EXTON, John

Members of the Exton family had sat in six Parliaments of the fourteenth century for the Sussex borough of Midhurst, and it is quite likely that John was a grandson of one of them, Henry Exton†. His parents were perhaps Geoffrey and Isabel Exton, who held land in the suburbs of Chichester in the reign of Richard II,4 Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), nos. 2533, 2541, 2567. and the Henry Exton who acted as a juror for the assessment of the subsidy of 1428 in the rapes of Chichester, Arundel and Bramber and as a tax collector in Sussex generally in 1431 may have been his brother. Henry was among the men of the county required to take the oath against maintenance of law-breakers, as applied in 1434, and this reflects on his standing as a landowner in the locality.5 Feudal Aids, v. 152; CPR, 1429-36, p. 372. By that date the Extons had acquired property a few miles to the east of Chichester, at Walberton, Barnham and Yapton, although John himself made the city the focus of his activities. The full extent of his personal holdings is uncertain, although it is known that he held land outside the west gate,6 Suss. N. and Q. viii. 74; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 132. and that property within the city walls fell to him as a consequence of his friendship with one of the leading merchants, William Neel†. Together with Neel in 1417 he took on a seven-year lease of land in the suburb to the south, belonging to one of the prebends of Chichester cathedral, for which they paid 30s. p.a.,7 HMC Var. iv. 122. and in his will of the following year Neel left Exton two shops in East Street, next to a tenement he already possessed. Exton took on the administration of the will as one of Neel’s executors, and this involved him in transactions regarding his friend’s property in Thames Street, in the city of London, which he sold soon afterwards.8 Reg. Chichele, ii. 150-1, 153; CAD, i. C1256-8, 1292-3, 1295.

In the course of his career Exton was recorded as a witness to deeds in both Chichester and Yapton,9 Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 130-1, 160-1. but when first mentioned he was called ‘of Walberton’. This was in November 1404 when he and William Alyngwode of Arundel made an appeal to overturn the sentence delivered by William Brampton†, the prominent merchant and alderman of London, when acting as lieutenant of the admiral of the south and west in a maritime case brought against the two of them by William Fisher of Arundel. A royal commission was set up to determine the matter.10 CPR, 1401-5, p. 469. It would appear from this and other sources that Exton made a living from trade, even though he could also on occasion be described as a ‘gentleman’.11 CP40/651, rot. 483. In 1417 he was commissioned with two others to purchase 600 quarters of wheat for shipment from Chichester harbour to Calais for the victualling of the English garrisons there, and this marked the beginning of his employment by the Crown. Four months after his appointment as collector of customs in Chichester in October 1421, his normal brief was extended by instructions from Chancery to collaborate with his fellow customer, John Tamworth*, and with James Knottesford, the controller of the customs, in overseeing the tronage and pesage of wool and other merchandise in their region.12 CPR, 1416-22, p. 392.

Exton was exercising his office as customer when returned for Chichester to Henry VI’s first Parliament, summoned in the following autumn. He had previously attested the Sussex elections held in the county court at Chichester in September 1419, and now did so again, on 15 Oct. 1422, thus participating in the choice of the shire knights whom he would accompany to the Commons.13 C219/12/3, 13/1. Although in the previous 18 months he had served on juries in the city regarding the property there of deceased tenants-in-chief (most notably the earl of Arundel),14 C138/59/51, 61/68; C145/302/3. He had also done likewise at Arundel in 1415: C138/23/54. he is not known to have played any part in civic administration at this stage in his career. During the session of the Parliament, which lasted a little over five weeks, he and Tamworth accounted at the Exchequer for receipts from the wool subsidy amounting to over £96.15 E401/703, m. 6. From the following February, Exton owed his continuation in office as customer in Chichester to the nomination of Bishop Beaufort, under the negotiated arrangement for the repayment of the latter’s loans to the Crown. He ceased to be a customs official in 1424, but four years later a case came before the Exchequer showing misconduct on his part. Discovery had been made of a discrepancy between the customs accounts and the cockets issued in 1422, an offence which could be punished by fining the customers thrice the value of the wool concealed, in this instance nearly £95. Exton’s fellow customer, Tamworth, defended himself by explaining that because of the excessive length of the coast for which the Chichester customers were responsible the area was in practice divided. Tamworth himself handled only the merchandise passing through the harbours from Shoreham to Hythe, and had nothing to do with his colleague’s conduct in the more westerly ports. Even so, he may not have been excused from contributing to the fine, while Exton is known to have been imprisoned in the Fleet until he made satisfaction to the King.16 E159/204, communia Trin. rot. 15d; 205, recogniciones Mich.

Meanwhile, Exton had again attested the shire elections held at Chichester, in October 1423 and March 1425.17 C219/13/2, 3. In addition, for an undetermined period in the 1420s (from before the spring of 1423 perhaps continuously to beyond November 1427), he had acted as a coroner in Sussex, in spite of the issue of royal writs for his suspension as not being suitably qualified for the post. Such suspensions were generally made because the elected coroner lacked sufficient property. Exton was one of the ‘free and lawful men of Chichester’ instructed by the royal searcher of ships in the port to appraise certain goods confiscated in November 1430.18 E122/183/10. His last royal commission came in the following summer, when he was instructed to arrest a ship of St. Valery, seized at sea contrary to the truce and sold at Bosham, and to restore it to its rightful owners. The malefactors were to be arrested and brought before the King’s Council. However, he may have continued to be employed in royal service, for in 1436 he was engaged in talks with William Wermyston* and Richard Clitheroe* of New Romney in connexion with Romney’s ship-service for the relief of Calais. Although described in the record as ‘clerk of the King’s ships’ this office was currently held by William Soper* of Southampton, so Exton may have been acting merely as Soper’s deputy.19 E. Kent Archs., New Romney recs., assmt. bk. 1384-1446, NR/FAc2, f. 124v.

