CHIDEOCK, Sir John

Chideock’s father had inherited substantial family estates including Chideock, More Crichel and East Chelborough in Dorset, Allowenshay and Kingston Pitney in Somerset, and from his mother’s family property at Westbury and Hilperton in Wiltshire and Clifton and Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire. Even before he came into possession of his wife’s Fitzwaryn inheritance (in the last year of his life), he had become a very wealthy man, with holdings estimated to be worth £278 a year in the assessments for taxation made in 1412. When he died in September 1415, quite likely at the siege of Harfleur, his son and heir the future MP was still a minor, not yet 13 years old.7 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 564-5; CIPM, xx. 481-5. The overlord of a number of the Chideock properties was Edmund, earl of March, and it was to him that on 11 Nov. following Henry V granted the heir’s wardship and marriage. But suspicion remained that parts of John’s inheritance in Dorset had been concealed, and royal commissions were set up in February 1416 and again in March 1419 to investigate whether the Crown had been defrauded.8 CPR, 1413-16, pp. 382, 413; 1416-22, p. 213. Sir John’s widow Eleanor and her new husband Ralph Bush* were fined as much as 400 marks for marrying without the King’s licence, and although she was given seisin of her substantial jointure in the Chideock estates there were considerable delays before she received her dower.9 CCR, 1413-19, pp. 259-60, 344-5, 464-5; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 447-8; CPR, 1416-22, p. 67. Even though Earl Edmund was issued with a fresh grant of the wardship and marriage on 29 June 1421, inquisitions regarding the inheritance were still being conducted in the autumn of 1422.10 CPR, 1416-22, p. 383; C139/7/64. After making proof of age on 12 July 1423, John formally came into his patrimony, with the exception of the substantial holdings which remained in his mother’s possession for her lifetime.11 C139/8/73; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 34, 101.

That autumn Chideock marked his coming of age by attesting the elections to Parliament held at the county court at Dorchester.12 C219/13/2. A suitable marriage was arranged for him, presumably by his guardian the earl of March, before March 1425, when his wife Katherine was awarded jointure in the manors of Chideock (which John’s mother had relinquished to him) and Buckham.13 C139/139/26; Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 336. Later, in 1432, the couple purchased a papal licence to have their own portable altar.14 CPL, viii. 431. Katherine’s identity is uncertain, although she is thought to have come from the wealthy northern family of Lumley, and was of sufficiently high status as to be placed among the ladies in attendance on Henry V’s queen, Katherine de Valois.15 However, there is no indication that she was assigned robes for Katherine’s coronation in Feb. 1421: E101/407/4. If she was indeed one of the 12 children of Ralph, Lord Lumley, who was beheaded in 1400 after conspiring against Hen. IV (CP, viii. 270), she was a sis. of Marmaduke Lumley, afterwards bp. of Carlisle, whom the queen called her ‘dear clerk and friend’: Trans. Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. lv. 112-31, esp. p. 117. Shortly after Chideock’s marriage, and probably to compensate her for the loss of the valuable manor of Chideock, his mother Eleanor was allotted an additional life-interest in the manor of East Chelburgh, and by fines completed in the same year, 1425, she also had 20 messuages, four tofts, and many other properties in Bridport which pertained to our MP’s patrimony.16 CPR, 1422-9, p. 290; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 328-9. There was much else besides which remained outside his possession. As well as the very considerable Chideock estates which Eleanor held for life, she naturally retained her own inheritance from her father Sir Ivo Fitzwaryn. This was extensive, comprising some 17 manors spread over five counties and worth at least £163 p.a.17 Feudal Aids, vi. 430, 507, 517, 534. Furthermore, for several years it must have seemed to Chideock that he would never lay hands on his maternal grandfather’s legacy, for not only would this be kept by Eleanor’s husband Bush for life (by the courtesy), but it was her intention that the three children she had borne Bush would inherit them, instead of her first-born son, our MP.18 CAD, vi. C6977. She wanted the bulk of the inheritance to pass to her elder son William Bush, lands worth 100 marks p.a. to the younger, John, and the sum of 300 marks to her daughter Margery for her marriage. If Margery survived her brothers, she was to have lands worth £100 p.a. Probably in the same year that the landed settlements on Chideock’s wife were made, a prestigious marriage was arranged between William Bush (Eleanor and Ralph’s elder son), and Joan, daughter of Sir Thomas Brooke*, and young William was assured that after his parents died he would be the one to inherit the Fitzwaryn estates. Chideock’s sister Alice was required to make a formal quitclaim of her title to this inheritance at Brooke’s seat on 3 Sept. 1425.19 Harl. Ch. 48 B 7.

