JAY, Richard

Jay, who rose to prominence in Sussex as a lawyer of considerable ability, came from Ifield near Crawley. His attempts to take possession of his landed inheritance there following the deaths of his father and brother, led to lawsuits in the 1420s in the courts of common pleas and King’s bench, of which the most fiercely debated was his dispute with Isabel Blast, a widow who accused him of stealing her livestock.4 CP40/651, rots. 159d, 545, 602; 652, rot. 123; KB27/656, rot. 17. In the course of his successful career Jay was to accumulate substantial landed holdings, not only in the same area of north Sussex but also in Fletching and Shipley. His most important acquisitions were in the south of the county, at Steyning, comprising the manors of Ewelme and Wyckham and a moiety of the advowson of the chantry of St. Mary.5 CP25(1)/241/86/17, 24; 87/8; 89/29; 92/9; VCH Suss. vi (1), 228, 230; Cat. Wiston Archs. ed. Booker, i. 153; CCR, 1429-35, p. 247; CP40/744, rot. cart. In addition, there was property at nearby Bramber, for which he paid rent to Sele priory,6 Cat. Suss. Deeds, Magdalen Coll. ed. Macray, i. no. 156 (Sele 45). and at Hurstpierpoint and West Grinstead.7 CP25(1)/241/91/2, 10; CP40/757, rot. 201d. Beyond the county boundaries he held land at unspecified places in Surrey, and more at Stepney in Middlesex, which he purchased for £40.

Nearly all of these landed possessions were acquired with the profits of Jay’s busy practice as an attorney in the central courts at Westminster, most notably in the court of common pleas but occasionally also in the King’s bench. His training had ended by 1422,8 CP40/647, rot. 63; KB27/672, rot. 64d; 741, rot. 47d. and thereafter he appeared on behalf of very many litigants from his home county in the course of a career lasting some 45 years. Among his prestigious clients were the bishop of Chichester,9 CP40/687, rot. 13d. the abbots of Robertsbridge,10 CP40/691, rot. 146; 699, rot. 240; 780, rot. 181d. Battle11 CP40/715, rot. 15; 754, rot. 58; 799, rot. 406; 809, att. rot. 1d. and Bayham,12 CP40/740, rot. 346d; KB27/786, rot. 176d. the priors of Sele 13 CP40/651, rot. 29; 652, rot. 48d; 680, rot. 165; 753, att. rot. 5; 779, rot. 450. and Lewes,14 CP40/667, rot. 489. and leading landowners such as Beatrice, dowager countess of Arundel,15 CP40/686, rot. 256d. Robert, Lord Poynings, his son Sir Richard Poynings* and the latter’s widow Eleanor, countess of Arundel,16 CP40/671, rot. 537d; 680, rots. 47d, 66d; 691, rot. 245. Reynold West, Lord de la Warre,17 CP40/691, rot. 279d. Reynold Cobham, Lord of Sterborough,18 CP40/738, att. rot. 7. Sir Roger Fiennes*,19 CP40/652, rot. 258. Sir John Bohun,20 CP40/680, rot. 47. Sir John Pelham* and his widow and son,21 CP40/667, rots. 183, 204; 687, rot. 569d; 699, rot. 572; 732, rot. 484d. the widow of Sir John Dallingridge†,22 CP40/686, rot. 259d; 699, rot. 25. and members of the family of Sir Thomas Lewknor*.23 KB27/768, rots. 68d, 75, att. rot. 2; CP40/680, rot. 165; 775, rot. 607. Given the importance of these clients, nationally as well as in the locality, it is surprising that Jay escaped the attention of the government, and was never required to serve on ad hoc commissions or as a j.p.

Nor did Jay’s appearances in Parliament lead to preferment by the Crown. His interest in parliamentary affairs is first indicated by his attendance at the shire elections held at Chichester in 1431, and he was returned for the borough of New Shoreham four times in the following 11 years. It seems likely that his acquisition of property and some 110 acres of land in and near Shoreham in the spring of 1432, just before his first election, was intended to help him comply with the statutes regarding residence of MPs.24 CP25(1)/241/86/32; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 169-70. While his Parliaments were in progress he made regular appearances in the law-courts at Westminster Hall for his many clients, among whom were numbered his fellow Member Godard Pulham*, who represented Winchelsea in the Parliament of 1432.25 C219/14/2; CP40/686, rot. 76d; 699, rot. 128d; 724, att. rot.; KB27/704, att. rot. Jay attested two more shire elections, those of 1435 and 1442, both coinciding with his return for Shoreham.26 C219/14/5; 15/2.

Given Jay’s many professional contacts it is impossible to say which, if any, of his patrons might have influenced his elections to Parliament. Yet perhaps significant in this respect were his links with the circle of Sir Roger Fiennes, from 1439 the treasurer of the royal household,27 CCR, 1429-35, p. 93. and his friendship with John Ledes*, a leading retainer of the duke of Norfolk, who was lord of the borough Jay represented. The association of Jay and Ledes began before 1430 and lasted for many years. As a feoffee Ledes was party to Jay’s property acquisitions, and they accompanied each other to the Parliament of 1432, when Ledes represented the county for the only time. In the 1440s Jay acted as attorney for Ledes’s son John† (then a minor) in suits over his maternal inheritance, and the young man eventually took on the executorship of the lawyer’s will.28 CP40/715, att. rot. 5d; 730, rot. 325d; 731, rot. 121d. That Jay proved worthy of trust is clear from the bequests he received in the wills of Thomas Salmon in 1430 and Mercy Ormesby, the widow of Nicholas Carew† in 1451, and by his nomination as the executor of those of John Benefeld of Twineham, Walter Contervynt and Henry Purchase* of Southwark.29 PCC 12 Luffenham (PROB11/3, ff. 97-98v); 6 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 43v); Cat. Wiston Archs. i. 390; CP40/756, rot. 349; C146/10196. That his opinion on the law was valued is clear from the requests for him to arbitrate in disputes over land.30 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. ed. Dell, 150.

