JOCE, Robert

A lawyer by training, Joce became a fellow of Grays Inn, and gave readings in the autumn of 1431 and at Lent 1438. Nevertheless, he remains a shadowy figure, rarely appearing in the records save in respect to his work for clients and his association with other, more distinguished members of the legal fraternity. Following his first reading, he was returned to the Parliament of 1433 by the Wiltshire borough of Marlborough, with which he had no recorded contact. How his candidacy had been promoted is not known. Later in the same decade he was associated with two judges of the common pleas, John Cottesmore and William Paston, in transactions relating to land in Somerset,3 Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 89, 90. and in 1441 he witnessed deeds for the heirs of another judge, Sir William Rickhill, with respect to the manor of Paddington in Surrey, in this instance probably acting in the interests of Richard Bruyn*, a filacer of the same court, and his kinsman William Lee*.4 CCR, 1435-41, p. 457. Joce was also connected with a former chief justice, Sir William Cheyne (d.1443), as such serving as a feoffee of manors in Hampshire which Cheyne’s wife Margaret held of the inheritance of her stepson Thomas Sandys.5 CPR, 1441-6, p. 90; CIPM, xxv. 608; xxvi. 425; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 303-4.

Joce’s links with the serjeant-at-law and future judge Nicholas Aysshton* laid him open to allegations of corrupt practice. A servant of John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, claimed in a petition to the chancellor that Joce and John Colys* had been allowed to deprive him of a newly-acquired rent in Liskeard by means of a letter forged by Aysshton.6 C1/39/158. In 1443, together with Aysshton, Joce was enfeoffed of manors in nine counties pertaining to the Fitzwaryn inheritance, to effect their settlement on William Bourgchier and his wife the heiress Thomasina, great-grand-daughter of Chief Justice Sir William Hankford.7 Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 558. In another final concord, made two years later, certain manors in Sussex and another in Norfolk were put into the hands of trustees headed by William Westbury, j.KB and including Joce, apparently with the intention that they would hold them to the use of Robert, Lord Poynings, for the rest of his life, and then transfer possession to his son Robert Poynings*. Fortunately for Joce, he managed to avoid being drawn into the violent disputes which later erupted between the latter and the Percys.8 CP25(1)/293/71/303; CIPM, xxvi. 524, 527; CCR, 1441-7, p. 435; C1/17/347.

All this suggests that Joce was usually to be found in the Westminster law-courts, prepared to assist the justices in their affairs. Of his own property little is recorded, save that in February 1443 he applied for the King’s licence to grant a messuage in the parish of St. Margaret, Southwark, in mortmain to the priory church of St. Mary. A local jury reported that the property, worth 30s. p.a., was held of the priory for an annual rent of 5s. Although the Crown seemingly had no reason to refuse a licence, none appears to have been granted.9 C143/449/18. A gift of goods and chattels from a Southwark tallow-chandler, made in 1450, also connects Joce with that borough.10 CCR, 1447-54, p. 337. Yet his application for permission to grant the Southwark messuage described him as ‘of Gloucestershire, gentleman’, and his later service on royal commissions, in particular as a j.p. of the quorum, indicates that he established himself as a landowner in that county. Perhaps it was his place of origin. Joce is not recorded after his appointment as a commissioner of array in Gloucestershire in December 1459.11 It may be that he was the Robert Joce who permitted his brother Philip to hold to his use land in the parish of ‘Berghstede’ in Kent. On his instructions his executors sold the land after his death, but his nephews refused to release it to the purchaser: C1/58/117.