HETON (ETON), George

In a will made in 1433 Thomas Ricard of Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, bequeathed ten marks and a gold collar to his godson, George, son of William Heton,3 Lincs. AO, Reg. Gray, f. 164. and George later took up residence in the same county, at Heckington, where his father had acquired property. It seems very likely that he was a younger brother of John Heton, who served as receiver-general of the estates of the earls of Stafford and dukes of Buckingham for 30 years from 1437,4 C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 46, 222. and on two occasions he stood surety for him in the Exchequer.5 CFR, xviii. 212, 236. In this regard, it is said to have been George’s daughter, Elizabeth, who before 1438 married another Stafford retainer, Henry Drury* of Ickworth in Suffolk. Earl Humphrey settled on the couple a handsome annuity of £20, which Elizabeth continued to receive until her death in 1476, and the Drurys’ daughter was brought up in the Stafford nursery.6 Campling, 38-40; Hervey, iii. 318. Yet while his father and putative brother had notable links with the Stafford affinity, George himself made his way through service in Henry VI’s household, which he joined before 1441, and spent his career as one of the officials of the King’s larder.7 E101/409/9, f. 42; 11, f. 39v; 16, f. 34; 410/1, f. 29v; 3, f. 30; 6, f. 39v.

In 1443 George took up another administrative post when he succeeded William Godyng as receiver of the estates of the earldom of Richmond which the late duke of Bedford had held in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. His annual fee was to be £8 17s. 9d., but he encountered difficulties over securing payments at the Exchequer owing to discrepancies between the letters patent issued to his predecessor and himself. The auditors’ unwillingness to agree to disburse his fee was eventually overcome by a royal warrant of April 1446.8 E404/62/140. It was no doubt his position in the Household, albeit in a junior role, which led to his only return to Parliament early in the following year. The Parliament was summoned to meet at Bury St. Edmunds, and either because of the reluctance of many to go anywhere other than Westminster, or as a result of interference in the elections, several members of the royal court were returned to the Commons. Heton had no known connexion with the borough he represented, or even with the county, Dorset, in which it lay. Clearly, his election was in breach of the statutes stipulating that MPs should be resident in their constituencies. Not long after the Parliament was dissolved he came to prominence in the company of three other ‘King’s esquires’ (Bartholomew Halley*, Thomas West* and Hugh Kyngston), as spokesmen for all their fellow servants of the Household. These servants were collectively owed almost £3,450 for their wages from the time of Sir Roger Fiennes*’s treasurership of the Household (in 1439-46), and to compensate them it was granted on 4 Oct. 1447 that the four men would receive payment of the sums due from subsidies collected in the ports of south-west England, albeit only after the executors of Sir John Radcliffe* had been satisfied of the outstanding debts to Radcliffe’s estate.9 E159/224, recorda Hil. rot.5. However, because the officials responsible for the collection of customs and subsidies were discharged not long afterwards, the assignments issued at the Exchequer in their names became invalid, and by the time the next Parliament met, in February 1449, the situation of the household servants had become increasingly desperate. In response to a petition from the four leaders, promoted with the support of the Commons (where Halley and West were sitting as Members), they were allowed to receive payment for themselves and their fellows from the Crown’s prerogative resources. The four men were made responsible for accounting for these at the Exchequer, but gaining their dues proved to be a slow process, hampered by the not infrequent issuing of tallies which could not be honoured.10 RP, v. 157-8 (cf. PROME, xii. 69); R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 318-19; E403/779, m. 1; 781, mm. 1, 5, 6; 785, m. 2. Nevertheless, at least according to the official record, between April 1450 and July 1452 assignments were made for the sum stipulated.11 E101/410/5.

Perhaps as a consequence of these financial difficulties and in order to facilitate collection of the money due to him and his fellow household men, Heton set up in business as a merchant of the staple of Calais. He was one of the staplers licensed in June 1451 to make shipments free of subsidies as compensation for the fine of £2,000 that they had been obliged to pay the duke of Burgundy for infringements of the Anglo-Burgundian truce. By then Heton had established links within the merchant community of Boston, the port of embarkation of his wool, and also with John, Viscount Beaumont, the steward of Boston.12 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 320, 399. Yet he was not among the merchants named in Oct. 1454 who were to be exonerated from payment of subsidies up to specified amounts: CCR, 1454-61, pp. 17-18; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 212-13. Beaumont was probably his feudal lord at Heckington: CIPM, xxiii. 102. His interests in trade led to him being commissioned in August 1451 to conduct inquiries regarding contraventions of the treaty with the king of Denmark.13 CPR, 1446-52, p. 479. In the 1450s Heton divided his time between Lincolnshire and the capital. Thus, he sometimes appeared as a surety at the Exchequer, doing so not only for his putative brother John Heton, but also for Thomas Barton II*, another household man with Lincolnshire connexions.14 CFR, xviii. 212, 236, 248; xix. 159. Even so, he was sometimes styled ‘of London, esquire’, and from March 1452 he shared his duties as receiver of the late duke of Bedford’s estates with Thomas Pygge.15 CPR, 1446-52, p. 513. The household servants were still trying to recoup arrears of their wages, and Heton now teamed up with Kyngston and Thomas Bateman to recover the £2,000 said to be owing to them from the period of the treasurership of John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton, from 1446 to 1453. On 14 Apr. 1453 they were granted a third part of the Crown’s prerogative resources (the rest being assigned to Cardinal Beaufort’s executors as repayment of a loan), and it was even agreed that for the time being the treasurer of England would make no grants of wardships or marriages without their consent.16 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 67-68; E404/69/103. Furthermore, four months later Heton received the office of tronage and pesage in Boston, presumably to compensate him for his losses.17 CPR, 1452-61, p. 106.

Heton remained at court after Henry VI lost his reason that same summer of 1453, and the ordinances of 13 Nov. 1454, established for the reform of the Household, saw him kept on as serjeant of the larder.18 PPC, vi. 229. It was a post he was to retain until his death, which occurred shortly before April 1459. Agnes, his widow and executrix, was pardoned all debts, accounts and arrears pertaining to the serjeantry.19 E403/807, m. 1; CPR, 1452-61, p. 476. The widow subsequently married Leonard Thornburgh of Boston, and in March 1491 George’s daughter Joan, by then also a widow, made a release to her and John Robynson (the MP’s other executor) of all actions at law.20 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 544. It is possible that our MP also left a son, for William Heton (d.1493), who held lands in Holbache in Holand, Lincolnshire, named his son and heir George.21 CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 968. However, the man who died in 1493 may have been William, the son and heir of John Heton, who had sold off the bulk of his inheritance a few years earlier.