HETON (ETON), John

A man of obscure origins who advanced himself in the service of the Staffords, John was a relative, perhaps the son, of William Heton, one of the knights of the shire for Rutland in the Parliament of 1442. A northerner by birth, William was a follower of William, Lord Roos, early in his career, although in later years he found new masters in Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford and afterwards duke of Buckingham, and Ralph, Lord Cromwell. He and John were Stafford’s men by 1437, when John became the earl’s receiver-general, an office giving him responsibility for the Stafford estates in the Midlands, the home counties and the south-west.

There is no firm evidence for John Heton before that date.5 Although a John Heton mustered at Sandwich in 1421, as a member of the retinue which Sir John Pilkington, a knight from the north of England, was to take to France: E101/50/1. He apparently lived in Leicestershire in the later 1430s, since it was ‘of Hose’ in that county that he stood surety in the Chancery for William Heton in December 1439.6 Rawcliffe, 45; CFR, xvii. 117. William had formed a link with Leicestershire through the patronage of the Roos family and, perhaps, through his wife’s landed interests, while John’s interests there arose from his marriage. By virtue of her childless first marriage to Thomas Kynnesman, Isabel Heton had dower or jointure rights in the manor of Knaptoft, and while she lived Heton presented incumbents to Knaptoft parish church. The couple’s possession of Knaptoft did not go completely unchallenged, since in the late 1450s they brought a Chancery suit against Master Richard Hall, a feoffee to the use of Kynnesman’s will, for refusing to recognize Isabel’s claim to the property. Outside Leicestershire, it is likely that Isabel retained a right to Kynnesman’s manor in Northampton, given that Heton served a term as escheator in Northamptonshire and Rutland.7 Leics. Med. Peds. ed. Farnham, 44-45; C1/26/345; VCH Northants. iii. 21. Heton supplemented his wife’s Kynnesman interests, which would not pass to their children, by entering the land market on his own account. He resided in the Buckinghamshire parish of Newton Blossomville at one stage, probably on the Stafford manor there, and it was in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire that he made his investments. In the later 1440s he obtained a manor at Cold Brayfield, Buckinghamshire, from Reynold, Lord Grey of Wilton, and in 1453 another in Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, a property which had formerly belonged to the late John Ragon*. By the end of his life, he also held land at Ravensden near Bedford.8 PCC 26 Godyn; VCH Bucks. iv. 325, 422; CPR, 1446-52, p. 163; VCH Beds. iii. 106; CP25(1)/6/81/17; CP40/826, rot. 90; 827, rots. 81, 231d. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 440, states that Heton served Lord Grey as his receiver, but without providing a reference for this probably erroneous claim.

In the early 1450s Heton acquired a temporary interest in the manor of Atherstone, Warwickshire, although probably on behalf of his master rather than himself. Previously Stafford had held Atherstone for life by grant of the Crown, but he had lost it in the wake of the Act of Resumption passed in the Parliament of 1450. In July 1451 the Crown farmed out the keeping of the manor to Heton and Clement Draper for ten years at 50 marks p.a., only to recommit it to them and the abbot of Merevale on the same terms in the following September. Among those who stood surety for the initial July grant was George Heton*, probably one of Heton’s relatives.9 B.P. Wolffe, R. Demesne in English Hist. 101-2; CFR, xviii. 212, 236-7. It would have been in keeping for Heton to act for Stafford over Atherstone, since he enjoyed the complete confidence of his lord, who appointed him a feoffee to the use of his will and sometimes entrusted him with important ad hoc tasks. In September 1444, for example, he was sent to meet the duke of York at Portsmouth, probably to discuss Stafford’s complaints about the behaviour of York’s retainers towards his tenants in south Wales, and during Cade’s rebellion he bought 103 lb of gunpowder for the defence of Maxstoke, the Stafford castle in Warwickshire.10 CPR, 1446-52 p. 78; Rawcliffe, 46.

