BELLERS, John

The family of Bellers were cadets of the Mowbrays. The founder of the family, Hamon de Beler, was the younger brother of Roger de Mowbray (d.1188), who granted him the manor of Eye Kettleby near Melton Mowbray in about 1160.3 J. Nichols, Leics. ii (1), 277. Their relationship is recorded in the close similarity of their arms: per pale gules and sable, a lion rampant argent (Bellers), per pale or and vert, a lion rampant gules (Mowbray). For a family of such antiquity and prominence – one of their junior branches spawned the notorious Sir Roger Bellers of Kirby Bellars, chief baron of the Exchequer in the early 1320s – their early fifteenth century pedigree is unclear. It is, however, certain that our MP was the grandson of Sir James Bellers†, who had at least eight sons by two wives; the son of John Bellers, MP for Leicestershire in the Parliament of November 1414; and the nephew of James Bellers†, MP for that county in the Parliaments of May 1413 and 1420. Our MP’s father died before Michaelmas 1420, when the family’s principal manor of manor of Eye Kettleby was in the hands of its feudal overlord, John Mowbray, earl of Norfolk, by virtue of our MP’s minority.4 That this manor was in wardship before James’s death in 1421 contradicts the supposition in The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 179-81, that James was John’s elder half-brother. The young John was brought up in the earl’s wardship. In company with the earl’s young son and other Mowbray wards, he spent the accounting year 1420-1 in the household of John Lancaster*, the senior member of the Mowbray council, presumably at the Lancaster residence of Bressingham in Norfolk. The Mowbray receiver-general’s account of 1420-1 records expenditure of 23s. incurred in the purchase of cloth, shoes, horsecloths and a bow, and in the making of a gown and hood, for the young Bellers.5 Arundel Castle mss, A1642, edited in L. Moye, ‘Estates and Finances of the Mowbray Family’ (Duke Univ. Ph. D. thesis, 1985), 337-9.

Bellers came of age in the mid 1420s and soon afterwards his mother’s death significantly augmented his estates. Not only did she have a dower interest in the property of his late father, but she was also the heiress of the lands of her paternal grandparents, Sir Thomas Sutton and Alice Howeby, that is, the manors in Sutton Cheney and Hoby in Leicestershire, together with a small estate at Cranford in Northamptonshire.6 CFR, xv. 203; C139/1/6, 32/1; Leics. Village Notes ed. Farnham, v. 197; VCH Leics. v. 232; Bridges, ii. 226-7. It seems that Bellers was not able to secure the property at Cranford until the reign of Edw. IV: Harl. 7178, ff. 13v-14; C140/55/14. On our MP’s death the combined annual value of his paternal and maternal inheritances was put at as much as £118, and there can be no doubt that after his acquisition of the Howeby lands he was one of the wealthiest of the Leicestershire gentry.7 Nichols, ii (1), 277, quoting Harl. 7178, f. 13v. It is reflective of this status that, in March 1429, he considered his interests extensive enough to justify the grant of a life annuity of a mark to the rising young local lawyer, Thomas Palmer*, for his counsel.8 Leics. RO, Peake mss, DE221/4/1/42. Moreover, unusually for an estate of such value, it was almost entirely confined to one county, and this served to amplify his local weight. He quickly came to play a prominent role in Leicestershire affairs, representing the county as MP in 1432 and 1435.9 C219/14/3, 5. Moreover, in 1434 his family’s importance was further emphasised by the marriage of his sister, Marina, to Sir Thomas Green*, who with lands worth 700 marks p.a. was one of the richest gentry in England.10 Marina had stood as a godmother to her future husband’s daughter, a spiritual relationship that led the couple into difficulties with the ecclesiastical authorities: Lincs. AO, Reg. Gray, f. 118v.

