 3. He was undoubtedly riding high, and remained at liberty throughout the autumn. Furthermore, he was elected on 8 Oct. in the shire court of Sussex to represent the county in the Parliament summoned to meet on 6 Nov. Poynings’ election may be an indication that those of influence in the county had at least in part sympathized with the rebels’ grievances, in particular those against the wrongs inflicted by Fiennes and Cromer, who had many enemies in the locality. It may also be a measure of the state of confusion which still prevailed in the south-east. Yet his immunity from prosecution could not last long. On 29 Nov. four of his fellow MPs, (Sir) Walter Devereux I*, Sir Edmund Mulsho*, Sir William Pecche* and Thomas Uvedale* (his colleague from Sussex), together with two others, entered recognizances in £200 to guarantee his appearance before the King and Lords in the parliament chamber eight days later. He himself was bound in 1,000 marks. CCR, 1447-54, p. 238. What happened at that meeting of the Lords (if, indeed, it took place given the tumult of the times) does not transpire; nor are the charges against him made explicit. All that is known is that at the Parliament’s dissolution, late in May 1451, he was imprisoned in the Tower. It may be that he was thought to be linked with the lawyer Thomas Young II*, similarly incarcerated after he petitioned for the duke of York to be recognized as heir to the throne, or with another retainer of York’s, the Speaker, Sir William Oldhall*, who was later accused of treason. In the summer of 1452 both he and Oldhall asked John Battle of Stanford Rivers, Essex, to be a surety for their release from prison: CCR, 1447-54, pp. 361, 363. In any case Poynings lacked a pardon for his exploits of the previous year. His enemies took advantage of his imprisonment by raiding his granaries at Carde, and arraying assizes of novel disseisin against him and his brother in Kent and Sussex. Jeffs, 153; C66/473, m. 18d; 474, m. 13d.

Poynings was still in the Tower a year later on 21 May 1452, when he sent a petition to the Council in which he referred to an earlier letter to the King explaining that because of his ‘streit emprisonement in youre Towre of London by youre most dredfull commaundement’ he had failed to answer an indictment of treason before the justices of oyer and terminer in Kent, and an exigent had been awarded against him by his default, so that he had been outlawed and his goods had been confiscated. Although the King had promised that he should not be damaged in this way, the escheators continued to keep his possessions, and he now asked the Council to send instructions for them to be returned. The request was granted, he was freed before 28 June, and on 14 Aug. he was granted a pardon, as ‘late of Maidstone, Kent, esquire and late of Croydon, Surrey’. The pardon was not issued unconditionally, for on the same day Robert’s brother Edward and four esquires and a yeoman each entered recognizances in £200 as a guarantee for his future good behaviour, and a day later Poynings himself was bound in £2,000 to keep the peace. PPC, vi. 127-8; C67/40, m. 19; CCR, 1447-54, p. 361. This he proved incapable of doing. It was afterwards stated in acts of the Parliament of 1453-4 that on 2 Jan. 1453 he encouraged great assemblies of ‘much sympell and noghtie pepill’, many of them outlaws and including Thomas Bigg the family retainer now notorious for his alleged adherence to Cade, and brought together a gang of 30 more at Westerham in Kent on 28 Jan. where they rioted against the peace. Then on 26 Feb. at Sutton in Sussex he had sent messages to two husbandmen to meet him at Southwark, where he gave them money so that they would come to him on warning to carry out his orders; since the events described the two had been indicted of treason and then pardoned. RP, v. 396-7 (cf. PROME, xii. 324). The Parliament met in sessions at Reading on 6-28 Mar. 1453, then at Westminster from April to July, where, in the common pleas, the Percys prosecuted Poynings, his brother and Bigg for trespass at Great Perching. CP40/769, rot. 467. It was perhaps then that the bill against him was presented. Alternatively, the Commons may not have considered it until they met for the final session of the Parliament, which assembled once more at Westminster from 14 Feb. to 18 Apr. 1454, and indeed Chief Justice Fortescue* and his associates heard charges against Poynings’ followers at Southwark on 27 and 29 Mar. and against Poynings himself in Kent on 11 Apr. that year. KB9/273, mm. 30, 92-101. The petition asked that a writ should be sent to the sheriffs of London to make proclamation that Poynings, Bigg and John Wildeley, a yeoman from Southwark, should appear in Chancery within a month on pain of outlawry, and be imprisoned without bail until they found surety for their good behaviour. If they escaped from prison they were to be fined £4,000. A second Act was enrolled after the appointment of the duke of York as Protector at the beginning of April. This recited that Poynings had been ‘accompenyed and adherent’ to the traitor Cade when he did his ‘robbery and tyranny’ in the city of London; that it was he who had stirred the majority of Cade’s followers to rise in rebellion, and that ‘yit at this day’ he was ‘perseveryng, continuyng and habidyng in his seid wykked malicious disposition and entent’, labouring daily to make assemblies and congregations to riot against the King, and having traitors and felons in his fellowship. Lately Poynings had taken sanctuary in Westminster abbey, yet had even then not ceased to foment riots. For instance, from 15 to 17 Mar. at North Cray and Farmingham in Kent he had assembled a great number of evildoers arrayed for war. It was therefore ordained that he and those who had stood surety for him earlier (in 1452) should forfeit the sums contained in their recognizances. A transcript of the Act was to be sent immediately to the Exchequer for implementation; on 8 May a writ was duly conveyed to the sheriffs of London to make proclamation as requested and three weeks later a commission was directed to certain prominent figures in Sussex (Sir Richard Fiennes, the brothers John*, Thomas* and Richard Lewknor* and John Gaynesford II*) to arrest Poynings and bring him before the Council on suspicion of treason. As a prisoner, on 1 June he came before the justices of King’s Bench, and pleaded his innocence. Two days later the sheriff of Kent was ordered to seize his possessions. PROME, xii. 271-2, 324; CPR, 1452-61, p. 173; Archaeologia Cantiana, vii. 243-4; KB27/789, rex rots. 4, 5.

