KEIGHLEY, John

The identity of this MP is something of a mystery, yet it may be presumed that like many of the representatives of the impoverished and depopulated borough of Lyme Regis in Dorset, he was an outsider both to the town and its county. Several John Keighleys are recorded in the first half of the fifteenth century, and disentangling their careers is no easy task. Nevertheless, a case may be made that the MP was the London attorney of this name, active in the 1450s and 1460s. That John belonged to a younger generation of the prominent northern family headed by Sir Gilbert Keighley (d.1432) of Keighley in Yorkshire and his younger brother Sir John.2 Yorks. Arch. Jnl. xxvii. 47-57. At the close of a distinguished military career in Ireland and France, forged as a prominent retainer of the royal brothers Thomas of Lancaster, duke of Clarence, and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester,3 J. Milner, ‘English Commitment to the 1412 Expedition’, The Fifteenth Cent. XI ed. Clark, 21-22; DKR, xliv. 618; xlviii. 227, 232, 265; CPR, 1413-16, p. 195; 1429-36, p. 42; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 267, 329, 335-6; E403/664, mm. 17, 18; 692, m. 8; 693, m. 7; CFR, xvi. 143. the latter had contracted a lucrative marriage to Alice, the wealthy widow of Sir Richard Arundel (d.1419) and of one of the Burleys of Birley in Herefordshire, thereby securing an interest for his lifetime in estates as widely spread as Wales, Warwickshire, Norfolk, Dorset, Surrey and Kent, while through his own efforts Sir John could also claim title to manorial holdings in Lincolnshire.4 CFR, xvi. 255-6; C1/45/325, 11/105. Alice’s estates were assessed at £122 p.a. in 1436: E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (x). One of the properties Alice occupied (by grant of Henry IV to her and her former husband Arundel), was the Surrey manor of Walton-on-the-Hill, and it was there that Sir John took up residence. He was living at Walton in the spring of 1434 when, shortly before his death, he took the widely-administered oath not to maintain law-breakers. Listed at his side were William and John Keighley, his sons by an earlier marriage.5 C139/80/27; CFR, xvi. 215; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 379-81; 1436-41, p. 84; Yorks. Arch. Jnl. xxvii. 62-63. Alice’s heir when she died in 1436 was her gds. William Burley (c.1422-1445). It may be speculated that John, the younger one, was the man who would sit in the Commons of 1453.

This John headed the jurors providing evidence at the inquisition post mortem on the Keighleys’ neighbour Beatrice, widow of Thomas Hayton, conducted at Leatherhead in March 1434. Beatrice had named as her executors Richard and William Lovelace, and these two subsequently brought a plea against John for unjustly seizing 500 of the widow’s sheep, worth £40, grazing on the downs at Walton. He was outlawed for failing to answer them in court, but, as ‘of Walton-on-the-Hill, yeoman’, he was pardoned outlawry on 4 Feb. 1442.6 CIPM, xxiv. 159; CPR, 1441-6, p. 13. The quarrel with the Lovelaces was eventually patched up, for several years later Keighley took on a brief in the common pleas for William Lovelace, by then a member of the Mercers Company of London.7 CP40/828, rot. 416. Meanwhile, he himself had moved to the city to establish a legal practice, and it was as a ‘gentleman of London’ that in October 1452 he was the recipient of the goods and chattels of a citizen and tallow-chandler, and a year later (during the prorogation of the Parliament of 1453), those of a local barber.8 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 403, 491-2. While in the capital, Keighley the attorney resided in the parish of St. Botolph outside Aldersgate.9 Another John Keighley, a chaplain, resided in the same parish, as his will of Apr. 1445 indicates. Unfortunately, he made no mention of any kinsmen: Guildhall Lib. London, commissary ct. wills, 9171/4, f. 162.

The Parliament of 1453 was notable for the large concentration in the Commons of men associated with the royal court. Keighley the attorney is not known to have had any such close link with the Lancastrian regime, yet he may have displayed overt support for it at the time of the battle of St. Albans in May 1455. The Parliament summoned by the victorious Yorkists approved the issue of royal pardons for offences committed before its assembly on 9 July, and during the second session, in November, Keighley took advantage of the offer. A second pardon followed in 1458, although nothing has come to light of his motives in purchasing either of them.10 E159/232, brevia Mich. rot. 27; C67/42, m. 13. There are hints, however, that he moved in more exalted circles, as is revealed by a suit brought in the common pleas in the summer of 1460. One Robert Gylle alleged that he had failed to carry out the conditions of a bond, dated 1 May 1459, in £4. By this bond, so Gylle asserted, Keighley had undertaken to mediate with Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers, to find surety from Bishop Arundel of Chichester for a huge debt of over £350 which Rivers owed to Gylle’s father. But when brought to the court Keighley denied that the bond shown in evidence was the one he had sealed, for this condition was not mentioned in its terms. He said that the one he had sealed had been read out to him in English, as he was a man of little learning.11 CP40/798, rot. 198d. If that was in fact the case, it is surprising that Keighley continued to find employment as an attorney in the common pleas,12 e.g. CP40/822, rots. 348, 348d; 823, rots. 149, 304d; 825, rot. 125. and that he was briefed in such suits as an action against Edward Poynings, the twin brother and executor of Robert Poynings*, over sums owing to a London scrivener whom Robert had employed.13 CP40/831, rot. 348d. Coincidentally, Robert Poynings had been condemned in ‘acts’ of the Parliament of 1453-4, for his alleged part in Cade’s rebellion and subsequent riots. He is last recorded in 1467 when Geoffrey Kydwelly presented a bill against him, seeking repayment of £50 which Keighley unjustly detained, after failing to fulfil a bond entered eight years before.14 CP40/823, rot. 399d.