FITZJOHN, Nicholas

Fitzjohn’s family had been prominent residents of Chertsey since at least 1372, when the manor of Ham was conveyed to his parents. The manor decended to our MP and formed the basis of a reasonably substantial landed estate which he, his son and grandson acquired in the locality during the course of the fifteenth century.1 VCH Surr. iii. 409; CP25(1)/231/67/53. He became active there from about 1398 when he first appears as the owner of lands and tenements and as a witness to transactions in Chertsey. The extent of his land-holding is revealed by numerous deeds from the early 1430s pertaining to lands belonging to Chertsey abbey, many of which abutted on to properties acquired by Fitzjohn earlier in his career.2 Chertsey Carts. ed. Jenkinson, i. 20-21; ii. 169, 215, 218, 248, 252-3, 263; iii. 369, 373. He had married Joan by May 1404, and the couple succesfully secured a licence from the bishop of Winchester for oratories at their residences at Ham and Chertsey, suggesting that they lived in some affluence.3 Reg. Wykeham (Hants Rec. Soc. 1899), ii. 556. Indeed, in 1412 Fitzjohn’s income from land was assessed at the threshold of £20 p.a. for the purposes of the lay subsidy raised that year.4 Feudal Aids, vi. 518. Fitzjohn had dealings with Chertsey abbey on many occasions around this time: in 1404 he was listed as a tenant of lands belonging to the abbey and was drawn upon to witness several grants of property made by the abbot and convent. However, relations with the abbey appear to have become strained by November 1409 when he appeared in the court of audience of the archbishop of Canterbury charged with withholding tithes due from holdings in Chertsey, particularly from a meadow called Bogmede or Stanoresmede. Fitzjohn appeared in court and admitted the truth of the charge, which appears to have pacified the authorities who were content to draw up a public instrument of their judgement, recording the offence and Fitzjohn’s promise to pay his tithes regularly in future.5 Chertsey Carts. i. 96-97; ii. 169.

Fitzjohn’s standing in the county as a whole does not appear to have been affected by his dispute with the abbey, and in December 1417 he received the first of two appointments as a tax collector in Surrey. In May 1434 he was listed as one of those who were to take the oath not to maintain lawbreakers, then being described as of Merrow, near Guildford, while the fact that within a few years he was styled ‘of Guildford’ itself, suggests that he acquired property there before his first appearance as an MP for the county town.6 CPR, 1429-36, p. 381. Indeed, in addition to being twice chosen to serve the borough in Parliament, Fitzjohn also attested the county election in 1417 and on three occasions in the 1430s.7 C219/14/3, 4, 15/1. It is indicative of his superior status that he was regularly styled a ‘gentleman’ or even an esquire.8 CP40/717, rot. 359; 724, rot. 380. His dealings at this time with William Nicholl, a burgess of Southampton, related to the Fitzjohns’ interest in the manor of South Stoneham in Hampshire. In June 1435 he and his son and heir, John, released their rights in the manor to Nicholl, and at the same time our MP granted him an annual rent of £2 13s. 4d. from his Chertsey lands.9 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 32, 40. The background to these transactions is obscure.

Little is recorded of Fitzjohn after his second election to Parliament, and he may not have been still alive in November 1445 when he was named in a quitclaim as a former feoffee of lands in Chertsey.10 CAD, i. B897. The manor of Ham remained in the hands of Fitzjohn’s heirs until it was acquired in 1481 by the King’s brother-in-law (Sir) Thomas St. Leger† who subsequently conveyed it to St. George’s chapel, Windsor.11 CP40/822, rot. 116; VCH Surr. iii. 409; St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs. XV. 21/1, 4.