RAGON, John

In spite of belonging to a prominent and well-connected family, Ragon was never as involved in public affairs as his father, a leading figure in Bedfordshire. The fact that he died within a decade of the long-lived Reynold Ragon provides one explanation for this lack of involvement, although a prolonged period of service in France might also explain his relative inactivity at home. He may well have had a military career, because by 1433-4 he was an annuitant of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, a leading English captain in the French wars and the King’s lieutenant in France and Normandy.5 A.J.F. Sinclair, ‘Beauchamp Earls of Warwick’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1987), 335. Ragon must have owed his connexion with Warwick to his Wydeville relatives. Both his maternal grandfather and his uncle, Thomas Wydeville, were associated with the Beauchamp family and in the late 1430s Thomas was the steward of the earl’s manor of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 914-16.

Ragon had succeeded his father by March 1428 when the widowed Elizabeth Ragon made a release of her dower lands to a group of feoffees headed by Thomas Wydeville.7 CCR, 1441-7, p. 58. He was the heir to a sizeable estate, including manors at Eaton Socon, Thurleigh and Maulden in Bedfordshire, East Haddon in Northamptonshire and Bourn in Cambridgeshire.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 171-2; VCH Beds. iii. 106, 195; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 55, 56; VCH Cambs. v. 5. Bourn had been settled on him and his wife, Margery Langport (who appears to have brought him lands at Thenford in Northamptonshire) in the autumn of 1423,9 CP25(1)/30/96/5; Feudal Aids, iv. 41. but he never came fully into his own because he predeceased his mother, who held a life interest in much of the Ragon lands.

A consistent feature of Reynold Ragon’s career had been his attachment to the Greys of Ruthin, whom John’s grandfather also served. John himself was an associate of Sir Thomas Waweton*, one of the most prominent retainers of Reynold, 3rd Lord Grey of Ruthin. In August 1429 he and Waweton took part in returning Robert Stonham* and Waweton’s relative, William Waweton*, as the knights of the shire for Huntingdonshire to the Parliament of that year, an election challenged by Sir Nicholas Styuecle* and 13 other gentry of that county. Styuecle and his fellows asserted that none of the attestors resided in Huntingdonshire; that they had forced the sheriff to make the return in question; and that William Waweton neither lived in the county nor held any lands there. The attestors were indeed outsiders, since all were from Bedfordshire, save Sir William Mallory who came from Cambridgeshire. The challenge was upheld, and Styuecle and Roger Hunt* were returned at a new election held on 17 Sept., just five days before Parliament opened. It is possible that the election dispute was part of a wider quarrel between John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, and John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, since Hunt was connected with Mowbray and Sir Thomas Waweton had links with Holand as well as Lord Grey.10 C219/14/1; J.S. Roskell, Commons of 1422, 17-18n; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 482, 528. On the other hand, R.E. Archer, ‘The Mowbrays’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1984), 258-62, suggests that the dispute was the result of gentry in-fighting.

The overturned indenture of August 1429 was not the only return in which Ragon features as an attestor, for he also witnessed the apparently uncontroversial elections of Bedfordshire’s knights of the shire to the same Parliament and to that of 1433. A pressing concern for the latter assembly was a general lack of law and order in England. In response, the government decided to administer an oath to uphold the peace throughout the kingdom, and both Ragon and his younger brother, Thomas, were among the gentry in Bedfordshire expected to swear it.11 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 373-5. Presumably through scribal error, both Ragons appear twice in the Bedfordshire list for the oath of 1434. Baker, ii. 163, incorrectly states that Thomas was Reynold Ragon’s eldest son. Thomas was one of the attestors at the county’s election to the Parliament of 1437, at which his elder brother and John Wenlock* were returned to the Commons. Given his previous lack of experience in local administration, John may have relied on his family name and connexions to secure his seat. His sole county commission arose from his Membership of the Parliament, since it related to the fifteenth and tenth which the Commons granted to the King just before the assembly was dissolved.

Ragon had little opportunity to serve on any other commissions, for he died not long after the Parliament of 1437 was dissolved. He was succeeded by his daughter, Agnes, although his brother Thomas was recognized as the heir to the Ragon estates.12 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 172-3. It is not clear when his mother died although she survived him by several years. During her widowhood John Chyvall* sued her and John Helwey in the court of common pleas, alleging they had committed waste on the manor of ‘South Caldecote’, Buckinghamshire. It is likely that the manor was the Wydeville lordship of Caldecott at Bow Brickhill, a property to which Chyvall could have had no valid claim even though his ancestors had once possessed an estate in that parish.13 CP40/718, rot. 40d; VCH Bucks. iv. 290-1.

By the early 1440s, Elizabeth Ragon had inherited a substantial share of the estates of her brother, Thomas Wydeville, who had died in about 1436, although not the manor of Grafton Regis in Northamptonshire which he had settled on his half-brother, Richard*, the grandfather of Edward IV’s queen.14 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 917. After Elizabeth died, John Gloucester, late of London, ‘organmaker’, sued her feoffees in Chancery, either in the late 1440s or early 1450s. Referring to himself as ‘blynde and byson’ in his bill, Gloucester alleged that the MP had failed to repay him a debt of 20 marks. He claimed the feoffees were honour-bound to repay this sum since in her will Elizabeth had instructed them to sell certain lands in Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, so that they might pay off the debts which she, her late husband and son had contracted.15 C1/19/293.

Thomas Ragon is said to have died within two weeks of Elizabeth. He was certainly no longer alive in 1447 when his widow Katherine and her then husband, Robert Ekelston, began a series of suits in the Chancery against the Ragons’ feoffees. The couple alleged that these trustees had refused Katherine seisin of the manors of Backnoe and East Haddon, even though Thomas had devised them to her in his will. The feoffees countered that Backnoe had been assigned to Thomas and his male issue on the understanding that he would pay off the debts of his parents and brother, but that it should now be sold because he had died childless and failed to settle the debts. They further asserted that East Haddon should pass to the abbey of St. James by Northampton, which had agreed to satisfy the Ragons’ debtors and to distribute alms for the good of the souls of Thomas, his brother and their parents.16 C1/13/191-200; 17/361. The outcome of the Ekelstons’ suits is not known, although Backnoe was subsequently obtained by John Heton*, to whom they released their title in 1453, and another former Ragon property, the manor of Eaton Socon, was acquired by John Fray†.17 CP25(1)/6/81/17; VCH Beds. iii. 195. It would appear that the abbey never came into possession of East Haddon, which subsequently featured in further Chancery suits brought by the MP’s daughter and her husband, Thomas Wylde, against Thomas Wydeville’s feoffees.18 C1/19/330-1; 24/171. The Wyldes were able to make good their claim to at least part of the Ragon estate, since they succeeded to Bourn in Cambridgeshire, a manor which their daughter and heir, Elizabeth, subsequently brought in marriage to Henry Dyve.19 VCH Cambs. v. 5.