EYTON, Nicholas

The family of Eyton had been established at Eyton-upon-the-Weald-Moors, a few miles to the east of Shrewsbury, since the time of Henry II, but its antiquity had not made it rich or prominent. The Eytons seem to have owned only a single manor, and their involvement in the important offices of local administration was intermittent: Peter Eyton† sat for Shropshire in the Parliaments of 1298 and 1301, and John Eyton, who was probably our MP’s grandfather, served as sheriff there in 1393-4.6 VCH Salop, xi. 139; Knights of Edw. I (Harl. Soc. l), 322; CFR, xi. 95. Further, our MP’s father had only a modest public career, confined to service as a subsidy controller and tax collector between 1404 and 1415, and two appearances as an attestor of parliamentary elections.7 CFR, xii. 261, 285, 292; xiv. 85, 120; C219/11/2, 12/4. According to his own testimony at a proof of age in 1405, he had been a servant of his neighbour, the abbot of Haughmond, in the early 1380s: CIPM, xviii. 1148. The family’s relative obscurity, however, ended in the generation represented by our MP. Nicholas was the eldest of four brothers, all of whom enjoyed successful careers. Fulk (d.1454) was a renowned soldier, serving among other things, as lieutenant of Caudebec under the captaincy of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (d.1453);8 For Fulk’s career: A.J. Pollard, John Talbot, 79; A. Marshall, ‘English War Captains’ (Univ. of Wales M.A. thesis, 1975), 287-90. Roger was a prominent burgess of Shrewsbury who shared the Irish exile of Richard, duke of York, in 1459-60; and Richard was a cleric who served as warden of the college of Tong founded by Fulk’s godfather, Sir Fulk Pembridge†.9 The only source for the kinship and parentage of these four brothers is Fulk’s will, dated. 18 Feb. 1452. He named his parents as Thomas and Katherine, and bequeathed to Nicholas, as his brother, a good featherbed and a ‘chambre and a bed of lynne cloth steyned with horses’. Nicholas and Roger, again identified as his brother, were named as overseers: PCC 2 Stokton (PROB11/4, f.13). Although his career was less interesting than those of Roger or Fulk, Nicholas had a long career in local administration, serving three terms as sheriff and spending nearly 20 years upon the county bench.

Nicholas first appears in the records during his father’s lifetime. As early as 1419, when still a young man, he was named as an attorney to deliver seisin of the manor of Kemberton, a few miles to the south of Eyton, to the wealthy Herefordshire knight, Sir Roland Lenthall, and his wife, Margaret, sister and coheiress of Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d.1415). His nomination may have arisen from a connexion between the Eytons and the Fitzalans: Fulk was later to hold an important place in the service of this earl’s cousin and heir male, John, earl of Arundel (d.1435). On the other hand, he may have been acting as a friend of Lenthall, for whom, many years later, he acted as feoffee.10 Glos. Archs., Sudeley mss, D2153/430, 436; CPR, 1452-61, p. 34. If so, the connexion may have arisen through Edmund, earl of March. Lenthall was one of the earl’s most highly-paid annuitants, and there is some, admittedly slight, evidence that our MP was also in March’s service. When, in 1424, another Herefordshire knight, Sir Richard de la Bere, sued him and many others for trespass, Eyton was one of the several defendants described as ‘of Wigmore’, March’s caput honoris. If, however, he had entered March’s service, that service was soon brought to an end by March’s death early in 1425.11 KB27/654, rot. 103; 656, rot. 67; 657, rot. 81; 658, rot. 20d.

It is not known precisely when Nicholas inherited the family’s modest patrimony. His father was still alive in November 1431 when returned as seised of the manor of Eyton, valued at £10 p.a., as tenant of the barony of Wem.12 Feudal Aids, iv. 270. But Thomas must have been dead by the end of that decade for, in 1439, our MP was both among those distrained to take up the rank of knighthood and was appointed to the shrievalty, unlikely eventualities if he was not then the head of the family. Thereafter Eyton played an important part in Shropshire affairs over the next 20 years, his standing augmented by his service to the Talbots. On 3 June 1442 he witnessed an important conveyance for that great family, namely the grant made by the earl of Shrewsbury to his eldest son, Sir John Talbot, of the manor of Wrockwardine and other property in Shropshire and Herefordshire.13 CCR, 1441-7, p. 156. Since our MP is later known to have served as Sir John’s steward of Wrockwardine (after Sir John had succeeded to the earldom in 1453), there is no doubt that, by this date, our MP had followed Fulk into the Talbot affinity. Perhaps this connexion aided him in gaining another. On 20 Aug. 1442 John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, whose main interests were distant from Shropshire, named him as steward of his manor of Stottesdon in the south of the county at an annual fee of 40s.

