BABINGTON, William

The Babingtons, originally from Bavington in Northumberland, had held property in Nottinghamshire since the late thirteenth century. By the middle of the following century they appear to have largely abandoned their Northumbrian interests, moving first to Cambridgeshire, where they held the manor of Woodbury in Gamlingay, acquired by Sir Hugh Babington (d.1296) before 1279, and then to Nottinghamshire, where, in addition to a manor at Rolleston near Newark which had long been in their hands, they had acquired a manor in East Bridgford. Our MP’s grandfather was buried in the church there. In the next generation came a more significant expansion of the family’s estates. Our MP’s mother was heiress to an ancient knightly family of the county with an inheritance principally consisting of two manors near Nottingham: Chilwell, which the Babingtons made their main residence, and Ruddington. The highly successful legal career of our MP’s father resulted in a further substantial addition to the family’s prosperity. With his rise to the office of c.j.c.p. went a series of land purchases. These included manors in Clifton in Bedfordshire, Blackwall, South Normanton, Pinxton and Measham in Derbyshire, and Oxton in Nottinghamshire.7 S.J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England, 36, 38. His inquisition post mortem valued his purchased lands at over £50 p.a. representing a capital expenditure of over £1,000, and, given the tendency of inquisitions to undervalue property, this is very much a minimum estimate. It is likely that, in his early years, our MP was not the heir-apparent to this expanded inheritance, for he appears to have been second in seniority among his brothers to John, husband of Maud, grand-daughter of Eleanor, the heiress of the barony of St. Amand, by Sir Gerard Braybrooke† (d.1429), and hence one of the three coheiresses of that barony on the death of her father, Gerard Braybrooke, in 1422. This is one of a series of lucrative marriages the chief justice made for his several brothers and sons, but even he, despite his close association with Sir Gerard, is unlikely to have secured so wealthy a bride for any other than his heir. Fortunately, however, for the prospects of our MP, John and his bride died young and childless very soon after the marriage was made. Maud died on 18 Oct. 1426, aged about 15, and John at about the same time.8 CP, xi. 300-1; CIPM, xxii. 703-5.

With the exception of ‘Babyngton’ manor in Rolleston, the inquisition of the former chief justice makes no mention of his ancestral lands or of those lands he held in right of his wife.9 C139/157/23; Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. xvii), 41-42. A comparison between the subsidy returns of 1436 and those of 1450-1 suggest that this was because he alienated the bulk of his lands to our MP during his lifetime. In 1436 Sir William was assessed at as much as £160 p.a., an assessment which was exclusive of his judicial salary (for he retired from office shortly before the assessments were made, and in any event it appears from other assessments that judicial salaries were exempt from taxation), but inclusive of his land purchases, all of which seem to have taken place before his retirement. However, in 1450-1 his annual landed income was put at only £40. The fact that he was assessed on this second occasion before the commissioners of Nottingham rather than those of the county imply that he had retired to live in the town, leaving the bulk of his country estates in the hands of his son. The latter’s assessment lends support to this supposition. In 1436 William was assessed at an income of £37 p.a., presumably derived from the property his father had settled on him at the time of his marriage and the lands he held in right of his wife. By 1450-1, however, his assessment had risen to £100, a very significant increase, particularly in view of the underassessment that characterised the later tax.10 E179/159/84; 238/78, no. 6; 240/266. The Babingtons were among the principal landholders in the town of Nottingham. In the subsidy returns of 1473 our MP’s lands there were valued at over £20 p.a., the third highest assessment: Nottingham Recs. ii. 291; CPR, 1452-61, p. 616. The most likely explanation is that Sir William had settled much of the family patrimony on his heir, but there is a slight difficulty in accepting this interpretation of the tax assessments. The principal omission from Sir William’s inquisitions is the property he held in right of his wife, who survived him. No inquisition was held on her death, and we can only assume that she was content to surrender her interest in favour of her son.