Thereafter, however, our MP’s career did not develop in the manner indicated by such promising beginnings. He never served as sheriff, appeared on comparatively few ad hoc commissions of local government, and had to wait until 1444 for his first appointment to the county bench. The most likely explanation is that his personal inclination was to avoid such administrative burdens despite the influence that went them. On the other hand, his activities in the late 1430s hardly recommended him as a responsible office-holder. On 18 July 1437 an oyer and terminer commission, headed by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, was deputed to investigate the complaint of the Lincolnshire esquire, Richard de la Laund, that Bellers with a band of 60 men had plundered his property at North Witham near the Leicestershire border. From earlier evidence it can be inferred that at issue here was a dispute over the ownership of a manor, which had been entailed on the male line of the Howebys in 1346 but which the Howebys had alienated in 1358. No record of the findings of the commission survive, but Bellers, although he failed to wrest the manor from de la Laund, had already insured himself against other adverse consequences. Five days before the issue of the commission he had sued out a general pardon. 11 CPR, 1436-41, p. 89; Leics. Village Notes, v. 209-10; C67/38, m. 10.

Bellers’s difficulties in the courts may have been a factor in determining him to embark on a brief military career. On 22 May 1443 he had letters of protection as about to depart on the ill-fated expedition of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset. Soon after, on 10 June, he conveyed the manor of Sawtry in Huntingdonshire to an impressive group of 15 feoffees, headed by Somerset, John, Viscount Beaumont, Cromwell, and the influential lawyer Roger Hunt*. Among the other feoffees were his fellow Leicestershire MPs, Everard Digby*, John Browe*, Thomas Palmer and Richard Hotoft*, together with his brother-in-law, William Villers, the lawyer, Thomas Billing*, and William Beaufo*. The feoffment was clearly a significant one, but there is no record of how Bellers acquired his interest in the manor. It is tempting to suggest that it came through his first wife, although there is no evidence to support such a supposition. All that is known for certain is that the surviving feoffees had re-conveyed to him by October 1461, when the manorial court was held in his name, but that the manor subsequently passed to Ramsey abbey rather than his heirs.12 C76/125, m. 11; HMC Hastings, i. 211-12; Add. Ch. 34792; VCH Hunts. iii. 204; Chron. Abbatiae Rameseiensis ed. Dunn Macray, 346.

Soon after the conclusion of Somerset’s expedition, Bellers was appointed to the county bench for the first time, a rather belated recognition by the Crown of his standing in the shire, and, more importantly, he found a place in the royal household. He first appears in the lists of those in receipt of household robes in 1446 and continues to appear down to 1451.13 E101/409/16; 410/1, 3, 6. His new place may have encouraged him to a greater activity in local affairs. Besides taking an active role on the bench, he headed the list of attestors to the parliamentary election of 12 Jan. 1447, and, on 12 Nov. 1450, he himself was returned as an MP for the third time.14 E101/590/34; KB9/248/36; 260/87; C219/15/4, 16/1. It was also during this period that he secured the only crumb of royal patronage, beyond the robes that were the privilege of the household esquire, which was to come his way during his long career. In May 1450 the Leicestershire escheator was ordered to assign to him, as his hereditary right, a half share of a small rent and part of a view of frankpledge in Medbourne, once held by one Robert Straunge, a distant relative of the Howebys, and which had been in the hands of the Crown since Straunge’s death in 1390.15 CIPM, xvi. 1031; CFR, xviii. 160.

