LYE, John

The history of the Lye family prior to the late fourteenth century is obscure, although it seems clear that our MP’s grandfather, John (d.1390), acquired his landed holdings in Wiltshire through purchase rather than inheritance. These acquisitions included the manors of Flamston in Bishopstone and Norridge in Upton Scudamore, bought in the late 1360s, and an estate at Apshill in Tisbury bought in 1386.7 VCH Wilts. viii. 82; xi. 7; xiii. 219. After the death without issue of John’s elder son, Thomas, the head of the family was the latter’s brother, Nicholas Lye, who in 1412 derived an income of £20 p.a. from the Wiltshire property. This was exceeded by that of his father’s widow Agnes, who received £31 p.a. as her dower and jointure at Flamston, Apshill and Salisbury.8 Feudal Aids, vi. 540. To Nicholas’s holdings were added in 1419 the manor and advowson of Stanton Fitzwarren (worth another £7 10s.) on the death of his sister-in-law, Isabel.9 CIPM, xxi. 218. Isabel, the wid. of Thomas Lye, had taken as her 2nd husband Sir John Popham† (d.1418). Nicholas was of sufficient standing in the county as to attest the shire elections six times, but so far as is recorded he was never elected to Parliament himself. He died, still a relatively young man, on 17 May 1420, having settled on his wife Elizabeth a life interest in the manor of Norridge. John, his son and heir, who was still a minor,10 CIPM, xxi. 493; CCR, 1419-22, p. 95. became a royal ward, whose lands and marriage were granted in February 1421, for a payment of £80, to his mother, his grandfather’s widow Agnes Lye, and Thomas Ringwood.11 CPR, 1416-22, p. 315. Agnes died just a month later, on 15 Mar.,12 CFR, xiv. 377; CIPM, xxi. 720. whereupon the lands she had held of John’s inheritance were also committed to his mother, this time in association with two members of the Martin family (perhaps her relations).13 CFR, xiv. 396. Fresh inquiries were held about Agnes’s landed possessions in September 1428, just a week before writs were sent out for the heir to make proof of age on 1 Oct. A jury duly established that he had turned 21 in the previous May,14 CIPM, xxiii. 181, 315. and the escheator was ordered to give him seisin of his inheritance.15 CCR, 1422-9, p. 419. It was not until Oct. 1429 that the Exchequer was instructed to cease its process against him: E159/206, brevia Mich. rot. 1d.

Lye’s standing in Wiltshire was such that in 1434 he was among those of the county required to take the general oath against maintaining those who broke the law,16 CPR, 1429-36, p. 371. and he attested the county elections to Parliament for the first time on 25 Dec. 1436.17 C219/15/1. The pardon he purchased in July 1437 referred to him as a ‘gentleman’,18 C67/38, m. 10. and it is likely that by this date he had completed his training as a lawyer, although where this had taken place is not known. It was to the daughter of a much more prominent member of the legal profession that he was to be married, in an alliance which proved advantageous to both families. While John Newburgh negotiated a satisfactory match for his first-born daughter to a substantial Wiltshire landowner, Lye stood to acquire a number of properties in Dorset as his wife’s inheritance, for Joan and her younger sister Agnes were the heirs to Newburgh’s late wife Edith, herself an heiress of considerable note as the only child of Robert More of Stinsford. As his part of the bargain, on 20 Aug. 1440, shortly before the nuptials, Lye agreed that Joan would receive as her jointure his manor of Flamston and lands in Fisherton Anger, Milford and Salisbury, together with his reversionary interest in Norridge (which would fall in when his mother died), all these being entailed on the couple and their issue. Joan’s younger sister was in very poor health and likely to die, which would make Joan the sole heir to their mother’s estates. On 11 Sept., his wedding day, Lye agreed that if she died within a year he would abide by the award of John Conge, canon of Salisbury, and legal counsel regarding suitable payments to be made to his father-in-law Newburgh to compensate him for the substantial sums of money he had expended protecting this inheritance for his daughters.19 Harl. Chs. 53 C 9, 11; 54 D 18; J. Hutchins, Hist. Dorset, iv. 317. Lye’s wife duly became possessed of the Dorset manors of Bere and More, together with over 400 acres of land in Marnhull, Todbere, Stour Prewes and Shaftesbury, worth at least £20 p.a.20 C139/149/25; Harl. Chs. 53 A 24; 54 D 19. In the tax assessments made the year before his death the annual income Lye enjoyed in Wiltshire was said to be £80.21 E179/196/118.

