GODMANSTON, John

The Godmanstons had held their lands in Essex and Dorset for several centuries. Robert de Godmanston† represented Dorset in the Parliament of 1307 and Walter, the MP’s paternal grandfather, was sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1381-2, but the family was never of the first rank of the gentry. John, probably a lawyer, is rather an obscure figure. In Essex, his county of residence, he inherited a manor at Little Bromley and the moiety of another at Frinton. Like other Essex gentry, he joined the guild of St. Helen at Colchester (in his case, by the early 1440s), but there is no evidence that he held property in that town. In Dorset, he succeeded to two other manors, at Godmanstone (the parish from which his family took its name) and Fifehead Magdalen.7 J. Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 41-42; Morant, i. 439; Feudal Aids, ii. 104, 117, 154, 219; vi. 424, 440; Essex RO, Colchester bor. recs., acct. roll masters of St. Helen’s guild, 1441-2, D/B 5 Z2. A tax assessment of the mid 1430s found he enjoyed a landed income of £80 p.a.,8 EHR, xlix. 633. and he augmented his estate in the early 1440s, by paying Geoffrey Rokell 500 marks for the other moiety of Frinton.9 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 137, 209, 285, 342.

Even if he was not of the first rank of the county gentry, the extent of Godmanstone’s landholdings meant that he comfortably qualified to sit in Parliament as a knight of the shire and ensured that he was distrained for knighthood on at least three occasions. Among his gentry associates in Essex were John Marney, for whom he witnessed a charter in 1443, the Doreward family, for whom he was a feoffee, 10 CCR, 1441-7, p. 209; 1447-54, pp. 24-25. and John Tey, for whom he was both a feoffee and executor. In the early 1450s, Tey’s widow and her second husband sued him and his fellow trustees and executors in the Chancery, alleging that they had failed to perform the dead man’s will.11 CPR, 1441-6, p. 265; C1/18/118; 19/296-8. Godmanston also had links with two men of greater importance: Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford, whom he appointed one of his own feoffees,12 Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Misc. 154. and William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester. He served Stafford, created duke of Buckingham in 1444, as his estate steward in Essex and he helped Waynflete to establish Magdalen Hall, the forerunner to the bishop’s Oxford college, in the late 1440s. How he had come to know Waynflete, whom his relative Simon Godmanston served as a chaplain, is unknown, although it is possible that Stafford had made the introductions.13 V. Davis, Wm. Waynflete, 58; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, 779. Davis, 58, refers to Simon as John’s ‘son’ but it is more likely that he was his bro., given that the MP’s s. and h., William, was not born until c.1439: C139/177/39; CFR, xix. 262, 293; CCR, 1454-61, p. 465.

Godmanston is first heard of in 1423, when he was party to the settlement of a manor at Canewdon in south-east Essex,14 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 11. The settlement was intended to safeguard the future jointure rights of his sis. Margaret, who had married John Oudeby* of Rutland. but he did not play any part in the public affairs of Essex until the mid 1430s. When he gained election to the Commons for the first time in 1445, he possibly enjoyed the support of one or both of Buckingham and Waynflete. When standing for his second Parliament later in the decade, he must have enjoyed the good will of the bishop in particular, since in the six months prior to his election to the Commons of February 1449 he and Simon Godmanston helped Waynflete to found Magdalen Hall. Waynflete established the hall on a site obtained from the hospital of St. John the Baptist, an Augustinian house situated just outside Oxford’s east gate. In June 1448, the hospital formally leased the properties to Godmanston, acting as a trustee for the hall, of which Simon Godmanston was one of the first scholars.15 Davis, 58; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. 779; VCH Oxon. iii. 193; Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxvi), nos. 209, 252, 255; ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxviii), no. 967; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 170-1.

In spite of suffering a prolonged period of ill health, Godmanston saw some of his busiest years as a local administrator during the 1450s. In the wake of Cade’s Rebellion, he served on several ad hoc commissions restoring order in Essex, one of the counties principally affected by the revolt, and he became sheriff of that county and Hertfordshire in 1452. A few months after his term as sheriff expired, he was unable through sickness to present his account in the Exchequer. He was still indisposed in May 1454 when the King ordered the Exchequer to allow him to appear before it in the person of an attorney. In the following autumn, he was excused £180 of his account as sheriff, in recognition of the expenses and losses he had incurred in the office.16 E159/230, brevia Easter rot. 10; 231, brevia Mich. rot. 17. Perhaps because of his ill health, Godmanston did not join the Essex bench (on which he served as a member of the quorum) until January 1457. It is possible that William Waynflete, who was then chancellor of England, had a say in his appointment,17 V. Davis, ‘Wm. Waynflete and the Wars of the Roses’, Southern Hist. xi. 5. although the bishop was still chancellor when he was dismissed as a j.p. less than two years later. While chancellor, Waynflete converted his Oxford hall into a college,18 VCH Oxon. iii. 193. but there is no evidence that Godmanston played any part in the process.

Having obtained a pardon in January 1459,19 C67/42, m. 37. Godmanston died in the following March or April. His widow Margaret survived him by little more than a year. William, the couple’s son and heir, was still short of his majority at the MP’s death and the Crown granted the keeping of the manors of Godmanstone and Fifehead Magdalen to Simon Godmanston and Hugh Pakenham esquire in March 1460. Their farm was a short one, since William received seisin of the properties before the end of the year.20 C139/177/39; CFR, xix. 262, 293; CCR, 1454-61, p. 465. The inq. post mortem held for the MP in Essex gives 24 Apr. as the date of his death; that held in Dorset says he died on 12 Mar. The Essex jurors erroneously found that William was aged 24 at his father’s death; those in Dorset found that he was 20: C139/177/39. A servant of the Lancastrian John de Vere, 13th earl of Oxford, in April 1471 William accompanied de Vere to the battle of Barnet, where he was killed fighting for Henry VI.21 M. Sayer, ‘Norf. Involvement in Dynastic Conflict’, Norf. Archaeology, xxxvi. 310-11; Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, v. 100. He was posthumously attainted in the Parliament of 1472 and the Godmanston lands in Essex were granted to Sir Robert Chamberlain†, one of Edward IV’s household knights.22 PROME, xiv. 299-301; CPR, 1467-77, p. 569; CIMisc. viii. 447. The attainder was reversed in the first Parliament of Henry VII’s reign.23 PROME, xv. 119-22.