It is a mark of Chideock’s standing that he was knighted at Leicester on 19 May 1426, in company with the young King Henry VI and a select group of esquires from other distinguished families. In the following month writs were sent out for the arrest and imprisonment of his father, for having failed to pay Sir Thomas Stawell† and others the sum of 200 marks, due under a statute staple of 1414. Inquiries soon established that he was long dead, but it may be that as his heir Sir John had to take some responsibility for payment of the debt.20 C131/61/13, 19, 20. In the spring of 1430 he was retained to serve the King on the voyage to France for his coronation, with a personal contingent of three men-at-arms and 12 archers, and took out letters of protection and of attorney in preparation for their departure.21 E404/46/194; E403/693, m. 18; 695, m. 4A; DKR, xlviii. 271, 276. The date of his return home is uncertain, and he may have still been away in December that year when his name was given in support for a petition of Sir William Bonville* for a commission of oyer and terminer to investigate a serious attack on the property in Lincolnshire belonging to Bonville’s wife Lady Harington.22 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 129-30. Another of Chideock’s associates at this time was his brother-in-law, Walter, 5th Lord Fitzwalter, who also crossed to France on the coronation expedition; he acted as a feoffee of property in Essex on Fitzwalter’s behalf.23 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 209-11; CP, v. 483-4. As already noted, for several years Sir John’s wife had been engaged in the service of the King’s mother, Katherine de Valois. She now, on 1 Jan. 1431, received from her a generous annuity of as much as £40 charged to the queen’s lordship at Risborough in Buckinghamshire.24 E404/64/236.

Such was Chideock’s position in Dorset society when he was elected to represent his native county in the Parliament summoned for 8 July 1433. While the Parliament was in session, on 7 Dec., his mother died,25 C139/65/38. so that in the following year he gained possession of the Chideock estates she had held in dower and jointure and by virtue of the settlements of 1425,26 CFR, xvi. 224; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 328-9. although her husband Ralph Bush retained her Fitzwaryn inheritance for life. Sir John was determined to protect his interests with regard to this inheritance, which since Eleanor’s three children by Bush had all died without issue, ought now to revert to him on Bush’s death. Several legal transactions were completed in 1439 to establish the future descent of the property in his favour. After William Bush’s death his young widow Joan had been espoused to John Carent*, and Chideock now required her father Sir Thomas Brooke to be bound over in 500 marks that when she came of age she would formally relinquish any title she had to the Fitzwaryn estates under the terms of the earlier settlements. By final concords of the same year, the bulk of the inheritance now passed to Chideock, although his stepfather Bush was permitted to keep seven manors and various other properties for life, and the Carents were given a reversionary interest in the Chideock manors of Winterbourne Houghton and Upcerne, to hold for Joan’s lifetime.27 Harl. Ch. 48 B 8; CP25(1)/292/69/231; CPR, 1441-6, p. 34; Dorset Feet of Fines, 357-8. Other fines concerned the Fitzwaryn manors of Fifhead Neville, Burcombe and Melbury Osmond, Dorset, and Fiddington in Somerset, which Bush kept for life with reversion to a body of feoffees, who were apparently instructed to settle them on the Carents for life.28 CP25(1)/292/69/232; C1/43/258-61. Thus, even after his stepfather died in 1441, Chideock was prevented from taking possession of his maternal inheritance in its entirety.29 C139/107/26. More Crichel had also not come into his keeping: an entail in 1439 settled it on Edith, wid. of Nicholas Syfrewast, and her son Thomas and his issue, with remainder to Chideock and his wife and issue: Dorset Feet of Fines, 354. Meanwhile, he had taken out a royal pardon on 10 May 1437, most likely to cover any legal discrepancies in these property dealings,30 C67/38, m. 5. and shortly afterwards another part of his inheritance had fallen to him. His father had leased to Sir Thomas Brooke’s parents his manor of Kingston in Somerset for £20 a year for their lives; on the death of Brooke’s mother the manor returned to the Chideock family.31 CFR, xvi. 347-8.