Jay frequently acted as a feoffee, notably on behalf of Robert, Lord Poynings, with regard to the manors and land in Sussex and Norfolk which he wished to settle on his younger son, Robert Poynings*. This undertaking led to Jay and his co-feoffees being sued by the widowed Lady Poynings for her dower, but even so there are no definite signs that he was ever drawn into the violent quarrels which erupted between Robert and his niece Eleanor, the principal heiress of the Poynings estates, and became a major stimulus to the collapse of order in Sussex and Kent in the late 1440s.31 CP25(1)/293/71/303; CCR, 1441-7, p. 435; 1447-54, p. 97; CP40/746, rot. 128d. Jay was for many years involved in the affairs of his kinsman William Penbridge* of Lewes and the latter’s son William the younger, a London skinner who later served as a feoffee of his property and executor of his will. Prayers were to be offered for Jay’s soul at the almshouse which the Penbridges founded.32 CP40/738, rot. 93; Corp. London RO, hr 193/12; 196/40; PCC 2 Logge (PROB11/7, ff. 11v-14).

Jay often brought lawsuits on his own account. Several of these were for the recovery of debts, but there were also allegations of close-breaking at his property in Bramber and West Grinstead, the theft of crops and other trespasses. In 1446 he had the temerity to sue Eleanor, countess of Arundel, and her then husband the powerful Walter, Lord Hungerford†, for the sum of ten marks.33 CP40/699, rot. 398d; 715, rots. 528, 552; 740, rots. 49, 451; 769, rot. 276; 795, rot. 53; KB27/734, rot. 40. Despite Jay’s skills as an attorney, the outcome of such litigation was not always successful. For instance, a ‘gentleman’ named Richard Green, who owed him £51 13s. 4d. and was outlawed when he repeatedly failed to make answer in court, obtained a pardon of outlawry and may never have paid him the money.34 CPR, 1446-52, p. 484; 1452-61, p. 131; 1461-7, pp. 521, 537, 555.

Nothing is known about Jay’s first wife, save that her name was Agnes, but his second wife, Joan, was the widow of John Beverley, a citizen and skinner of London. Jay died before 2 June 1467. The many bequests in his will, made on the previous 10 Feb., reveal deep concerns for his soul’s welfare. He wished to be buried in the chapel of St. John the Baptist at Crawley, between the altars of the chantries of the Virgin Mary and St. Thomas. This was where his mother lay entombed, and he left instructions that her legacy of lights at the two altars should be funded in perpetuity from the profits of some land in Crawley which had belonged to his father. Jay had been the prime mover in the building of a tower at the west end of the chapel and now stipulated that if the work on the steeple was not completed in his lifetime his executors should see that it was finished. They were to find a priest to pray at Crawley for ten years for his soul, while in addition the sum of £20 was to be spent on a year’s salary for a priest at the church at Bramber, works at the same church and at the chapel on Bramber bridge, donations to the poor and the mending of foul ways nearby. On the day of his death 300 masses were to be said in houses of friars in London, Surrey and Sussex, while the ten torches burning about his body at his funeral and month’s mind were to be sent to seven named Sussex churches and Rusper priory in return for more prayers. As much as £20 was to be spent on gowns and hoods for ten poor men praying at his month’s mind, and on other works of charity. Jay instructed his feoffees to amortise certain lands at Steyning to the chantry where he was a patron to provide services for John and Joan Jay (probably his parents), himself and his two wives. Making detailed provision of his landed estate, he stipulated that his widow should have specified lands and the profits from other holdings in Crawley, Ifield and Worth until she died, on condition that she continued to live in his place at Crawley and remained single. His son Thomas was to have immediate possession of his two manors in Stenyng, and land in Old and New Shoreham and Southwick, and the rest after Joan’s death, although the property the testator had bought in Stepney was to be sold for at least the amount he had paid for it. Perhaps something of Jay’s nature is revealed in the bequest to an old servant of meat, drink, clothing and necessaries at Crawley for the rest of his life. William Sonde, chief clerk of the King’s bench, was one of his executors.35 CFR, xx. 196; PCC 19 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 144-6); Suss. Arch. Collns. lv. 6-9. The Joan Jay whose will of 10 Sept. 1487 came for probate on 9 Apr. 1492 was presumably Richard’s widow of this name, for she too asked to be buried in Crawley church. However, she did not mention the late MP, or his son Thomas. Her daughter Isabel took on the executorship of her will.36 PCC 29 Dogett (PROB11/9, f. 233).

The MP’s relationship to another Richard Jay†, who rose to be a serjeant-at-law and sat for Downton in Edward IV’s reign is not known, although it is possible that he was his grandfather.