William first appears in the records more than 20 years before his father’s death. In 1431 he was nominated as a feoffee by Ralph Leek of Screveton, probably on the occasion of Ralph’s marriage to his sister Agnes.11 Collectanea Topographia et Geneaologica ed. Nichols, i. 265. His appearance here implies that his father’s inq. post mortem underestimates his age as ‘40 and more’: C139/157/23. It was also at about this date that he himself was married to a minor heiress. Her father, John Gibthorpe, had died before October 1420 when she was in royal wardship, and it was presumably through the influence of Justice Babington that she was married to our MP at some date before October 1432. Later evidence shows that the judge settled the manor of Woodbury upon them in jointure.12 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvii. 132-3; CFR, xiv. 423; CP40/716, rot. 316. Our MP held lands in Cambs. by 1434: Add. Ch. 22601. What precisely she inherited is more difficult to quantify. She certainly did not inherit the main lands of the Gibthorpes at Thorpe St. Peter, either because her father was a younger son or else because the family lands were held in tail-male. Her inheritance in that county was confined to some 300 acres of largely marsh land at nearby Wrangle.13 In 1441 she and our MP won damages and costs of £50 against the abbey of Waltham in Essex, which had wrongly claimed her as its ward by virtue of the tenure of this property: CP40/701, rots. 405, 408; 716, rots. 315, 316, 316d. Rather she was, it seems, the coheiress of her paternal grandmother, Alice Rochford. Although Alice was the common-law heiress of her father, the Rochford estates descended to the heir-male of that family leaving her and her two sisters with only the lands which had come to the Rochfords through their paternal grandmother, Joan, one of the two sisters and coheiresses of Sir Roger Hillary (d.1400) of Bescot in Walsall, Staffordshire. Hence, although our MP’s wife was an heiress, her expectations, as coheiress to a much divided estate, were modest. Her inquisition post mortem either does not survive or was not taken, and, in its absence, the extent and location of the property she brought Babington are difficult to determine. It is clear, however, that her principal inheritance lay in Staffordshire. In Trinity term 1436 our MP appeared in person in the court of common pleas to sue chaplains and yeomen of Wolverhampton and Featherstone for entering his wood at Essington, once the property of Hillary, and taking three young hawks worth as much as 20 marks from a nest.14 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s., iii. 134. A surviving bailiff’s account of the mid 1460s shows that she also brought him property in Walpole, Norf., held in coparceny with the other coheirs: HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 229. On her death writs of diem clausit extremum were issued to the escheators of Staffs., Lincs., Norf. and Suff.: CFR, xxi. no. 738.

Babington’s personal appearance as a plaintiff is not the only indirect evidence to suggest that he, like his brother Thomas, had the benefit of a legal training. On 30 Nov. 1436 Thomas Welles, citizen and mercer of London, granted to him and others his lands in Essex and his goods, and it is not unlikely that Babington made this acquaintance in the course of a period of residence at the Inns of court.15 CCR, 1435-41, p.109. Not until 1439, when he was returned to Parliament, is he found playing a part in the affairs of his native county. His election, when still a young man and long before he had entered his patrimony, was a testimony to the high standing of his family. Soon afterwards he joined his father on the quorum of the county bench, another indication of a legal training, and on Christmas Day 1441 he was named second on the list of attestors to a parliamentary election.16 C219/15/2. It is in this period that he is found for the first time acting in the affairs of his neighbours: in November 1440 he assisted Richard Bingham, soon to be promoted to the judicial bench, in the purchase of the manor of Watnall Chaworth; in 1444 he was a feoffee for Nicholas Fitzwilliam* in the Mackerell inheritance; and in 1445 he was one of those enfeoffed by Hugh Hercy* in the manor of Grove, probably again as an agent of Bingham whose daughter was contracted in marriage to Hercy’s heir at about this time.17 CCR, 1441-7, p.29; C145/311/5; CP25(1)/293/70/293; Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. iii), 74. While this premature prominence in the county’s affairs was a product of his father’s relative inactivity (he had retired as c.j.c.p. in 1436), it may also have been a reflection of the connexion he had already established with Ralph, Lord Cromwell. In June 1441, while Cromwell was still in office as treasurer, he benefited from a minor Exchequer lease and later in the same year he acted as a feoffee for him in two important conveyances.18 CFR, xvii. 193-4; Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. xvii), 17, 19, 39; Payling, 198; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 18. This service may have been the route by which he found a place in the royal household. The surviving evidence shows that he was in receipt of robes as a household esquire from 1442 to 1452, and it may be that he served before and after this period.19 E101/409/9, 11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9.

