MARTIN, Thomas

The story of the Martins of Athelhampton, a younger branch of the family which reputedly came over with the Conqueror, was complicated by the death of Sir Robert Martin in 1375 without legitimate issue. Part of the Martin estates in Dorset subsequently descended in the legitimate line to Sir Robert’s great-nephew, John Gouvitz, and ultimately to the latter’s grand-daughter Christine, who married William Newburgh† of the prominent family seated at Lulworth. Yet Sir Robert had contrived to set aside some of his lands for his three bastard sons, one of whom, William Martin†, sat for Dorset in the Parliament of 1397 (Sept.). Thomas Martin, our MP, was apparently William’s nephew, and the son and heir of Richard Martin (another of the bastards), to whom the family manor of Athelhampton passed, apparently without serious challenge.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 698. After William’s death his holdings at Waddon and Winterborne St. Martin (Feudal Aids, vi. 427) apparently passed to the Gouvitzes. The ped. in J. Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 581, derived from proceedings in an assize of novel disseisin of 1503-4, misses out some generations of the fam., and that at pp. 582-3 is confused. Thomas came into his inheritance before 1436, when he was patron of the rectory at Athelhampton.5 Hutchins, ii. 588. The later fines for his failure to take up knighthood indicate that his income from land was thought to be over £40 p.a., a figure confirmed much later by valuations provided by the jurors at his post mortem.6 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 118-19.

For much of his career Martin was closely associated with the wealthy Staffords of Hooke, foremost among the gentry of Dorset. At some point before 1441 Sir Humphrey Stafford* ‘of the Silver Hand’ made him a feoffee of several of his manors, which were eventually settled in jointure on Sir Humphrey’s daughter-in-law Katherine Chideock, the wife of his younger son William Stafford*.7 CFR, xxi. no. 543. As a consequence of these links, Martin became drawn into William’s quarrel with Sir James Butler, the son and heir of the earl of Ormond, who had married William’s niece Avice, the only child of his elder brother Sir Richard Stafford* (d.c.1427) and thus the principal heir to the Stafford family estates. William had been outraged to see his ancestral lands pass into the hands of Butler, and the ill feeling between the two men broke out into open violence on 29 Aug. 1444, in confrontations between their followers at Lower Kingcombe and Toller Porcorum. This was no minor brawl, for it resulted in the death of John Yerdeley, whose widow Edith appealed Stafford and a number of his supporters, including Martin, of her husband’s murder. In separate suits brought in the court of common pleas in Trinity term 1445 Stafford claimed damages of £1,000 against Butler for assault and of £300 against William Browning I* and other of Butler’s men for attacking his servants. At the same time Butler alleged that Stafford and his company had taken livestock and goods of his worth £40 at Lower Kingcombe on 5 Sept. 1444, and demanded recompense of £500 for this and other offences.8 CP40/738, rots. 121, 123, 339d; E13/144, rots. 2, 11, 19, 20. The suits remained unresolved until the spring of 1446. Then, along with the 13 other men named with Stafford in Edith Yerdeley’s appeal, Martin obtained a royal pardon of all felonies, murders and riots, by letters patent dated 11 May.9 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 438-9.

Although Martin attested several parliamentary elections for Dorset, starting in 1442, he was never appointed to ad hoc royal commissions in the county. Yet he was made collector of customs at Poole in March 1449, and was still occupying that office when elected to the Parliament summoned to assemble on the following 6 Nov. His dismissal three weeks later preceded tumultuous events at the sessions at Westminster, London and Leicester before the dissolution in early June 1450. Shortly afterwards tragedy struck at his friends the Staffords, when William Stafford met his death at the hands of Cade’s rebels. As William’s feoffee Martin shared the right of presentation to the rectory of Chiselborough in 1451,10 Reg. Bekynton, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xlix), 562. but his relations with Stafford’s widow deteriorated after she took as her second husband John Arundell of Lanherne, who sued him and his co-feoffees for her dower portion in the Stafford estates. Martin and the rest initially asserted that as Stafford had not been seised of the disputed properties in fee simple Katherine was not entitled to dower there, only to relent and subsequently make settlements on the couple.11 CP40/779, rot. 450d; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/490, 491. There is also a slight hint that Martin may have come to terms with Sir James Butler, now created earl of Wiltshire, for in 1453 and 1454 he was party to transactions whereby the earl gained a remainder interest in the Dorset manor of Manston.12 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 374, 378-9. In these transactions another member of the Stafford circle, John Mone*, was also involved. A wealthy landowner from east Dorset, Mone named Martin among the feoffees of his lands on the Isle of Wight in 1458 and of eight manors in their home county at another date, an indication of a friendship which was long to endure.13 I.o.W. RO, Oglander mss, OG/D/8, 11; E149/240/10; C140/71/51.

Of Martin’s movements during the period of civil war in 1459-61 virtually nothing is recorded, and there are no signs that he offered tangible support to either Lancaster or York. After the accession of Edward IV he was pricked as a juror at Dorchester at sessions of oyer and terminer held in May 1462 to bring rebels against the new regime to justice,14 KB9/21/18. and he had, perforce, to have dealings with one of the new King’s protégés, William Stafford’s son and heir, Humphrey Stafford IV*, Lord Stafford of Southwick. Although Lord Stafford wrongfully usurped the rights of his late father’s feoffees to make presentations to the church at Chiselborough,15 Reg. Stillington (Som. Rec. Soc. lii), 431. there is nothing to indicate that Martin was on particularly poor terms with this unruly young man, but although in 1466 he was associated with him as a co-feoffee in land in Dorset,16 CCR, 1461-8, p. 369. he avoided entanglement in his affairs after his elevation to the earldom of Devon. Rather, he may, like members of the Twyneho family, have entered the service of the young George, duke of Clarence, who in the late 1460s substantially increased his household establishment by recruitment from the gentry of Dorset where he now held estates. Clarence rebelled against his brother the King in the spring of 1470, and fled abroad with the earl of Warwick. On 22 Apr., a matter of days after he did so, one of his retainers, John Twyneho†, was bound over in 1,000 marks to remain in the custody of the earl of Worcester, the constable of England. At the same time John’s father William Twyneho* and three other esquires, including Martin and his friend John Mone, were bound in half this sum. All the bonds were subsequently cancelled by King Edward using his sign manual, but at what date he did so is unclear. It may not have been until after he and his brother were reconciled a year later, before the battle of Barnet.17 CCR, 1468-76, nos. 541-2; M.A. Hicks, False, Fleeting Perjur’d Clarence, 125. In 1472, late in his career and during Edward IV’s second reign, Martin was appointed to the Dorset bench, where he remained for the next ten years, until replaced by his son William.

Little is recorded about Martin’s private affairs, and the identity of the families of his two wives cannot be verified from contemporary sources. Details of the two women’s lives are rarely noted, save that the second, Philippa, died shortly before 5 Feb. 1472, and would appear to have held lands in her own right.18 CFR, xxi. no. 6. A writ de diem clausit extremum was issued, but no post mortem survives. In October 1479 a settlement of the manors of Forham and Wandstree in Somerset was made, providing Martin with an interest for life before they descended to his son William and the latter’s wife Iseult. When he died on 14 Sept. 1485 these manors duly passed along with Athelhampton to William, who by then was then aged over 40.19 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 118-19.