Poynings did not lack well-wishers. William Worcestre wrote to John Paston on 5 July that ‘Mastere Pownyngs hath day tille the next terme by a remayner. Manye a gode man ys hert he hath. God comfort hym in ryght’. Paston Letters, ii. 95. Nevertheless, two of his sureties, John Bamme† of Dartford and John Batell of Essex, forfeited their lands, and by the autumn the sheriff of Surrey and Sussex was in possession of ‘Poynings Place’ in Southwark. CFR, xix. 85, 92; E364/104, m. Ad. The background to the ‘riots’ which Poynings had allegedly raised was almost certainly his attempts to drive the Percys from what he regarded as his rightful inheritance. Jeffs, 154-5. Poynings waited trial for a year, first in the Tower, then in Kenilworth castle. Eventually, in Trinity term 1455, he was found not guilty, either because the political climate had changed after the Yorkist victory at the battle of St. Albans, or because he had justified his plea of innocence. Indictments against his followers and dependants continued to be removed to the King’s Bench, and he clearly thought it prudent to buy another pardon, doing so on 5 Aug. C67/41, m. 31. The improvement in Poynings’ fortunes at this juncture in part resulted from the death at St. Albans on the Lancastrian side of his niece’s father-in-law, the earl of Northumberland, and for a while her husband the new earl may not have been able to oppose his encroachments. In June 1457 Poynings seems to have been in possession of all his late father’s manors in Kent. Bean, 114; E149/183/14, m. 3. Prospects had also improved for his brother Edward, who now gained important papal dispensations. CPL, xi. 89, 151. Robert took out yet another pardon on 28 Jan. 1458, and benefited from the temporary relaxation of political tension which resulted from the King’s ‘love day’ of March that year. On 14 May he was formally pardoned with respect to the two ‘acts’ in the Parliament of 1453-4 regarding all debts and executions under the recognizances of 1452, and also given a general pardon for all his offences; finally, he was formally discharged in the King’s bench on 8 June. C67/42, m. 33; CPR, 1452-61, p. 421; KB27/789, rex rots. 4, 5.