Babington can, however, have spent little time at the royal court if we may judge from his high level of activity in local administration. Records of payment to the Nottinghamshire j.p.s show that he was a regular attender of county sessions throughout the 1440s and 1450s.20 Payling, ‘Political Society in Notts.’ (Oxf. Univ. D. Phil. thesis, 1987), 311-13. In addition, he was returned to represent the county in the Parliament of 1445 (in which his uncle Thomas sat for Derbyshire), and attested several subsequent elections.21 C219/15/4, 6; 16/1, 3. To this he added the office of Cromwell’s deputy in the constableship of Newark castle,22 SC11/822, m.1 (a valor of c. 1447 in which our MP is recorded as in receipt of a fee of five marks p.a. as deputy). His connexion with Cromwell continued until the lord’s death in 1456: Magdalen Coll. Oxf. Misc. 250; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 18; CPR, 1452-61, p. 341. and an intense involvement in the affairs of his neighbours. Between 1449 and 1457 he acted as a feoffee for two merchants of the staple, Thomas Thurland of Nottingham and Hamon Sutton I*,23 CP26(1)/27, month of Easter 1449; CCR, 1447-54, p. 164; CAD, iv. A8373; v. A11465; CP25(1)/293/73/425; C1/34/9. The Babingtons were themselves related by marriage to the Suttons. In his will of 23 Feb. 1452 Hamon’s son Robert II* made a bequest to ‘my sister Babyngton’, but she cannot be accurately placed in the known pedigree of either family: Lincoln Diocese Docs. (EETS, cxlix), 58. and for the wealthy Nottinghamshire esquire, Richard Willoughby*; as supervisor of the will of his neighbour, John Cokfeld; and, with other leading gentry of the county, as a trustee for a settlement in favour of the younger sons of Sir Thomas Chaworth* and their wives, the grand-daughters and coheiresses of Sir John Zouche*.24 Nottingham Univ. Lib., Middleton mss, Mi D 4770; Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 288; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 603. Another fragment of evidence for this period shows that at least on one occasion Babington advanced money on mortgage. At an unknown date Richard Whatton conveyed property in Nottingham and elsewhere in the county to him as security for a debt of 105 marks. When the mortgagor came to make his will in April 1451 he decreed that the mortgagee should have the option to buy the property with a deduction for the money still owed. Babington seems to have exercised this option for he was later said to be seised of a tenement in Nottingham, once belonging to Whatton.25 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 274-5; CPR, 1452-61, p. 616.

The death of Babington’s father in October 1454 had little impact on our MP’s career for he was already possessed of a considerable part of the family property.26 Sir William’s precise date of death is unknown. His will of 3 Oct. is said to have been proved seven days later, but his inquisition post mortem dates his death to 13 Oct.: York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 302; C139/157/23. Nor was he financially inconvenienced by his mother’s property interests for she survived her husband by only a year or two, and may, in any event, have already surrendered her property to her son. His role as his father’s supervisor and some instructions his widowed mother left him did, however, lead him into an interesting dispute. According to a petition he presented in Chancery, she had asked him to endow a chantry of three priests, two in the chapel of St. Andrew in the church of Flawford, where her Martel ancestors lay buried, and one in the chapel of the manor of Chilwell. This was a revival of a foundation envisaged by the Martels as long before as 1342.27 Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. iii), 168-9; CPR, 1343-5, p.480. The Martels were remembered on the bede roll of the new foundation. In the presence of her sons, our MP, Robert and Thomas Babington II, her daughter, Elizabeth, and son-in-law, Thomas Neville of Rolleston, she had entrusted to William Gull, rector of St. Peter’s in Nottingham, 300 marks of her own money and 300 marks of the goods of her late husband to the intent that the 600 marks should be laid out in the purchase of property with which to endow the chantry. Babington complained that Gull withheld the money despite the steps he had taken towards the chantry’s foundation.28 Procs. Chancery Eliz. ed. Caley and Bayley, i. pp. lvi-lvii; C1/1/78-85. On 26 Nov. 1458 a royal commission was issued to the priors of Lenton and Newstead, Richard Bingham, j.KB, and Richard Willoughby to investigate this petition, although it was not until the following 15 Mar. that the commissioners sat at Wollaton. Babington then declared that he had expanded his mother’s intent to comprise five chantry priests and had provided the chantry with a yearly rent charge of 21 marks from lands with an annual value of £25 in Chilwell and elsewhere. Licences enrolled on the patent roll go some way to establishing the truth of this declaration. On 7 Nov. 1458, nearly three weeks before the issue of the commission of inquiry, Babington paid £40 into the hanaper for licence to found the proposed chantry and to endow it with lands and rents with an annual value of as much as 40 marks. On the following 16 Feb., a month before the inquiry was held, he secured a further licence to endow the chantry with an annual rent of 21 marks from land in Chilwell and elsewhere. Not surprisingly the commissioners concluded that the tripartite indenture produced in evidence by Babington and the ‘comon report of the countre’ demonstrated that the chantry was established, and Gull agreed to deliver the money in the presence of the commissioners. No doubt the cause of our MP’s dispute with Gull, a long-time friend of the family, was not a dishonest attempt by the clerk to retain the money to his own use, but rather over the terms of the chantry foundation.29 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 468, 476; 1476-85, pp. 104-5. A papal commission of 11 Nov. 1456 supports this view. Thomas Palmer, priest, and Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Neville, had complained, as executors of Dame Margery, of the unjust refusal of probate by the archbishop of York’s commissary, a refusal prompted by an allegation made by John Leycestre, vicar of Basford, and others that the testator had made a later will. Since Leycestre was later appointed the first warden of the proposed chantry, it is a fair guess that at the root of the problem was Margery’s conflicting instructions.30 Harl. 174; CPL, xi. 122-3.

