GODSTONE, John

Originally from Surrey, where his family owned a manor at Chelsham and lands at Bletchingley and Caterham, Godstone enjoyed a long and varied life. After spending his early adult years in that county, he moved to London and Essex. His elder brother, who had inherited the bulk of the family lands in Surrey, settled in Colchester in the late 1390s, but he himself did not become a freeman of the borough until after Thomas Godstone’s death. It was as ‘of London and Essex’ that he stood surety at the Exchequer for Thomas in May 1399, when the latter was appointed alnager of Essex and Hertfordshire, although he was styled as ‘of Surrey’ later in the same year.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 197; VCH Surr. iv. 271; CFR, xi. 301; xii. 7.

In the early 1400s Godstone entered the service of Sir Thomas Swinburne†, captain of Hammes castle in Picardy. It is unlikely that he ever crossed the Channel, since on 9 Mar. 1401 the Crown revoked the letters of protection, valid for one year, issued to him as a member of Swinburne’s retinue. The order annulling the letters stated that he had remained in London instead of going abroad and had obtained the protection merely to escape paying debts which he owed to the Crown and ‘divers’ others.9 CPR, 1399-1401, p. 443; 1405-8, p. 131; CCR, 1413-19, pp. 366-7. As a younger son, Godstone can have inherited few lands of his own, although he does appear to have had an interest in a water-mill and other of his family’s holdings in his father’s home parish of Walkhampstead.10 Warws. RO, Fetherston-Dilke mss, CR 2981/Dining Room/Wooden Chest/Bundle 5, deed. He nevertheless had the fortune to make a good marriage. His wife Anne was the daughter of John Payn, a London ‘armourer’ who had died in August 1375. Payn’s infant son William had died two months later and, in due course, Anne (born after the deaths of both her father and brother) and her first husband, the London mercer, Thomas Newton, had made good her claim to most, if not all, of the Payn estate. Newton died childless in 1399, meaning that Anne (to whom the Crown had granted licence to marry whomever she wished after his death),11 CPR, 1396-9, p. 518. brought her inheritance to Godstone. Records of the common pleas reveal that she had become Godstone’s wife before 1401. In Hilary term that year, a suit that Robert Foulmere, clerk, had brought against the recently married couple in that court reached pleadings. He claimed that Newton had entered into a bond for £300 with him in 1396, but that neither the late mercer nor Anne, his executrix, had honoured its terms by paying him that sum. The Godstones responded by pleading that Foulmere should begin his case afresh, if he were to pursue it, since he had failed to name her co-executor, Robert Upgate, in his original writ. After Foulmere countered that Upgate had refused to take on the task of executor, the parties agreed to refer the matter to a jury. Yet when the trial opened at the church of St. Martin le Grand, London, on 17 May 1401, Godstone’s attorney, John Grene, appeared in his stead. Bearing the letters of protection issued to Godstone after he had joined Sir Thomas Swinburne’s retinue, Grene pleaded that these documents rendered his client free for a year from all pleas, except those of dower. This proved a futile excuse, since Foulmere was able simply to refer to the revocation of the previous 9 Mar. and to recount the charge that Godstone had secured the protection merely to shake off his creditors.12 CP40/560, rot. 115.

Debt was a recurrent feature of Godstone’s career. In May 1405 he borrowed £60 from the wealthy London merchant, William Brampton†, but he had yet to repay that sum when the latter died in November 1406. The debt was secured on a bond in statute staple, on the strength of which security the sheriff of Essex seized livestock, implements and crops from Godstone’s manor at Rainham in February 1407.13 C241/198/51; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 332; C131/55/1. Later that year, Godstone entered into another such bond with Richard Tepelyn of London and others, this time for £66 13s. 4d., although £40 of that sum was still outstanding in 1420, by which date the creditors had begun action against him in the common pleas.14 CP40/637, rot. 253. In 1422 Godstone featured in another action in the same court, this time on the part of the treasurer of Henry V’s household, Sir William Phelip†, and John Payn (conceivably a distant in-law). On this occasion he was not the defendant, for the plaintiffs brought their suit against John Mitchell I* of London for detaining a bond for £70 that they had taken from Godstone in 1417 and had entrusted to Mitchell for safe-keeping.15 CP40/644, rot. 116d. In the mid 1420s Godstone faced still more suits in the common pleas for debts arising from bonds entered into in London. Among these actions was one brought by the executors of the royal official and entrepreneur, Richard Clitheroe†, an impressive group headed by Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham. Their suit concerned £100, a sum Godstone still owed for merchandise he had purchased from their testator at London in 1409.16 CP40/658, rot. 263d; 660, rot. 108d; 662, rot. 431d. Yet it is unlikely that these lawsuits arose from out and out penury on Godstone’s part, not least because he joined others from Essex in making a loan of over £220 to the Crown in 1430.17 E403/695, m. 2.

