LEYOT, William

Although Leyot’s background is obscure, it is likely that he was a kinsman of Richard Leyot, D.C.L. (d.1449), sometime vicar of St. Michael’s, Coventry, and dean of Salisbury cathedral, although when, in 1446, the dean placed his moveable possessions in the hands of his relations he only named his cousins Richard, John, Elizabeth and Alice Leyot.4 CAD, vi. C5918; CCR, 1419-22, p. 191; 1447-54, p. 30. The dean and the MP shared a common link with east Dorset, for the dean’s cousin and namesake had an interest in land in Wimborne Minster and Kingston Lacy,5 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 362. and the MP, like the distinguished doctor, formed an amicable association with Walter Veer*, the Hampshire esquire.6 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 492-3.

The earliest record of William is his return to the Parliament of 1437 for the Dorset borough of Wareham. There is no evidence that he held property in the town and he may well have been non-resident for within two years he was living at Manston, situated in the north of the county, on the river Stour. As ‘of Manston, gentleman’ in December 1439 he stood surety at the Exchequer for Walter Veer, then given keeping of the priory of St. Helens on the Isle of Wight.7 CFR, xvii. 114. After Veer’s death in 1442 the mainpernors were held to account for the farm, and had difficulty obtaining allowance for an annuity of £7 previously granted from the property to the duke of Gloucester. The matter was resolved in their favour in May 1444: E159/220, brevia directa Trin. rot. 2d. The description ‘gentleman’ may suggest that he was a lawyer by training, but the pattern of his career does not lead to the conclusion that he established a practice in the law courts at Westminster. On the following 6 May he and Thomas Hussey I* were commissioned to visit and survey the church of Sturminster Marshall (down river from Manston), which belonged to the hospital of St. Giles in Pont Audemer, Normandy, and investigate whether its resources had been squandered. The same day the two men provided mainprise for the parson of Long Bredy, who was given keeping of the fruits of the church.8 CPR, 1436-41, p. 413; CFR, xvii. 153-4. A further ad hoc commission, of June 1441, led to Leyot crossing to Newport on the Isle of Wight to conduct inquiries into piracy.9 CIMisc. viii. no. 155. Leyot’s second election to Parliament, in 1442, saw him enter the Commons as a representative for Shaftesbury, a borough situated nearer to his home at Manston. In this town, at least, he held property, for not long afterwards he brought suits in the court of common pleas for forcible entry into his house there and assaults on his servants.10 CP40/734, rots. 182d, 265. His appointment two years later as escheator of Somerset and Dorset indicates that he had caught the attention of the authorities, but this was to be his last public assignment, even though he lived on much longer. It is not known when he was taken up by the duke of Exeter, but in letters patent granting Leyot the office of steward on the Wiltshire manor of Barford St. Martin for life, with an annual fee of 20s., the duke called him his ‘dear’ William, implying that he was a member of his household.11 CIPM, xxvi. 539. Leyot’s dealings with another noble family – that of Hungerford – were much less cordial. In 1445 Sir Robert Hungerford accused him of the theft of goods worth 200 marks at Sutton Mandeville in Wiltshire (where Leyot held property), and before 1449 Sir Robert’s father, Walter, Lord Hungerford†, joined Archbishop Stafford and others in suing him for a debt of as much as £148 7s. 8d.12 CP40/738, rot. 81d; CPR, 1452-61, p. 184. It may be that he had been receiver of estates which they held as trustees. Yet the circumstances underlying these accusations, and how Leyot had obtained his landed interests in Wiltshire, remain obscure.