Elected by his native county to the Parliament summoned to meet on 25 Jan. 1442, Lye was introduced to the Commons by his father-in-law Newburgh, then representing Dorset. He was appointed to his first ad hoc commission of local government while Parliament was still in session. By the spring of 1444 he had established connexions of note among the lesser nobility, then being associated with William, Lord Lovell, Sir Ralph Butler, later Lord Sudeley, and Sir John Beauchamp, later Lord Beauchamp of Powick, as plaintiffs in an assize of novel disseisin against Thomas Brampton of Burford in Oxfordshire, the kinsman and heir of the wealthy wool-merchant William Brampton†. However, Lye’s particular interest in this estate has not been discovered.22 C66/458, rot. 23d; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 334-5. Lye took out another pardon in June 1446,23 C676/39, m. 31. and from then onwards, in the six years before his death, he was kept busy as a commissioner of gaol delivery, and from 1447 as a member of the quorum on the Wiltshire bench. While the Crown found him useful for the maintenance of order in the localities, the citizens of Salisbury valued his expertise in the law. In August 1447 they chose him to be legal counsel to the civic authorities, for an annual fee of £2, his duties including attendance at meetings of the city’s convocation whenever and as often as he was required. This arrangement was confirmed in January 1449.24 First General Entry Bk. Salisbury (Wilts. Rec. Soc. liv), 412, 424. For regular payments to him as a j.p.: E101/594/29, mm. 5-8. In addition, Lye served Lord Hungerford, one of the greatest landowners in Wiltshire, as steward of his estates, for a fee of as much as 53s. 4d. He attested two more county elections at Wilton (to the Parliaments of 1447 and February 1449), but was never re-elected to the Commons himself.

Lye died on 24 Sept. 1452, leaving as his heir his nine-year-old son, John.25 CFR, xix. 1; C139/149/25. As the manors and lands he had held in Dorset ‘by the courtesy’ after the death of his wife were not held as a tenant-in-chief of the King they were released to the heir’s ‘next friend’, Henry Lye, our MP’s brother, to hold to the boy’s use. This provoked the resentment of young John’s maternal grandfather John Newburgh, and the discord between Newburgh and Henry was not put to rest until over a year later, when on 20 Nov. 1453 the latter agreed that Newburgh might have custody of the Dorset inheritance during John’s minority in return for a payment of £20 p.a.26 CCR, 1447-54, p. 388; Harl. Chs. 53 A 24; 54 D 19. John was to sue the executors of his gdfa. for the issues of these properties during his minority, in a case which went to arbitration as long afterwards as 1498: Harl. Ch. 53 C 13. In respect to his paternal inheritance, John junior became a royal ward: on 16 Oct. 1452 custody of his lands and marriage was granted to John Penycoke*, an esquire for the King’s body, who subsequently agreed to pay £100 for the same. At the end of the following January Thomas Dyn of Hungerford was bound in recognizances for 500 marks to deliver the ward to Penycoke in Chancery on 5 Feb., and his uncle Henry Lye, described as a member of the King’s household, was similarly bound to appear there on that date. Both of them complied.27 CFR, xix. 18; CPR, 1452-61, p. 37; CCR, 1419-22, p. 416. The heir made proof of age in January 1464.28 C140/11/35; CCR, 1461-8, p. 177.