After Bellers left the royal household in 1451 his recorded activity diminished. Little is known of him in the early 1450s, although in December 1454 he was named as one of the arbiters in the dispute between his friend, Everard Digby, and his nephew, Bartholomew Villers, over the Clerk of Whissendine inheritance in Rutland.16 CP40/789, rot. 109. There are contrary indications of his political loyalties in the crisis of the end of that decade. His removal from the county bench in November 1458 may suggest that he was no longer trusted by the regime he had once served; and, indeed, he was appointed to a commission of gaol delivery under the Yorkist regime of the autumn of 1460. On the other hand, his removal from the bench coincided with the reduction of the Leicestershire bench from 20 to only 13 j.p.s. and may simply have been the result of rationalisation; and, in about 1457, he was named alongside a group of prominent Lancastrians, headed by John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, as feoffees of William Purefoy of Shalstone (Buckinghamshire) in the disputed manor of Dodford (Northamptonshire).17 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 668-9; C66/490, m. 23d; CP40/790, rot. 368d. All that can be safely said is that he was even more obscure in the 1460s than he had been in the 1450s, and it may be that he simply wanted to withdraw from public life. In May 1462 and June 1468 he took the precaution of suing out a pardon; and, more interestingly, on 14 May 1468 he secured an exemption from office. Against this background, it is surprising that he should have been reappointed to the county bench during the Readeption, an indication that, despite his earlier apparent inactivity and indifference, the new government were anxious to identify him as a supporter. It is probable that he was removed immediately after Edward IV’s restoration, although it is difficult to be certain because no new commission was enrolled on the patent roll until 1474. His pardon of 1 Dec. 1471 is the last reference to him other than in a private capacity.18 JUST1/1547, rot. 3; C67/45, m. 12; 46, m. 2; C219/17/1; CPR, 1467-77, p. 89. Yet, although Bellers did not play the part in public affairs expected of a man of his wealth, few Leicestershire landholders had a greater range of connexions among the leading gentry of the shire than he. During the course of his long career he acted as a feoffee for, among others, Sir Robert Woodford, Thomas Seyton*, William Villers, Thomas Palmer, William Feldyng* and William Brokesby;19 Harl. 7178, f. 13v; Add. Chs. 21195, 21837-9, 22274, 22285, 22292, 22295-7, 22413; HMC Hastings, i. 20-21; Nichols, ii (1), app. p. 132; iii (1), 191; CP25(1)/126/76/56, 62; Shakespeare Centre Archs., Willoughby de Broke mss, DR98/122A; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 656. and, not surprisingly, he appears with great frequency as a witness to deeds.20 Leics. RO, Sherard mss, DG40/481; Osbaston deeds, 9D36/5; Peake mss, DE221/4/1/64; Leics. Village Notes, ii. 262, v. 311-12; HMC Hastings, i. 90; CCR, 1461-8, p. 90; Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, no. 841; Add. Chs. 26925-6; Nichols, ii (1), 132. But it is by the identity of his own feoffees that the extent of his acquaintance is best reflected. These, in a feoffment of all his lands made in the late 1420s, were Lewis Robessart, jure uxoris Lord Bourgchier, Nicholas Wymbissh, a Chancery clerk, Sir William Trussell†, Everard Digby, Thomas Palmer, John Burgh I* and his cousin, Ralph Bellers of Brownsover in Warwickshire; those to whom he conveyed the manor of Sawtry in 1443 included as many as eight sometime MPs; and, in 1473, he was able to call on the services of, among others, Sir William Sutton, master of the hospital of Burton Lazars, Sir Richard Sapcote of Elton in Huntingdonshire and Burley in Rutland, Richard Neel*, j.c.p., Nicholas Griffin, his future father-in-law, Ralph Woodford, William Moton†, son of Sir Robert Moton*, and Robert Staunton*.21 JUST1/1537, rot. 27; Harl. 7178, f. 13v; Nichols, ii (1), app. p. 127; HMC Hastings, i. 91-92; T. Madox, Formulare Anglicanum, 208-9. Such a range of associates confirm that he was, for nearly 50 years, one of the leading gentry of his native shire.

Bellers’s major preoccupation in the last years of his life was arrangements for the future settlement of his landed property. It was probably the childless death of his son and heir, Anthony,22 Anthony owed his comparatively unusual Christian name to his Howeby ancestors. who disappears from the records in the mid 1460s, that prompted him to alienate some of his lands to religious institutions. In 1468 he sold to Leicester abbey a small estate in Ingarsby for £100, and in 1471 he conveyed the manor of Sawtry to feoffees preparatory to its alienation to Ramsey abbey. He also set aside other land, including his residence in Hoby and together worth more than £5 p.a., to the foundation of a chantry in the church there.23 Nichols, iii (1), 291-2; CP25(1)/126/78/19; VCH Hunts. iii. 204. At his death his estate was further encumbered with the payment of five annuities totalling over £9, the largest of which was of £4 to his nephew, Bartholomew Villers, and two marks to his servant, Thomas Thomson. His will does not survive, but Bartholomew was one of his executors, charged with the responsibility of completing the foundation of the chantry.