Inevitably, Heton was frequently associated with other retainers of the Staffords, although he was also sometimes a feoffee for gentry not obviously connected with the family.11 C1/28/348; 29/70. It is also possible that Robert Whittingham II* employed the MP in some capacity: Whittingham sent his ‘servant’ John Heton on an errand to the Exchequer in 1448: E403/773, m. 6. He and other Stafford men, among them Henry Drury*, Sir William Harcourt† and Robert Olney*, often acted together in conveyances of land or grants of office, whether on behalf of their patron or each other. He and his younger brother Richard Heton appear to have enjoyed a particularly good relationship with Olney, who bestowed lands in Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire, on Richard in 1468, in gratitude for the ‘great kindness’ he had received from him.12 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 270-1; 1447-54, pp. 64, 80, 110, 364; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 78, 163; CFR, xviii. 115; CP25(1)/22/124/4; Warws. RO, Throckmorton mss, CR1998/J1/623, 635-7; Birmingham Archs., Wingfield Digby mss, 3888/A531, 596; Glos. Archs., Hale mss, D1086/T103/9. A lawyer of Gray’s Inn, Richard had entered the Staffords’ service by 1454-5, when the duke of Buckingham granted him an annuity of £2 from the lordship of Oakham.13 Readings and Moots, i (Selden Soc. lxxi), pp. xxvii, xxxii; Rawcliffe, 224, 225, 239.

Given John Heton’s close association with Buckingham it is tempting to assume that he owed his place in both of his Parliaments to his patron, but there is little evidence that the latter intervened in parliamentary elections on behalf of his retainers.14 Rawcliffe, 80-82. As an office-holder Heton had begun his career outside the county he would represent in the Commons, although he would hold his most important offices under the Crown in Buckinghamshire and his other adopted county of residence, Bedfordshire. Appointed to the commission of the peace for Buckinghamshire in October 1456, he was pricked as sheriff of that county and Bedfordshire two years later. He did not relinquish the shrievalty until April 1460, but whether his extended term in that office arose from a breakdown in government during a period of increasing crisis in national politics is unknown. The duke of Buckingham was a political moderate who had hoped for a compromise between the Court and its opponent the duke of York. Ultimately he remained loyal to the Lancastrian Crown and fell fighting for Henry VI at the battle of Northampton in July 1460. In spite of Buckingham’s death, Heton remained in the Staffords’ service. If anything, his influence in their counsels increased after the loss of his master, since the dowager duchess of Buckingham gave him almost unlimited authority in her affairs. She made him steward of her household and she continued to retain him as her receiver-general until shortly before May 1468.15 Ibid. 92. Heton was also associated with the late duke’s second son, Sir Henry Stafford, probably as an adviser and feoffee, during the 1460s.16 CP40/816, rot. 420.

While retaining office under the Staffords following Buckingham’s death, Heton ceased to serve in local administration after the accession of Edward IV, and he took the precaution of purchasing a pardon from that King in 1462.17 C67/45, m. 33. A resident of Thurleigh in his later years,18 In a papal indult of 1466, which permitted him and his wife to keep a portable altar, he was described as ‘lord of Backnoe’, his manor in that parish: CPL, xii. 816. he obtained another royal pardon in late 1468,19 C67/46, m. 13 (12 Nov.). although he was in London when he made a brief will on the following 4 Jan.20 PCC 26 Godyn. In the will he left all his lands to his son and heir William, gave 40s. to the rector of Newton Blossomville and 8s. 4d. to the vicar of Thurleigh and made bequests to several of his employees, including a maidservant to whom he left a bed and bedclothes he was ‘wont too haue to my lady of Bukyngham court’. Heton appointed five executors: his son William, his brother Richard, the vicar of Dean, Bedfordshire, John Chapman, clerk, and John Dixson of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire. He was dead by the following 1 Feb., when the will was proved. The Heton family failed to prosper after his death, for Heton quickly disposed of his inheritance. In the early 1470s he sold the manors at Thurleigh and Cold Brayfield to the earl of Wiltshire (John Stafford, a younger son of Humphrey, duke of Buckingham), and in 1480 William Catesby† paid him £200 for a manor in Tilbrook, Bedfordshire, which he had inherited from his childless uncle Richard Heton the previous year.21 VCH Beds. iii. 106, 173; CP25(1)/6/82/17; VCH Bucks. iv. 325; C1/32/158; 54/375; CAD, iv. A8481; CCR, 1476-85, nos. 717, 1210.