Leyot furthered himself by marriage to the daughter and heiress of his neighbour Thomas Manston, owner of the manor of Manston, a valuable property said to be worth £20 p.a. Margaret, who was still single in January 1446,13 CP40/779, rot. 119. married the MP within the next 18 months, and in June 1448 the couple conveyed to William Browning I* a messuage and 30 acres of land in Melbury Osmond.14 Dorset Feet of Fines, 368. It would appear that the manor of Manston was promised to them as part of their marriage settlement, but possession of it became a bone of contention between Leyot and his father-in-law. Testimony subsequently made in Chancery held that Thomas Manston attempted to break an entail, thus disinheriting his daughter, and that the Leyots entered the property to establish her right. Through the mediation of friends final concords were completed at Easter 1453 whereby Manston and his wife Agnes and William and Margaret Leyot placed this manor and its advowson together with the manor of Wyrgrede into the hands of feoffees headed by the prominent Dorset lawyer John Newburgh II*. Several of the feoffees were close associates of James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, which suggests either that the earl played a part in persuading the parties to reach an agreement, or else that he himself had an eye on the property. Indeed, when entails were put in place at Michaelmas 1454 the earl secured a remainder interest in Manston, to fall in after the life-interest of Thomas Manston and the deaths without issue of the Leyots. Subsequently, Thomas made over this life-interest to his daughter and son-in-law in return for a payment of 26 marks a year. They were to inherit Wyrgrede only if Thomas and Agnes failed to have children.15 Ibid. 374, 378-9; C1/29/475. Nevertheless, the settlements failed to bring an end to the dispute, for Leyot and his wife were plagued by lawsuits relating to their tenure of Manston. In 1455 several members of the Preest family sued them for the sum of £25, allegedly due as payment for 30 cattle purchased by Margaret before her marriage, and although the Leyots asserted that the plaintiffs were villeins, when the suit went to the assizes at Dorchester the Preests recovered the money and damages.16 CP40/788, rot. 60. Another suit was brought in the King’s bench by Leyot against John Mone*, one of his father-in-law’s feoffees, for theft of crops worth £10 in the period May 1454 to October 1457, and for grazing horses, cows and pigs on his land; while Mone accused our MP in the common pleas of taking crops worth 40 marks from his land at Hammoon in the same period, and claimed damages of £100. Their quarrel chiefly concerned repairs to the banks of the Stour which flowed between their respective properties.17 KB27/788, rot. 60; CP40/788, rot. 416, 789, rot. 311. At some point after July 1460 the Leyots petitioned the chancellor to obtain his assistance in persuading Mone to release his fiduciary interest in Manston.18 C1/29/475; CP40/800, rot. 110d.

In the 1450s Leyot had been engaged in several other lawsuits, including pleas against a man from Stony Stratton, Somerset, for a trespass, and in the King’s bench against a goldsmith from Shaftesbury and pewterer from Gloucester for conspiracy.19 CPR, 1452-61, p. 1; KB27/765, rot. 26d. Failure to appear in court to answer the charges of debt brought by Archbishop Stafford and the rest resulted in his outlawry, for which he obtained a royal pardon on 13 Oct. 1454, and he took out a second, less specific pardon early in 1458.20 CPR, 1452-61, p. 184; C67/42, m. 33. In Hilary term 1461 besides his old adversary Mone he was also suing debtors from Hampshire and Wiltshire.21 CP40/800, rot. 20d. How he fared in these troubled times, at the height of the civil war, is uncertain. He was thought to have died before 14 Oct. that year,22 CFR, xx. 3. although an inquisition post mortem held much later, in 1478, reported that he died on 8 Mar. 1462. The inquisition also said that on 6 Feb. 1461 his father-in-law had made another enfeoffment of the manor of Manston, granting it to Thomas Bonham and John Mompeson*, that Leyot had disseised these feoffees, but that they had recovered possession before his death.23 C140/60/17. Leyot’s widow, Margaret, submitted another petition to the chancellor to complain about the recalcitrance of John Mone, reciting the earlier depositions in Chancery.24 C1/28/58. As executrix of Leyot’s will she joined Richard Nowers, her co-executor, in bringing suits in the common pleas to recover debts owing to her late husband’s estate.25 CP40/811, rot. 180d. In the spring of 1464 she married Robert Cone or Cove of Salisbury,26 CP40/813, rot. 266; CP40/825, rots. 181d, 414. but had been widowed again by the end of 1473,27 CCR, 1468-76, no. 1144. and died five years later.28 CFR, xxi. no. 515; E149/240/15. In the belated post mortem on our MP his heir was given as his son Thomas, then, in 1478, aged 32.29 C140/60/17. Thomas himself died without issue, as did his brother Christopher, who inherited Manston and was patron of the church in 1531. Their heir was their sister Christine, who by marrying John Percy† of Shaftesbury took Manston and other properties to the Percy family.30 J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 584; iv. 73, 76.