Meanwhile, however, the death on 3 June 1457 of Poynings’ kinswoman Avice Stafford, the wife of James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, had provided fresh cause for dispute, initially between Poynings and her widower, but also once again between him and the Percys. Through her grandmother Elizabeth, wife of Robert Lovell*, the childless Avice had been the heiress of the valuable Bryan estates. Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica ed. Nichols, iii. 265-6, 276-7; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 632-4; Bean, 116-18. For Robert Poynings’ interest in Batheaston, Som., see Suff. RO, Bury St. Edmunds, Hengrave mss, 449/2/641. To part of this inheritance (notably the manors of Easthall, Fawkham, Ash and Chelsfield in Kent), Poynings could lay claim under the terms of an entail which had been negotiated by his father in 1439. This provided that in the event of the deaths without issue of Avice and her husband, these manors should pass to Lord Poynings and his son Robert in tail. Although Butler only enjoyed an interest for life and jure uxoris, in 1458 he wrongfully incorporated the whole Bryan inheritance into his own estate, and arranged for the Bryan lands in Somerset and Dorset to be entailed on his issue by his second wife, and in default to his own right heirs; while the lands in Kent which ought to have gone to Poynings were conveyed to feoffees. The earl’s intention was clearly to disinherit the true heirs, taking advantage of his influential position as treasurer of England and his proximity to the queen. Robert’s response was to seize the opportunity afforded by the political disturbances of those years to enter into possession of the manors in Kent, although at what point he did so is unclear – he may not have been able to until after the Lancastrian defeat at the battle of Northampton in July 1460. Bean, 119-20; C140/34/49; Paston Letters, i. 207-9. What is certain is that in the late 1450s Poynings had two powerful enemies: the old – his niece’s husband, the earl of Northumberland, who on 10 Sept. 1457 defiantly enfeoffed a group of his supporters with the whole of the former Poynings estates, including the lands in Kent and elsewhere which had been settled on Robert – and the new, the earl of Wiltshire. Bean, 114.

In 1458 Poynings married, perhaps for the first time, although he was then aged about 40. His bride Elizabeth Paston had been left £200 in the will of her father Judge William Paston, so long as she married with the guidance of her mother Agnes and Paston’s other executors, that her husband was of equal status and of sound lineage, and that he could assure her of jointure in lands worth at least £40 p.a. When her father died Elizabeth was still young (about 15), but she did not marry until she was nearly 30, despite a number of promising suitors, who included a ward of Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin, Sir William Oldhall and Sir John Fastolf’s stepson, Stephen Scrope. The reasons for her prolonged spinsterhood may have been her brother John’s opposition to the matches on offer and her poor relations with her mother, who beat her. In January 1458 she was in London, with the prospect of another suitor ‘so that moder and myn broder sett frendely and stedfastely there-on’, and later in the year she married Poynings. C.F. Richmond, ‘Pastons Revisited’, Bull. IHR, lviii. 34-36; idem, Paston Fam.: First Phase, 177-81; Paston Letters, i. 24. The jointure he offered was not ungenerous even if he had a dubious title to some of the lands which formed part of it. The Pastons put him under a bond of £1,000 to guarantee the settlement, ‘the which neded no such bond’ as Elizabeth wrote pointedly to her mother after the wedding. On the other hand, Agnes was in no hurry to hand over the marriage portion. Elizabeth wrote on 3 Jan. 1459, ‘I beseke you, gode mother, as oure most syngler trost is yn youre god moderhode, that my maystre, my best beloved, fayle not of the c marc at the begynnyng of this terme the which ye promysed hym to his mariage, wyth the remanent of the money of my faders wille’. Payment was especially urgent as Poynings was endeavouring to reimburse Bamme, his surety of seven years earlier, and if Bamme did not receive £120 immediately ‘he wille clayme the hool of us’. Nor could Poynings settle with any of his other sureties unless Agnes kept her promise. Elizabeth told her mother that Poynings was ‘full kynde’ to her, and was ‘as besy as he can to make me sur of my joyntor’. Paston Letters, i. 206-7. This jointure was in the manors of Ruxley and North Cray in Kent, and land in Charlewode, Horle and Newdigate in Surrey, together with the valuable house in Southwark. At Elizabeth’s death these properties were assessed at just over £23, undoubtedly a conservative estimate. CIPM Hen. VII, i. 434, 436.