Following his election to Parliament Chideock had been engaged in the kind of public service to be expected from one of his status, as a commissioner and j.p., as such making occasional appearances at sessions of the peace.32 E101/586/11, mm. 1-4; 32, m. 3. He was asked to help raise loans for the war-effort, and was personally requested for one of £40 to help equip the duke of York’s army in February 1436,33 PPC, iv. 329. but there is nothing to suggest that he himself ever served overseas again. That he sometimes stayed in London is suggested by his membership of the prestigious fraternity of St. John the Baptist, founded by the Taylors’ Company,34 Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 280v. but his service on ad hoc commissions in Dorset suggests that he was mostly resident there. He was called upon to attest letters patent issued by the abbot of Cerne in his chapter house in November 1437,35 CPR, 1446-52, p. 550. and he continued his association with Sir William Bonville, as a co-feoffee of the manor of Milborne St. Andrew, on behalf of Thomas Hussey I*, and of that of Fordington for John Cheyne I* and his wife, both transactions taking place in 1441.36 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 481-2; CPR, 1436-41, p. 540; Dorset Feet of Fines, 360-1. On 1 Dec. that year Chideock obtained from the King confirmation of letters patent dated 1356 in favour of his great-grandfather, these letters themselves confirming a charter of Geoffrey de Mandeville of about 1258, which granted the manor of Chideock to Gervase de Bridport (from whom Sir John was directly descended).37 CPR, 1354-8, pp. 458-9; 1441-6, p. 69. He purchased another pardon on 20 July 1446,38 C67/39, m. 17. and served as sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1447-8. During his term of office, in July 1448, Sir John’s wife obtained from the King a warrant instructing the Exchequer to make payment to her of the sum of £220 owing for the annuity granted by Queen Katherine, which, she said, had not been paid for the last five and a half years of the queen’s life.39 E404/64/236. The timing of this warrant is instructive, for the treasurer was then Katherine’s putative brother, Marmaduke Lumley, bishop of Carlisle, who was a feoffee of her husband’s estates.40 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 153-5.

Chideock and his wife had not produced any sons, a circumstance which made the marriages of their two daughters highly valuable commodities. They both attracted matches of note, which were arranged by their father probably before 1441. Margaret, the older of the two, was married to William Stourton*, the son and heir of the influential (Sir) John Stourton II*, afterwards Lord Stourton, while Katherine, the younger, was married to William Stafford*, a younger but only surviving son of the wealthy Sir Humphrey Stafford* of Hooke. When Sir John Chideock died on 6 Mar. 1450, these two daughters were his heirs.41 C139/139/26. He had left his widow a sizeable jointure, worth at least £100 p.a., and on 19 May, the day after a partition of the Chideock estates between the daughters and their husbands had been ordered, she was awarded dower.42 CFR, xviii. 160; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 153-5. But one of Chideock’s sons-in-law did not survive him for long: Stafford was killed just a month later at Sevenoaks in Kent, at the start of Cade’s uprising. As the executrix of his will, which has not survived, Chideock’s widow obtained a pardon in February 1456,43 C67/41, m. 6. and on 2 Dec. 1460 the King granted her together with Sir Thomas St. Maur and John Willoughby† a charter of a weekly market and three annual fairs at the town of Westbury in Wiltshire, part of her late husband’s estate.44 CChR, vi. 137; VCH Wilts. viii. 137, 149.

In accordance with his wishes, Chideock had been buried in the priory of Christchurch Twynham in Hampshire, but his widow may have overstepped the mark when making arrangements for religious services on his behalf, for the papal legate sent a mandate severely criticising ‘certain things done by her within the close of the monastery’.45 CPR, 1452-61, p. 630. After her death in the summer of 1461,46 C140/2/26. another papal mandate, sent in March 1463, revealed more about her intentions. The pope had been informed that the monastery was situated between two great rivers and close to the sea, so that its terrain was frequently subject to flooding, and urgent repairs and flood defences were needed. Katherine, who had founded a chapel in the priory church for the perpetual celebration of masses, with an altar beneath which first Chideock then she herself had been buried, had hoped to raise money to pay for the necessary works. To this end, at the petition of her executors and its supervisor, John Cranborne, a canon residentiary of Salisbury, the pope granted to all penitents who visited and gave alms on the feasts of Trinity and St. Faith the Virgin, a relaxation of seven years and seven quarantines of enjoined penance.47 CPL, xi. 636-7. For more about Katherine’s bequests to the monastery, see C1/27/61, 29/269-71.