A little of Exton’s more private affairs is revealed in the suits he brought in the court of common pleas. He appeared in person in the Michaelmas term of 1422 (when up at Westminster for the meeting of Parliament), to sue a local husbandman for breaking his closes at Yapton and Walberton and taking crops worth £5; and a year later (this time by attorney) he brought pleas against a weaver from Petersfield, Hampshire, and John Pedling*, a butcher from Arundel, for sums amounting to £4 7s. 4d.20 CP40/647, rot. 102; 651, rot. 207d; 652, rot. 14d. Of greater interest was a lawsuit commenced in the same Michaelmas term of 1423, in which Exton was summoned as a defendant: he and Thomas Baron I* were alleged to be unlawfully withholding the sum of 20 marks from Sir John Pelham*. This sum very likely formed part of the life-annuity of £36 that Edmund, earl of March, had granted Pelham from the fee farm of Chichester, which the earl himself received by grant of the Crown. Evidently, Exton had taken some responsibility for the payment of this annuity, which was to cause him further trouble after the earl’s death in January 1425. Following that event the mayor of Chichester, Thomas Pole, demanded surety to make certain that due allowance for the half-yearly instalment due in March that year would be made when he presented his account for the fee farm at the Exchequer, and so Exton gave him ‘une symple obligacion’ in £18. Although this sum was duly allowed him at the Exchequer, Pole nevertheless sued Exton on the bond in the court of common pleas, and Exton, finding he had no means to obtain a discharge through the common law, was forced to appeal to the chancellor.21 CP40/651, rot. 483; 667, rot. 399 (where Pole is called Thomas Spone); C1/7/30. In the 1420s Exton, often appearing in the law courts in person, registered pleas against a number of debtors, including a mercer from Andover who allegedly owed him £20. He also accused a man from Walberton of assaulting him.22 CP40/657, rot. 169, 176d; 661, rot. 234. A rather different case concerned his servant John Staunton (possibly a relative of his successor as customer at Chichester, Thomas Staunton), whom he suspected of stealing £4. Exton had John imprisoned in the city gaol, and the mayor brought him to Chancery where on 26 Apr. 1429 bail was found to guarantee his appearance before the justices of gaol delivery at Guildford a few days later.23 CCR, 1422-9, p. 424.

While we can be certain about many of the details of Exton’s career up to 1431, and may confidently assume that it was he who served as a juror at inquisitions post mortem held in Chichester in the following year and in 1439,24 C139/59/39, 91/18. the appearance of namesakes in the records makes it more difficult to isolate him. He was called ‘senior, franklin’ in 1430,25 KB27/677, rot. 4. at the same time as a younger John was active prosecuting suits in the common pleas in person. The latter, as John Exton ‘junior’, had witnessed a deed five years earlier regarding a quitclaim to Henry Exton of lands in Yapton, Barnham and Walberton. We know that the MP had a son called John, who was described as ‘of Walberton’ in 1431, when he acquired lands and tenements there and in Yapton and Binsted,26 Suss. N. and Q. viii. 74; CP40/680, rot. 165; W. Suss. RO, Add. mss, 37986. but we need not necessarily assume that it was the latter who, as ‘of Walberton’ but otherwise without description, was appointed as a tax collector in Sussex in 1440, and who brought suits against a drover of Borham for debts of £40 five years later. Then too, a John ‘of Walberton’ attested the shire elections in Chichester in 1450. It is not impossible that these references all relate to the MP.27 CP40/738, rot. 38d; C219/16/2. If so, it was he who supplied the earl of Northumberland’s household at Petworth with grain and mutton in that and the previous year, and died in about 1451.28 Petworth House Suss. mss, receivers’ acct. 7215 (MAC/7).

A further complication arises from the fact that there was a third John Exton, for Henry Exton also had a son named John, who lived nearby at Ford. That John served as a tax collector in 1445 and 1446. Confusingly, in 1444 together with his wife Agnes the latter had leased to Richard Myldewe* a tenement in East Street, Chichester, for 30 years,29 Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 136, 161. and it looks very likely that this was the property our MP had occupied earlier. Meanwhile, John Exton ‘of Chichester’ (probably our MP) had been recorded in transactions in September 1440 relating to property in North Street, which his son John was to grant to the city guild of St. George 53 years later.30 Ibid. 135, 145. Despite the confusion over the various namesakes, there can be no doubt that the Extons remained prominent figures in the city. A John Exton attested the Chichester elections to Parliament in 1453, 1459 (as ‘senior’), 1460 and 1472;31 C219/16/5, 6, 17/2. and the career of a John Exton may be charted through the offices of reeve in 1463-4 (when he was called ‘the younger’), constable of the staple in 1481-2, and mayor in 1486-7. Another member of the family, Richard, occupied the mayoralty in 1495 and 1512-13.32 W. Suss. RO, Diocesan recs., Cap. I/15/9; C241/258/15; VCH Suss. iii. 92; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxix. 142.