The Suttons were one of the most ancient of Nottinghamshire families, descended from the Lexingtons and established, from the mid thirteenth century, at Averham in the valley of the river Trent. R. Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, iii. 110. The family’s antiquity is reflected in the simplicity of their arms: argent, a canton sable. They held a compact estate to which they did not add over the generations, remaining among the second rank of the county’s gentry. In 1412 Henry Sutton was assessed on an annual income of only £20 p.a., but at that date his mother, Katherine, wife of John, younger brother of William, Lord Willoughby of Eresby (d.1409), still had a life interest in a significant part of his inheritance. This she leased to him at an annual rent of £27 13s. 4d., and his tax assessment of £20 presumably represented an estimate of the profit of the estate above the rent. E179/159/48; CCR, 1413-19, pp. 367-8. A detailed extent of the manor of Averham in 1326 had valued it at £48 p.a.: Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. vi), 14. The total value of the estate was thus probably about £50 p.a. – not enough to put the Suttons among that small elite of gentry families that dominated the county, but sufficient to justify a more prominent place in local affairs than they had adopted over the generations. No member of the family sat in Parliament before Henry; and his father, Sir Roland Sutton, had failed to act when pricked as sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 1383. CCR, 1383-91, p. 7.
Sutton’s early years are obscure. His father had inherited as a minor, and it may be that he did too, but nothing is known of his wardship. His father was married, while still a minor, on 3 Aug. 1373: Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. xii), 71-72. He was, however, probably of age when, in keeping with his family’s narrow horizons, he married the daughter of a near neighbour. This marriage probably took place in 1408, for in her will made on 18 Oct. in that year his mother-in-law, Agnes Hussey, instructed that, subject to her husband’s consent, her own marriage portion was to provide a portion for her daughter on espousal with Sutton. Test. Ebor. i (Surtees Soc. iv), 352-3. Given his mother’s survival Sutton was not in a position to make a generous settlement in return, and it is likely that the portion was a modest one.
Sutton began his truncated public career in the autumn of 1411, when he attested the county’s parliamentary election. He appeared again in the same role in April 1413, and on 14 Mar. 1414 he headed the jury from the wapentake of Thurgarton and Lythe which sat before royal commissioners inquiring into the recent lollard rising. C219/10/6; 11/2; KB9/204/1/49-50. At about this date he was himself elected to Parliament in what were rather unusual circumstances. The return is badly damaged and the date of the election lost: C219/11/3. If, however, the election was held at the meeting of the county court immediately preceding 30 Apr. 1414, then it took place on 26 Mar. Recent disorders in Nottinghamshire had involved many of its leading gentry, and in view of the new King’s determination to put an end to local conflict they found themselves compromised. Indeed, during the course of the Parliament a commission of inquiry was issued for the county and detailed indictments were laid against the miscreants in early June. It is not, therefore, surprising that several of the best-qualified potential MPs should have thought better of seeking election, leaving vacancies that were filled by Sutton and the Yorkshire knight, Sir Robert Plumpton†, whose main interests lay outside the county. S.J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian Eng. 138; E. Powell, Kingship, Law and Society, 224-8. None the less, even though Sutton’s election was a function of special circumstances, his career had made a promising start. Premature death ensured that it would not develop. He last appears in Easter term 1416 when he had an action pending against three local men for the custody of the land and heir of Robert Jonson of Kelham, his tenant by knight service, and he made his will in the same year (a will dated by year but not day or month). Its terms were simple. He wanted to be buried in the church of Averham and bequeathed ten marks to be disposed for his soul within two weeks of his death. To his eldest son, Richard, or whichever of his sons should be his heir, he bequeathed his armour and various household and agricultural items. His choice of executors reflects his narrow horizons, for they were headed by his neighbour, John Briggeford of Hockerton, and John Horspole, the parson of Averham. CP40/621, rot. 45d; Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, Apb. Reg. 18, ff. 365v-366.
Given Sutton’s relative youth at death it is not surprising that his heir should have been a minor of only seven years old. If a Chancery petition of the early 1430s is to be taken at face value, Sutton took steps to insure that the issues of his lands during the minority should go not to his feudal overlord but rather serve as provision for his large brood of children. Although he had been married for only some eight years, he had produced six children. He conveyed his lands to William Bawdwyn, a chaplain in his service whom he also named among his executors, with instructions to take £20 annually from the issues of the manor of Averham. This charge was to build up a fund of 500 marks and so provide 100 marks for each of his two younger sons, Hugh and William, and three daughters, Katherine, Joan and Agnes, the share of any that died to be divided among the survivors. These, at least, are the sums specified in the petition, in which Agnes and her husband, Richard Swayn, claimed 125 marks (for Katherine had died and her 100 marks was divisible between the four survivors), against our MP’s widow and her second husband, Thomas Curson of Bulcote (Nottinghamshire). Clearly it was in their interest to exaggerate the figures, but there is no reason to doubt their story in outline. Indeed, the defendants did not do so, resting their defence on the illegality of the plan’s implementation. They replied that the feoffment had been made by collusion to deprive the overlords of the manor of Averham, namely Sir Richard Stanhope* and Thomas Bekering (d.1425), of their ward; that Bawdwyn, to avoid a suit he had no chance of winning, had surrendered the manor to them; and that the widow had then, some years later, purchased the wardship of land and heir from Stanhope and Sir William Babington, c.j.c.p., who had bought Bekering’s share. She thus had no obligation to make the payments our MP had charged on the estate. The truth is impossible to discern, but it seems unlikely that Swayn, an obscure figure, prevailed. C1/6/294, 633.
Sutton’s widow survived this dispute for many years. Her marriage to Curson, a younger son of John Curson† of Kedleston, had taken place by the end of 1420, no doubt brokered by her father, whose second wife, Joan, was the groom’s mother. The couple had a daughter, Margaret, who in the mid 1440s married Averard Berwick*. Add. 6672, f. 155; Thoroton, iii. 25.