Bellers’s unfriendly attitude to another of his heirs is made apparent by the undertaking, under a penalty of 1,000 marks, that Jasper Ruskyn, son and heir apparent of his sister, Eleanor, was obliged to enter to Bartholomew and others to perform the testator’s last will.24 Nichols, iii (1), 265, quoting Harl. 7178. It is not surprising that our MP should have anticipated difficulties from Ruskyn. In Trinity term 1470 he had levied a fine intended to assure his wife Elizabeth a life interest in his manors of Eye Kettleby and neighbouring Sysonby – a generous settlement no doubt prompted by the death of their son and heir – and, on 19 Apr. 1473, he had conveyed these manors to feoffees for the performance of his will. Soon after he sold the reversion, expectant on the deaths of himself and his wife, to two of his three heirs apparent, his sister, Marina Green, and his nephew, John Villers, thus excluding his third sister, Eleanor, a party to the fine of 1470, from her share of these manors. This, at least, is the story told by the jurors at his inquisition post mortem, although, in a petition presented to the chancellor after Bellers’s death, Ruskyn, not surprisingly, presented a different version. He claimed that Bellers had instructed his feoffees to divide the manors between his three coheirs on payment of 400 marks to either him or his executors. Ruskyn’s story can probably be dismissed as special pleading, but it is clear that our MP’s intention was to sell to his heirs what they might reasonably have expected to inherit without payment.

Two related events led to the almost immediate modification of this arrangement: Elizabeth’s death and his marriage to Katherine, daughter of Nicholas Griffin and hence the stepdaughter of his sister Marina, who had taken Griffin as her second husband. According to his inquisition post mortem, he entered on the possession of the feoffees in the manor of Eye Kettleby and resettled it on himself and Katherine for their joint lives. To complicate the situation further, after his death, Katherine sued his feoffees in Chancery, asserting that they were obliged, under the terms of his will, to allow her to take the issues of the other manor of Sysonby in name of her dower.25 CP25(1)/126/78/21; C140/52/27; C1/56/236, 58/5. The matter appears to have been settled by a fine levied in November 1477, when the feoffees and the widow, with her second husband, John Digby (a younger son of Bellers’s friend, Everard Digby) conveyed the Bellers estates to the heirs. In return, on the following 10 Feb., John Villers conceded his part of the manors of Eye Kettleby and Sysonby to Katherine and Digby. By partition of the Bellers estates these two manors had been assigned to Marina Green, presumably because the earlier sale of these manors to her and Villers had been superseded by Bellers’s later arrangements, and, since it was her share of the inheritance that was burdened by Katherine’s interest, it was appropriate that the other coheirs should compensate her from their shares. At the time of the division it was agreed that John Villers should pay her £8 12s. 9d. and Jasper Ruskyn £3 8s. 4d. annually for Katherine’s life, and that, on Katherine’s death in the lifetime of Digby, these payments should continue at the reduced rate of two marks each.26 Nichols, iii (1), 191 n. 7, quoting Harl. 7178, f. 13v; CP25(1)/126/79/35. The division of the property reflected, as closely as possible, its constituent parts: the ancient Bellers manors of Eye Kettleby and Sysonby to Marina Green; the former Howeby manor of Hoby to John Villers; and the former Sutton manor of Sutton Cheney to Jasper Ruskyn. Moreover, despite the fact that Bellers appears to have envisaged the partial disinheritance of the Ruskyn line, each of the three shares of the inheritance were valued at approximately £34. His fourth sister, Margaret, had become prioress of the Benedictine house at Langley, and thus inherited no land, but at his death was in receipt of a modest annuity of 6s. 8d. assigned on the family lands.27 Nichols, ii (1), 277.

Many years after his death, Bellers was remembered in the wills of Ralph Woodford, one of his feoffees and the husband of his niece, Elizabeth Villers, and the long-lived Sir John Digby, the widower of his second wife. In 1496 Ralph bequeathed the primer Bellers had given him ‘to pray for him’ to his son, John Woodford; and in 1529 Sir John provided a priest to sing for the souls of Bellers and others in the church of Melton Mowbray.28 PCC 23 Horne (PROB11/11, f. 184); Early Lincoln Wills ed. Gibbons, 205.