There is some indirect evidence to suggest that Babington had a greater degree of commitment to the house of Lancaster than many other household esquires. In April 1455 he was summoned to the great council to be held in Leicester, the summons of which was viewed with distrust by the duke of York and his allies. On 9 June 1457 he was described as ‘our welbeloved squire’ in letters of privy seal dated at Coventry granting him the standard pardon of account of £80 for his period as sheriff. Later privy seal letters of 24 Apr. 1459 show that he had been given an additional reward in the form of a further pardon of £30. The terms in which the letters justify the grant of this favour, terms which presumably echo the grounds on which Babington had requested the additional pardon, say something about the unusual circumstances of his appointment. The letters patent appointing him to the office were dated 21 Jan. 1456, more than two months after the due date for the change of sheriffs. Since the duke of York was in office as protector at this date, it might be inferred that he was nominated in the Yorkist interest but such an inference would be mistaken. For some unstated reason there was an appreciable delay in the patent reaching him, and he would have sued for a discharge from office on the grounds that the delay prevented him collecting the issues of the shrievalty. Nevertheless, he was dissuaded from doing so by letters of privy seal issued after York had surrendered the reins of government. He went on to do the King notable service during his restricted term in office: the other justification for his additional pardon was ‘the grete and sumptuos charges labours and costes’ he incurred in ‘assemblyng of oure people of oure seid Shires’ in response to other royal letters and in attending the King at Coventry.31 PPC, vi. 341; E159/233, brevia Trin. rot. 4; 235, brevia Easter rot. 9d; CFR, xix. 144. Nor are these the only indications that his political sympathies, at least in the late 1450s, were with the house of Lancaster. In November 1458 he named the King, queen and young prince of Wales on the bede roll of his proposed chantry; in the following February he served as an arbiter for the staunch Lancastrian and Percy retainer, Sir William Plumpton*, in his quarrel with the Yorkist Henry Pierrepont†; and on 5 Nov. 1459 he headed the attestors to the Nottinghamshire election to the notorious Coventry Parliament, where the Yorkist lords were attainted.32 CPR, 1452-61, p. 468; Plumpton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. iv), 3n.; C219/16/5.

In view of these close associations with the house of Lancaster, it may be that Babington put himself forward as a candidate at the contested election of October 1460 in the hope of winning the favour of the new Yorkist regime in the Commons. If this was his hope, it was to be frustrated for he polled only 44 votes, putting him at the bottom of the poll; the two successful candidates, Sir Robert Strelley* and John Stanhope*, standing as a joint ‘ticket’, polled 160 and 150 votes respectively, and the third candidate, Richard Sutton‡, 56. Babington’s poor showing occurred despite the fact that those backing him were of a generally higher social status than those supporting his opponents. He counted among his leading supporters Richard Willoughby, with whom he was closely associated throughout his career, Richard Bingham, son of the judge, and two local j.p.s, Thomas Neville of Darlton and Thomas Curson, all four of greater standing than those who backed the successful candidates, but unfortunately for him the election was decided by the large number of small freeholders from the north of the county who came to support Stanhope and Strelley.33 Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England, 161-5.