The Yorkist victory at Northampton in July 1460 and the dispersal of the King’s supporters, amongst whom was his niece’s husband, gave Poynings another opportunity to further his own ends, by confirming his support for the duke of York. Pending her husband’s arrival in England, in mid September the duchess of York and her two younger sons stayed at the Pastons’ house (formerly Fastolf’s) in Southwark, where they were visited daily by Edward, earl of March. This close contact with the Yorkists proved to Poynings’ advantage. A correspondent reported to John Paston on 12 Oct. that his brother-in-law ‘Maister Ponyngs’ ‘hathe enteret on an two or iij placys uppon the Erle of Northumberland, and he stondyth in good grace of the Kyng, my lord of Marche, my Lord Warwyk, and my Lord of Salysbury. Most parte of the contre abought his lyflod hold aythe withe hym.’ At about the same time Friar Brackley reported that the dowager duchess of Suffolk had sent her son Duke John and his wife, the duke of York’s daughter, to lobby York for their nominee to be made sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, but that the Pastons hoped that either Poynings or William Paston would be appointed. As it was, they had to be content with Poynings’ inclusion in the Norfolk commission of the peace. Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, iii. 226, 234. Open warfare broke out again in December. Poynings’ enemy the earl of Northumberland fought on the Lancastrian side at Wakefield (where York met his death), and in February 1461 he joined the northern forces of Margaret of Anjou on their march south. When they clashed with the Yorkists at St. Albans Poynings was in the opposing army, and the date of the battle, 17 Feb., was given in his post mortem as the day he died. Yet this inquest was held ten years later, CP, ix. 716; C140/34/49. and the circumstances of his death remain obscure. Seemingly, they were not known for some time after the event, even to his widow and friends. As late as May 1461 the Pastons were told: ‘as for Maister Ponyngs hymself, [Mistress Poynings] letteth as thow sche wyst not where he were’. Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, ii. no. 387.

Poynings’s wife had been expecting the birth of a child in October 1460, and this may have been Edward, his future son and heir. If Elizabeth now concealed her husband’s death, she did so for the infant’s sake. Robert died intestate, and although he had stipulated that after his death his widow should enjoy all his estates as well as her jointure so that she could pay his debts and keep ‘the right and title of the same lyvelode’, this proved impossible to do, as his title was so doubtful. Poynings’ enemies quickly seized their chance. Reg. Bourgchier, 199; CCR, 1461-8, p. 184. The third earl of Northumberland had been killed at Towton, but as Elizabeth’s brother Clement reported to their brother John on 26 June 1461 the widowed Countess Eleanor, with the help of her kinsman Robert Fiennes*, had occupied all Elizabeth’s land, which was a ‘gret myscheffe’. Fiennes long continued to persecute the widow, who attempted to sue him in the common pleas. Elizabeth wrote to her nephew Sir John Paston† in about 1466 setting out what had happened. She said that when Poynings had ‘d’partyd towarde the feld of Saint Albons’ he had ordained in his will that she should have all his lands to support herself and their son and to pay his debts. She had assigned to her brother-in-law Edward Poynings, master of Arundel College, the revenues of eight manors, worth £76 13s. 4d. clear, so that the debts would be paid, but that Fiennes had prevented him from levying rents. Furthermore, he had done ‘grete wast and hurte’ in the other seven manors too, and had maliciously indicted one of her servants for felony. Edward had petitioned Edward IV for a letter under the royal signet commanding Fiennes to cease his actions, but she hoped her nephew might be able to exert further pressure at the royal court on her behalf. CP40/809, rot. 403d; Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 198-9, 207-9. To enforce their title, by deeds executed in September 1457 and July 1458 (at a time when Robert probably occupied all his father’s lands in Kent, and possibly the lands which his father had settled on him in Sussex as well), the earl and countess of Northumberland had transferred to feoffees the entire inheritance, including the properties which were to form Elizabeth’s jointure. Then in 1463 the widowed countess demised the Poynings inheritance to other feoffees to pay the late earl’s debts. Bean, 114; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, iii. 266-70.

