JANYN, Bernard

Bernard was almost certainly related to both James**and John Janyn*, but nothing is recorded of his origins beyond the findings of a sixteenth-century visitation which asserted that he was the son of one Thomas Janyn of Hampshire, although this cannot be verified from contemporary sources.4 Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 79. He owed his post as ‘knokkepynner’ to his older kinsman John, who as joint keeper of Guildford park had been granted the office in 1439. Presumably, Bernard carried out the duties on John’s behalf. This led to more direct patronage from the Crown, for by the autumn of 1446 he was numbered among those wearing Henry VI’s livery as yeomen responsible for the welfare of the royal hart hounds. Three years later his friend Robert Wintershall* became serjeant of the hounds, and the two men continued to receive further grants of royal livery until late in the reign, and, the change of regime notwithstanding, for a while under Edward IV. Janyn had represented his home town of Guildford in Parliament early in his career, in the assembly at Bury St. Edmunds where royal retainers predominated, but is not known to have ever done so again. It was not until after he left royal service that he was elected mayor.

Janyn was called upon by several landowners with estates near Guildford to act as their feoffee, including the holders of the manor of Loseley, and the senior branch of the Wintershall family, seated at Wintershall, despite his earlier disputes with their relations at Bramley.5 Surr. Hist. Centre, Woking, Loseley mss, LM/341/75; C140/62/48. These had arisen as a consequence of his marriage to Elizabeth Loxley, the heiress to the Surrey manors of Polstead and Braboeuf. The large manor of Polstead, near Guildford, had been the subject of litigation earlier in the fifteenth century, when the two sisters and coheirs of Thomas Wintershall (d.1420) of Bramley had sued their kinsman John Loxley (Elizabeth’s father) for possession, and although Loxley’s claim apparently held good, in late 1441 it was the turn of our MP supported by his relative, John Janyn, to be sued in the court of common pleas by them. Nevertheless, the Janyns triumphed.6 VCH Surr. iii. 21; CP40/655, rot. 123; 724, rot. 477; Loseley mss, LM/342/31. Elizabeth’s inheritance also included land in Sussex at Petworth, although her title to this also met with challenge in the law courts, and in 1461 Janyn was accused by John and Christine Stempe of breaking their closes at nearby Duncton and depasturing their crops with his livestock.7 CP40/802, rot. 264d; 809, rot. 314d; Add. 39376, f. 139. Bernard made settlements of his wife’s property in the autumn of 1476. That August he settled Polstead on his elder son, Thomas, on condition that Thomas would pay him £6 p.a. during the lifetime of Robert Danhurst, and thereafter eight marks a year for the rest of his life. Danhurst, whose grandmother, Agnes, had taken as her second husband Elizabeth’s uncle Robert Loxley†, retained possession of the manor of Braboeuf until his death without issue in October 1481, when it passed to our MP. It subsequently descended with Polstead to his son Thomas, who died in 1509.8 VCH Surr. iii. 4; E368/269, recorda Trin. rot. 16; C142/25/48; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 645-6; Loseley mss, LM/342/44/1-3. Bernard’s other son, John, was to inherit the manor of Vann, for which the MP had been summoned to do fealty at the hundred court of Godalming in 1448. In September 1476 he settled it in tail-male on John, who duly inherited at his death, which probably occurred soon after 1481.9 VCH Surr. iii. 35; Loseley mss, LM/208, rot. 4.