The deposition of Henry VI proved a turning point in Babington’s career. It may be implied that a political motive underlay his removal from the quorum of the peace in December 1460 and from the bench itself after Edward IV became King. Although he secured a general pardon in May 1462 and was restored to the county bench in the following year, he never thereafter recovered the prominence he had enjoyed in the 1440s and 1450s.34 C67/45, m. 32. Throughout the 1460s he was omitted from the ad hoc commissions of local government appointed for his native county. Without his continued appointment to the bench he would have entirely disappeared from administrative view. None the less, his appearance on the commission of array in February 1470 suggests that he was eventually able to reconcile himself with the Yorkist regime, and his omission from the Readeption commissions of the peace rather confirms this impression. This omission is particularly striking in view of the fact that his daughter’s father-in-law, Sir John Delves†, was treasurer of the royal household under the restored Henry VI. Delves gave his life for the Lancastrian cause at the battle of Tewkesbury, and his son’s execution after the battle left Babington’s daughter a widow.35 On 29 Aug. 1466 the prior of Lenton and William Gull were licensed to marry John, s. and h. of John Delves, to our MP’s daughter Elizabeth in the chapel in the manor-house at Chilwell: Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 338.

The disfavour with which Babington appears to have been viewed by the Yorkist government in the 1460s had no discernible impact on his standing with his neighbours. This was probably because, in addition to being among the wealthiest local gentry, he was a man of law. In 1462 he was named as a feoffee of William, Lord Zouche, alongside leading Yorkists, headed by William, Lord Hastings. In November 1465 he acted in the marriage settlement of his nephew and namesake, the son and heir of Robert Babington of Kiddington in Oxfordshire, to a daughter of (Sir) Richard Illingworth*. Illingworth’s high standing with the new regime made this a good match, and it is likely that it was our MP who brokered it since he numbered the bride’s father among his neighbours.36 C140/30/53; CCR, 1461-8, pp. 378-9. In these years he also acted as supervisor of the will of John Serjeant*, and as a feoffee for Hamon Sutton II*, for the wealthy Nottinghamshire knight, Sir William Chaworth, and for the Derbyshire widow, Goditha, widow of Roger Foljambe and sister of Sir Thomas Statham of Morley. Further, in 1468, with his friend Richard Willoughby, he acted as arbiter in a minor dispute between the prior of Lenton and (Sir) Robert Clifton*, on one part, and Sir Robert Strelley, on the other.37 York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 231; CP25(1)/145/162/13; Notts. RO, Foljambe mss, DD FJ 4/27/6; Derbys. Chs. ed. Jeayes, no. 2362; CAD, vi. C4665. He also maintained a close connexion with Thomas Thurland: in 1468 he acted for the merchant in a mortgage and, in his will drawn up during the Readeption, Thurland bequeathed our MP £5 to be of good counsel to his widow and his other executors.38 A. Stapleton, A Bundle of Flintham Deeds, 11; CAD, iv. A9133; v. A13458; Test. Ebor. iii. 186. Clearly, despite his partial exclusion from county administration, our MP remained a valued associate among the landowners of his native shire. It is unfortunate that the date of his son John’s marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Green by Maud, daughter of John Throckmorton I*, is not known. It may be that it did not take place until after our MP’s death, but if it took place earlier it was probably negotiated with either Richard Middleton*, the husband of Green’s widow, or Sir John Fogg†, who was granted the marriage of the Green heir in July 1471. Both these men were committed Yorkists, and it may thus be that Babington was able to use his son’s marriage as a means of reconciling his family to the new regime.39 Harl. 1412, f. 60; CPR, 1467-77, p. 272.

Babington was not, however, on good terms with all his neighbours. On 22 Apr. 1465, while he was sitting as a j.p. in ‘le Gaolehall’ at Nottingham, John Pierrepont of Bassingfield in Holme Pierrepont, junior, yeoman, and many others allegedly assaulted one of his servants and a servant of his brother, Thomas Babington, who was then recorder of Nottingham. A week later Pierrepont and his accomplices were indicted before the borough j.p.s, and in the following term our MP sued the assailants for damages of £20 in the court of King’s bench. The 14 defendants entered the unlikely plea of self-defence. This is all that is known of the episode. Not improbably, John Pierrepont was acting on the instructions of the head of his family, Henry Pierrepont, who, among the leading gentry of the county, had benefited most from the change of regime, but it is difficult to perceive a political dimension to the assault. Possibly the motive lay in Babington’s role as arbiter for Plumpton in 1459, but it is far more likely that the assaults arose out of Henry’s dispute with the townsmen of Nottingham.40 KB27/817, rot. 77; 818, rot. 116; KB9/313/4. Neither the King’s suit nor Babington’s appears to have been resolved by the judgement of the court. Ineffectual process was continuing on the former as late as 1474: KB27/853, rex rot. 38d.