Elizabeth too resorted to desperate measures. By a spurious deed dated 2 June 1462, Richard Croner, the only surviving feoffee of Lord Poynings in the former Fitzpayn manors of Cheddon, Staple and Lyde in Somerset, conveyed them to Robert Poynings and his wife and son Edward, together with his brother-in-law Clement Paston and others in tail to the issue of Edward. CCR, 1461-8, p. 184. Elizabeth had to go to law over her son’s inheritance, and for more than five years from 1464 there was an action pending in the court of common pleas, whereby the dowager countess of Northumberland sued her and the bishop of Chichester for the advowson of Crawley, one of the properties which had been settled on Robert by his father. Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 409; Add. 39376, ff. 126, 127, 129-30. Eventually, Elizabeth gained an influential friend in Sir John Scott†, the controller of the Household, who arranged for his daughter Isabel to marry her son. Scott’s financial accounts of the mid 1460s refer to a payment to Elizabeth of £20 and the employment of ‘lernid men’ regarding ‘Ponyngges mater’, and in 1467 he obtained custody of the late Lord Poynings’ estates in Kent. Archaeologia Cantiana, x. 256-8; CPR, 1461-7, p. 545. Elizabeth petitioned the chancellor against the feoffees her late husband had entrusted with his Kentish properties, claiming that there were witnesses to the verbal declaration of his will regarding them, although the feoffees denied that his intentions had ever been revealed. In a further petition to the chancellor, asking for the witnesses to Poynings’s will to be summoned to give evidence, Elizabeth was supported by her second husband, Sir George Brown†, whom she had probably married early in 1466. Jeffs, 159; C1/27/76-77; 32/18.

Belatedly, during the Readeption in January 1471, an inquisition post mortem was held for Robert Poynings, which found in the interest of his son and heir that he had been entitled to the former Bryan manors in Kent in accordance with the entail of 1439. The jurors expressed ignorance as to who had received the revenues in the ten years since his death. In fact, the manors, deemed to be part of the forfeited possessions of the earl of Wiltshire, had been granted by Edward IV to William Neville, earl of Kent. With good reason, Elizabeth had complained to her nephew that the royal grant had been made without any test of the King’s title. After Neville’s death in 1463 they had returned to the Crown, and it was not until Edward IV was exiled that Elizabeth could confidently try to establish her son’s title to them. The attempt was thwarted again in 1474, when the restored monarch granted the Bryan lands in Kent, together with other estates forfeited by Butler, to Henry, earl of Essex, the treasurer, and his wife, the King’s aunt, in tail-male. C140/34/49; Bean, 120-1; Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 207-9; Jeffs. 160-1. Furthermore, in 1472 the dowager countess of Northumberland had managed to sue out of the King’s hands her inheritance from her grandfather in Kent, as held under common law and in gavelkind, and when she died in 1484 the Sussex manors which had been entailed on Robert Poynings were in her possession. CPR, 1467-77, p. 312.

Elizabeth was left even more alone: her brother-in-law Edward Poynings died in 1480; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1102. her second husband Brown rose in rebellion against Richard III and was executed; and her son Edward was attainted in 1484, and fled abroad. Yet the latter’s escape and support for Henry Tudor at Bosworth led ultimately to a drastic change in his mother’s fortunes. Edward’s attainder was reversed in 1485, and he was again put into possession of the Poynings lands in Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk to which his father had had the right. He also recovered the manors in Sussex which his grandfather had settled on Robert and which the Percys had usurped. PROME, xv. 25-26, 102-5; Bean, 114; Jeffs, 162. In her will dated 18 May 1487, Elizabeth Poynings elected to be buried next to her second husband, Brown (for whom she had borne a son and a daughter), in the Blackfriars in London, and left £21 for prayers for their souls. That of Robert Poynings was not mentioned. Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 210-14. Late in 1488 a settlement was eventually reached regarding the estates once belonging to Guy, Lord Bryan, resulting in their division between the various claimants: Henry, 4th earl of Northumberland, Thomas Butler, earl of Ormond, Sir Edward Ponyings and Sir Thomas Seymour. After two years of consultation between their respective lawyers and careful examination of title deeds, they reached ‘amyable and frendly’ agreement, and Poynings was allotted the four manors in Kent which his father had claimed, together with Shockerwick and Batheaston in Somerset, but only for his lifetime: the entail of 1439 was effectively ignored. Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, iii. 270-4; Bean, 118-23. Sir Edward rose to a distinction his father had never attained, as deputy of Ireland and the author of ‘Poynings’ Law’. When his only legitimate son died young, he agreed that all the former Poynings and Bryan estates he held should revert on his death to the 5th earl of Northumberland. This duly happened when he died in 1521. The lands for which Robert Poynings had fought for so long, now valued after the deduction of all ordinary disbursements at £427 4s. a year, were finally relinquished. Bean, 126.