Following his marriage, Godstone probably took over Newton’s business interests in London, since the letters of protection cancelled in 1401 described him as a citizen and mercer (or merchant) of the City, as well as of Essex, where Newton had also held property. In the right of his wife, Godstone acquired properties in the London parishes of St. Augustine, Watling Street, and St. Mary Magdalen and in Old Fish Street and three manors, at Great Warley and Rainham in Essex and Frome Vallis in Somerset, as well as other lands situated in those counties and Middlesex and Hertfordshire.18 CIPM, xiv. 338; xvii. 428, 557, 883-5, 888-90, 957-8, 1074-6; xviii. 6; CCR, 1389-92, p. 146; 1405-9, p. 167; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 835-7. But he and Anne had to petition the Crown to make good her right to Frome Vallis: SC8/114/5651; CCR, 1405-9, p. 167. John Payn’s widow, Joan, who took another husband, Roger Ashburnham, outlived Anne, surviving until 1418.19 CIPM, xxi. 52. She retained a formal interest – if not actual physical possession – in the Payn estate. Not known to have remarried after Anne’s death, Godstone continued to hold the Payn lands by right of courtesy, since she had borne him a son.

Godstone succeeded to further holdings after his brother, Thomas, died in the spring of 1432 without any surviving issue.20 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 198. He inherited the manors of Chelsham in Surrey and Braiswick at Lexden and Mile End in the liberty of Colchester, although other properties passed to a relative, Isabel Enyngfeld, and Nicholas Peek* acquired the manor of East Newland in St. Laurence.21 VCH Essex, ix. 59; Mercers’ Co., London, St. Paul’s school, cart. ff. 211, 223-5; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 26. Soon after Thomas Godstone’s death, the three daughters and coheirs of Thomas Weston and their husbands, claiming that the dead man had intended that they should succeed to East Newland, took action in Chancery against the MP and Peek but lost their case.22 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 18; C1/9/328. Godstone also succeeded to the lease of a water-mill at Colchester that Robert Tey†, then constable of Colchester castle, had granted to Thomas Godstone in 1402. He had some trouble making good his right to his late brother’s lands, since he was obliged to petition the Crown to secure the lease of the mill (which the King had re-granted to John Reymes shortly after Thomas’s death), and found it necessary to bring an action in Chancery against some of the dead man’s feoffees, among them Robert Selby*.23 CFR, xvi. 88; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 205, 333; C1/11/67; 75/38. It is possible that he was not finally secure in his inheritance until his other brother, William, also of Colchester, formally renounced any claim to the Godstone properties in Surrey in March 1439.24 Colchester ct. roll, 1438-9, D/B 5 Cr56, m. 19d. Thomas’s lands enhanced both Godstone’s wealth and status. For the purposes of taxation, his lands were valued at £60 p.a. in the mid 1430s,25 H.L. Gray, ‘Incomes from Land in Eng. in 1436’, EHR, xlix. 633. and he was accorded the style of ‘esquire’ when called upon to swear the oath to keep the peace administered throughout the country in 1434.26 CPR, 1429-36, p. 401.

Godstone had begun his career as an office-holder nearly 30 years earlier, when the Crown made him a customs collector at Chichester. He probably appointed a deputy to act for him in this office, since he subsequently held it in conjunction with a like position at Sandwich, Kent. He afterwards served in the same capacity at Ipswich, and he and his fellow customs collector, John Hawe, were among those commissioned to find victuals in Suffolk for the port of Harfleur in Normandy in May 1416. He was particularly busy at this date, for he was also serving as escheator in Essex and Hertfordshire. In June 1422, the Exchequer (perhaps when he visited it in his capacity as a tax collector in Essex) gave him £2 to deliver to John Stanley, master of the Peter of London. The sum was to cover Stanley’s costs in bringing across the Channel nine moneyers from Rouen whom the King had commissioned to work in the mint at the Tower of London.27 Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 373.

Just under three years later, Godstone was elected to his only known Parliament. He must have owed much to his brother’s influence for his seat in the Commons, since he did not become a burgess of Colchester until 6 Oct. 1432, several months after Thomas Godstone’s death.28 Colchester ct. roll D/B Cr51, m. 3. Although elected alderman two years later, he is not known to have held any other office in the borough and he was never as prominent as his brother in the town’s affairs. He nevertheless established himself in trade there, since a royal pardon he obtained in July 1437 described him as a merchant of Colchester.29 C67/38, m. 1.

Following his death in late 1440 or early 1441, Godstone was succeeded by his son Robert. In February 1441 the Crown ordered the escheator in Essex to hold an inquisition post mortem for his lands,30 CFR, xvii. 165. but neither the inquisition, nor his will (if he made one) has survived. Robert immediately disposed of part of his inheritance by selling the manor of Chelsham.31 VCH Surr. iv. 271. Unlike his father, he did not pursue a career at Colchester and the late MP’s lease of the mill there was acquired by John Berewe*, a servant of the King’s household, in the mid 1440s.32 CFR, xviii. 29. Robert died in 1454 when his own son and heir, another John Godstone, was some years short of his majority.33 C139/152/1. In February 1498, after this John had fallen victim to mental illness, the Crown granted custody of his person and the manors of Southall and Franks to Thomas Swan, a groom of the Household.34 CPR, 1494-1509, p. 124. Swan’s charge died shortly afterwards, whereupon his estate was divided among his five grand-daughters, the children of his deceased son, William.35 VCH Essex, vii. 168; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 76-77; iii. 479.