A family tradition has it that Babington was much given to duelling and that he was wounded while fighting with Hugh Willoughby of Risley in Derbyshire, from which wound he died. A suit in the court of King’s bench goes some way towards substantiating this tradition. In Easter term 1474 Babington brought an action against Willoughby and nine lesser men, claiming that they, with others unknown, had ambushed and assaulted him at Lenton on 12 Sept. 1473. Willoughby pleaded self-defence against Babington’s claim for 100 marks in damages. Nothing is known for certain of the cause of this quarrel. We can only speculate that it had something to do with our MP’s position as a feoffee of Hugh’s cousin, Richard Willoughby. Perhaps Hugh felt that he had acted to his disadvantage.41 Vis. Oxon. (Harl. Soc. v), 146: KB27/851, rot. 51. Babington, ‘languens in extremis’, drew up his will on the following 27 May. It is an unrevealing document, concerned only with nominating his place of burial, instructing that his debts be paid, and naming his executors and supervisor. Although his grandfather had been buried in the church of East Bridgford and his distinguished father in Lenton priory, he willed burial at the place of his maternal ancestors, the church of Flawford. (His monument survived until the wanton destruction of that church on the order of the ecclesiastical authorities in the 1770s.) He named his son and heir, John, as supervisor, and for his executors he placed his trust in his friend, John Vavasour*, Richard Lovett, vicar of Ruddington, another chaplain, Walter Owthorp, whom he described as his kinsman and whom he had recently presented to the chaplaincy of the Amyas chantry, and one of the lesser county gentry, Thomas Powtrell. For an unknown reason he did not follow the common practice of naming his wife as executrix.42 York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 217d; Nottingham Recs. ii. 280-1n. His association with Vavasour dated back to 1441: CFR, xvii. 193. He died on the day that his will was made. According to the jurors at his inquisitions post mortem, he died seised of only the manor of Woodbury (with its small appurtenant manor of ‘Canons’), which he held jointly with his wife in fee tail. He was baldly said to hold ‘no lands’ in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and no information was volunteered by the jurors with respect to the identity of his feoffees.43 C140/48/4. Although a writ was issued for the taking of an inq. in Beds., no inq. was held, probably because the manor of Clifton had already been sold to the lawyer John Fisher: VCH Beds. ii. 276-7.

An undated letter from Babington’s widow, Elizabeth, to William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, in his capacity as principal executor of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, raises some difficult questions. She complained that ‘Lord Cromwell’ had kept her and her late husband out of their livelihood for more than 16 years ‘aganys all consiens’ and asked the bishop to give credence to her attorney and ‘cousin’, John Vavasour†, serjeant-at-law (the son of John Vavasour, her husband’s executor), to make an end to a suit that had continued more than 24 years. The ‘Lord Cromwell’ referred to must be Humphrey Bourgchier*, and the disseisin referred to presumably lasted from Ralph, Lord Cromwell’s death in 1456. If 24 years was an accurate assessment of the length of the suit then the letter is probably to be dated to 1480, and this would correspond to the period during which the younger Vavasour was a serjeant. Further support for this date is provided by a release of all actions from the elder Vavasour to Waynflete in November of that year. No other evidence survives of the dispute, but there can be little doubt that the disseisin complained about concerned lands at East Bridgford, where both Bourgchier and our MP held property.44 Magdalen Coll. Oxf., East Bridgford deeds 34, 35.

Babington’s son, John, proved himself more adept at adapting to changing political circumstances than his father had been. A retainer of William, Lord Hastings, he was knighted at the coronation of Richard III, and went on to serve both that King and Henry VII as a knight of the body. Another family tradition preserved by the sixteenth-century Oxfordshire visitation has it that his namesake and cousin, John Babington of Dethick, was killed ex parte regis at the battle of Bosworth by Sir James Blount†. Blount had apparently mistaken him for John of Chilwell, to whose niece and coheiress-presumptive he was married.45 R. Horrox, Ric. III, 111n., 258; E.W. Ives, Common Lawyers: Thomas Kebell, 101-2; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 73; Coronation of Ric. III ed. Sutton and Hammond, 306. Our MP’s son survived Blount’s attentions to die without issue on 20 Mar. 1501. He was succeeded by his sister, and on her death in August 1504 the Babington estates were divided between her two daughters, Ellen, wife of Sir Robert Sheffeld†, Speaker in the Parliament of 1512, and Blount’s widow.46 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 898; iii. 1034.