CARBONEL, Sir John

From an old East Anglian family, Carbonel was born at Braydeston in 1382. Both his parents died in the autumn of 1397, while he was still a minor. His father left him a substantial estate that included a dozen manors (along with the reversion of another) in Suffolk and Norfolk. The Suffolk properties were mostly located in the east, near Framlingham, but those in Norfolk were widely dispersed throughout that county. Part of this estate, the manor of Braydeston and various other lands and rights in Norfolk, had come to Sir Robert Carbonel from his wife, Margery, the elder daughter and coheiress of Sir Robert Caston, who had brought them to him in marriage. The other moiety of the Caston estate, which included manors at Caston, West Tofts and Shipdham in south and south-west Norfolk, had descended to Caston’s younger daughter, Mary, the wife of William Fastolf. Mary had at least one child by Fastolf, who enjoyed a courtesy interest in her lands after her death before the end of the fourteenth century, but neither William nor their issue can have long survived her, since in the early 1400s John succeeded to her moiety as well.5 CIPM, xvii. 1005-8. John evidently possessed both moieties by 1408, when he presented to the rectory of West Tofts, an advowson that had belonged to Mary: Blomefield, ii. 262. However, Blomefield’s account of the descent of the Caston properties is muddled and in places incorrect (see ii. 257, 285; x. 245), as is that of C.F. Richmond, Paston Fam.: First Phase, 151. Within a month of his parents’ deaths, the Crown awarded the wardship of the young heir to Margaret Brotherton, duchess of Norfolk, although it retained Braydeston until March 1398 when William Feriby, clerk, and Thomas Upton obtained the farm of that property.6 CPR, 1396-9, pp. 207; CFR, xi. 253. These latter grantees did not hold Braydeston for long, since in December that year the King re-granted it to the bishop of Norwich, Henry Despenser (who had successfully asserted his right to hold the property as its feudal lord) for the remainder of the minority.7 CPR, 1396-9, p. 455; CCR, 1396-9, p. 362; Feudal Aids, iii. 621. Margaret Brotherton died in March the following year,8 CP, ix. 600. while John was still a minor, whereupon the King must have granted his wardship to another, unknown guardian or retained it in his own hands.

Carbonel proved his age before the escheator of Norfolk and Suffolk in May 1404, and he received seisin of his landed inheritance in the following July.9 CIPM, xviii. 995; CCR, 1402-5, p. 342. He was already married by this date, since a couple of months before he came of age he and his first wife, Elizabeth, had received a papal indult permitting them to keep a portable altar.10 CPL, iv. 620. Among Carbonel’s feudal lords were the de la Poles, from whom he held Badingham and another Suffolk manor, Dallinghoo,11 CIPM, xxiii. 469-70. and during Henry V’s reign he was associated with William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, in a number of conveyances and other transactions.12 Norf. RO, Phillipps mss, Phi/65 576X9; CAD, iii. D429, 433, 1020. Soon involved in local affairs after coming into his own, Carbonel acted as a feoffee for the widow of Sir William Elmham†, a prominent East Anglian landowner, in the autumn of 1405.13 CPR, 1405-8, p. 99. Two years later, he was party to another property transaction, this time on his own account, for in November 1407 he conveyed his manor of Burston in south Norfolk to Sir Roger Swillington.14 CPR, 1405-8, p. 374. The transaction perhaps finalized a sale, since the manor subsequently passed to Swillington’s sons and then to his daughter and eventual heir, Margaret, the wife of Sir John Gra*, but the circumstances of this alienation are unclear.15 CFR, xiv. 256-7, 376.

Within two years of alienating Burston, Carbonel was preparing to go abroad, since in the autumn of 1409 he acquired a letter of exchange, for 80 marks payable in foreign parts, from a Lombard banker resident in London.16 CCR, 1409-13, p. 445. Presumably, he was back in England in June 1411 when he received an appointment to a commission of inquiry in Suffolk, even though the Crown had exempted him from all offices and other positions of responsibility the previous month.17 CPR, 1408-13, p. 287. His letters of exemption referred to him as a ‘King’s knight’ but the circumstances of his knighthood are unknown. He may however have earned it in the service of Thomas Beaufort (subsequently earl of Dorset and duke of Exeter), a magnate who wielded important influence in East Anglia and who was the brother-in-law of Sir Roger Swillington. He joined Beaufort’s household at some stage in the early fifteenth century, very probably before November 1411 when the duke took on the role of arbiter in a dispute between him and John Ripley. Whether this particular attempt at arbitration was successful is open to question, since the two men were still at odds the following July, when proceedings in an assize of novel disseisin brought by Ripley and others against Carbonel were suspended. This was because the latter was about to go to France with Henry IV’s second son, Thomas, duke of Clarence, no doubt as a member of the contingent led by Beaufort, one of Clarence’s subordinate commanders.18 CCR, 1409-13, pp. 287, 294. The purpose of the expedition, which landed in Normandy in August 1412, was to intervene on behalf of the duke of Orléans in the French civil war. In the event, the French soon came to terms with each other and Clarence withdrew his force to Gascony in the autumn; he returned home after Henry IV’s death a few months later. In November 1414 Carbonel took out letters of attorney from the Crown, prior to going abroad again (possibly accompanying Beaufort on the English embassy to France that winter),19 DKR, xliv. 557. but he was back in England the following spring. In May 1415, when Henry V was raising men and money for his invasion of France, the Crown placed Carbonel on a commission of array in Suffolk. It is not clear whether Carbonel took part in the Agincourt expedition, although he certainly served in France under Beaufort later in the same decade. On one occasion in 1418, he was the victim of a robbery while riding from the royal army to Harfleur. Presumably this incident occurred near that town, for in October the King ordered Sir Hugh Luttrell†, the lieutenant of Harfleur, to punish those responsible.20 William of Worcestre, Itins. ed. Harvey, 355; DKR, xli. 718.

