CHETWYND, John (c.1390-c.1448), of Alspath in Meriden, Warws.

He has been distinguished from his more prominent kinsman John Chetwynd (d. 1433/4) of Shavington, Salop, who through his marriage, bef. 1419, to Rose (c.1397-1471), da. and h. of Roger Wastnesse of Tixall, obtained property in Staffs. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xi. 228; xvii. 22; CFR, xiv. 307; C138/36/17). The kinsman was retained successively by John of Gaunt, Henry IV, Henry of Monmouth and Henry VI, obtaining through his position as an esquire of Monmouth’s chamber the offices of keeper of Snowdon forest (bef. Mar. 1413-Aug. 1415), serjeant of Caen (1418-c.1422), and constable of Tintagel castle (by Oct. 1420-d. ). By the time of his death he was in receipt of royal annuities amounting to some pound;78. (Cam. Misc. xxii. 106; SC6/813/23; DL28/15, f. 20d.; DL29/738/12100; E101/406/21, f. 27; E404/29/106; CPR, 1413-16, pp. 233, 362; 1416-22, p. 50; 1422-9, pp. 15, 50, 525, 538; DKR, xxxvii (pt. 2), 145.) That it was not he who sat for Warws. in 1421 may be deduced from his almost continual absence in France on campaign with Henry V, from Agincourt until the King’s death, and in particular from his contract to return there with Henry in the summer before Parliament met. (E101/69/6/459, 8/548, 70/4/660; DKR, xliv. 563, 595, 614; Rot. Normanniae ed. Hardy, 252, 256). After his death in the winter of 1433/4 his widow, one-time nurse to Henry VI, married another ‘King’s esquire’, John Merston. Before 1468 she sold her property in Staffs., and she died in 1471. (CPR, 1436-41, p. 48; CCR, 1468-76, no. 132; CFR, xxi. no. 3.)