Clearly Eyton was now a man of influence, and a little over two years later he was again named as sheriff, despite the brief lapse of time since his last appointment (an indication, perhaps, of the difficulty the Crown faced in finding suitably-qualified candidates in a shire of few prosperous gentry). Return to Parliament came not long afterwards. At an election held at Shrewsbury on 30 Jan. 1449 he was returned in company with the earl of Shrewsbury’s receiver-general, Richard Banaster*. It is probable that the Talbots, in the person of Margaret, countess of Shrewsbury (her husband then being in France), sponsored, or, at least, encouraged this return, for she had an important matter of her own to pursue in the Parliament. An award had been made in the previous April in her great dispute with her cousin, James, Lord Berkeley, and she was keen, unavailingly as it transpired, to have its terms given parliamentary sanction.14 C219/15/6; A.J. Pollard, ‘The Talbots’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1968), 45-46; J. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys ed. Maclean, ii. 62. For Eyton personally his sole experience of the Commons brought a further augmentation of his status: on 4 July 1449, 12 days before the end of the Parliament, he was added to the Shropshire bench.

Eyton quickly became one of the most active of the county’s j.p.s outside the quorum. On 26 Feb. 1450 he was one of the justices who sat at Ludlow and heard an indictment of felonious theft committed against his brother, Roger, and in the spring of 1453 he travelled to sessions at both Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth.15 KB27/758, rex rot. 1; KB9/230A/3; 274/25. For his appearances as a j.p. in the late 1450s: KB9/280/54; 283/84; 284/1, 40; 286/10; 287/88. His readiness to play an active part in the county’s affairs is also evidenced by his third pricking as sheriff in November 1454. This came at a sensitive time in national politics: government was in the hands of Richard, duke of York, as Protector. Our MP’s appointment was probably welcome to York on two grounds. His brothers, Roger and Fulk, had been among those who had risen on the duke’s behalf in 1452, and in 1454 the duke was still on friendly terms with Nicholas’s lord, the new earl of Shrewsbury.16 There is nothing to suggest that Nicholas supported his brothers in the rising, but he did sue out a general pardon in June 1452, perhaps as insurance should he fall under suspicion: C67/40, m. 24.

By the end of the decade, however, as central politics became increasingly polarized, relations between York and Talbot had decisively broken down. It might be inferred that this posed problems of loyalty for our MP, particularly as his brother Roger committed himself whole-heartedly to the Yorkist cause, fleeing into exile in Ireland with the duke of York after the rout of Ludford Bridge. The working-out of this conflict has left a trace in the surviving records. On 29 Nov. 1459 Nicholas headed the attestors to the Shropshire election to Parliament that attainted the Yorkist lords.17 C219/16/5. This might be taken as an indication that his sympathies were with Talbot and Lancaster, but there is other evidence to suggest that this was not so. First, his relationship with the Talbots was troubled. In Easter term 1459 the earl had sued Nicholas and Roger Eyton for a debt of £40, and our MP was later to show a marked hostility to the earl’s widow. On 15 July 1460, five days after the earl had died fighting for the house of Lancaster at the battle of Northampton, he allegedly took household goods worth as much as £40 from her property at Sheffield.18 CP40/793, rot. 280; 797, rot. 79; KB27/809, rot. 49d. Second, he appears to have had a connexion with the Yorkist Nevilles, albeit a slight one: with Sir John Neville, brother of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, he and Roger were feoffees in the disputed manor of Poynton, not far from Eyton, into whose possession Roger Corbet II* entered in October 1460.19 KB27/810, rot. 78. Third, and most compellingly, when Edward, earl of March, was at Shrewsbury in the early days of 1461, he and Walter Hopton, a servant of the late duke of York, delivered £40 to him as a loan from the abbot of Lilleshall.20 E404/72/1/62.

None the less, although the evidence supports the conclusion that our MP favoured the Yorkist cause, he did not share his younger brother’s partisanship. The change of regime brought him no rewards from royal patronage, and the pace of his involvement in local administration diminished. He retained his place on the county bench and early in the new reign he was named to a commission of array, but he did little more.21 CPR, 1461-7, p. 98. Indeed, his career was largely behind him. He must then have been in his sixties, and he makes few further appearances in the records. In Trinity term 1463, he appeared by attorney in the court of King’s bench to plead not guilty to Countess Elizabeth’s allegation, and in January 1465 he sued out a general pardon.22 KB27/809, rot. 49d; C67/45, m. 7. He last appears in an active role early in 1466 when he sued a husbandman of ‘Morehall’ for a debt of 60s., and he was almost certainly dead by 7 May, when he was omitted from the county bench.23 CP40/814, rot. 97.