It is not clear whether Carbonel was at home or abroad when Sir William Argentine†, for whom he was a trustee and who had appointed him one of the executors of his will, died in early 1419.21 CCR, 1419-22, pp. 10-11; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 51. Similarly, his appointment as a j.p. in March 1422 does not necessarily prove that he was in England at that date, or that he had adopted Norfolk as his main county of residence. He was concerned with his own affairs in the following May, making a settlement of the greater part of his estate. By means of the settlement, his lands were to pass after the deaths of him and his then wife, Margery, to Sir Robert Brewes and other feoffees, presumably to hold in trust for Richard, his son and heir by Elizabeth, his first wife. Carbonel was certainly in England in the autumn of 1423, when elected to his only Parliament. He was well acquainted with his fellow MP, Sir Thomas Kerdiston*, who had witnessed the settlement of May 1422 and for whom in turn he acted as a feoffee.22 Add. Ch. 17423; CAD, iii. D429, D433, D1020.

Following the dissolution of Parliament in February 1424, he ceased to play any further role in public affairs. This was perhaps a consequence of ill health, which could have afflicted him while an MP, since he made his will at London, during the first parliamentary session. In the testamentary section, dated 12 Nov. 1423, he requested burial in Badingham parish church where both his parents lay.23 Norwich consist. ct., Regs. Hyrnyng, ff. 134-5; Harsyk, ff. 233, 236. He left his wife, Margery, various pieces of plate, jewelry and other items of value, including a ‘red book’ in English, and he bequeathed a gold chain and a painted casket (depicting the Annunciation and containing holy relics) to his daughter-in-law, Margaret. (Margaret was probably the daughter of John Wodehouse* and, therefore, the sister-in-law of Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, another of Thomas Beaufort’s retainers.)24 Richmond, 153n. Carbonel appears to have felt a particular attachment with the Franciscans, for he set aside six marks for Friar John Paas of that order (whom he asked to sing for his soul for a year after his death) and bequeathed sums of money to its houses at Norwich, Ipswich, Dunwich, Bishop’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. He named no fewer than six executors, his wife Margery, the esquires John Manning and John Roys*, John Wyweye (master of Mettingham College, Suffolk), Thomas Peck, whom he had presented to the rectories of West Tofts (in 1408) and Caston (in 1421),25 Blomefield, ii. 262, 282. and another priest, Thomas Wode. Carbonel disposed of his real estate in a last will for his lands dated 1 June 1423. He awarded his second wife a jointure interest in all of his lands. Evidently, he hoped that she was pregnant, for he set aside his Suffolk manors of Wilby, ‘Studhagh’ (in Laxfield) and Walpole, for their son, should she bear him one. If, on the other hand, she had a daughter, the girl was to have £200 for her marriage. He likewise provided £200 for Elizabeth, his daughter by his first wife, directing that her brother, Richard, should receive this sum if she died before she could marry. (In the event, it would appear that Elizabeth was a nun when she died before the end of the decade.) Carbonel also planned for another contingency, namely that his widow would not bear him any posthumous children (and there is no evidence that she did) and his son Richard would die childless. Should this happen, he directed that his cousin, John Lyston (son of Sir Robert Carbonel’s sister, Elizabeth) should succeed to his manors at Badingham, Creeting and Dallinghoo in Suffolk and Metton in Norfolk, and that his lord (‘dominus meus’), Thomas Beaufort, was to have first option of purchasing those of Braydeston, West Tofts and Pensthorpe in the latter county.26 Add. 19122, ff. 187, 199, 204.

Carbonel was dead by 30 Mar. 1425, the date of probate for his last will and testament. His successor was his son, Richard, who also joined Thomas Beaufort’s household. Knighted by the young Henry VI at the Leicester Parliament in 1426, he campaigned in France in the late 1420s and died in July 1430, while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Within three years, his infant son, John, was also dead, and the Carbonel estate passed out of the family, now extinct in the male line. Later that decade it was the subject of a dispute between John Lyston’s son, Robert, and Sir Robert Wingfield*, who, like the Lystons, was descended from the MP’s grandfather, Sir William Carbonel.27 William of Worcestre, 355, 359; W.A. Shaw, Knights of Eng. i. 132; E. Hall, Chron. ed. Ellis, 139; Reg. Surflete, ff. 66-67; CIPM, xxiii. 469-70, 623; Vis. Suff. (Harl. Soc. n.s. iii), ii. 214-15. Hall calls the Carbonel involved in the siege of Pontorson in 1427 ‘Sir John’, but he must have been Sir Richard.