MARTIN, John I

John Martin was by no means an uncommon name in fifteenth-century Dorset. For instance, there was a Weymouth man who served as bailiff in that port in Henry V’s reign, and was described as ‘yeoman’ in 1447 and ‘merchant’ in 1455,3 CAD, i. C1415; E159/202, recorda Mich. rot. 17d; CP40/745, rot. 166d; 779, rot. 180. It was probably that John Martin who traded with the Channel Islands, shipping large quantities of canvas from Guernsey and Alderney to Poole in 1460-1: E122/119/2, 4. and there was the John Martin ‘esquire’ who inherited through his mother Margaret Horsington land in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, and married before 1438, Katherine, daughter of John Cressebien of London, with whom he shared jointure in Gillingham and Mere.4 CP25(1)/292/69/214; C1/5/163; 16/181. As ‘esquire’ he attested the Dorset electoral indentures of 1460 and 1467: C219/16/1; 17/1. Yet as the records of Dorchester reveal, the MP was neither of these two. Often using the alias of Hunt or Honte,5 That John Martin and John Honte were one and the same is clear from the naming of Robert Bertram’s fellow bailiff as Martin and Honte interchangeably: Dorchester Recs. 235-7. he frequently witnessed deeds in the town in the four decades from 1420 to 1460,6 Ibid. 241, 244-7, 249, 252-7, 260-3, 266, 268, 270-1, 273, 280, 283, 285, 288, 292. and his election as bailiff on no fewer than five occasions suggests that he was well regarded by his neighbours. It was while he was occupying this office that he was returned to his first Parliament in 1432.

Martin had been asked to be a feoffee of property in Dorchester for Emmota Goldsmith in 1423,7 Ibid. 247-8. by which date he had married, for on 4 Dec. that year his wife gave birth to twins, Vincent and Laurence. As the boys shared a birthday with an important Dorset heiress, Avice, the only child of Sir Richard Stafford* and Maud Lovell, Martin was able to testify about it at Avice’s proof of age, which was recorded at Dorchester in July 1438.8 C139/89/68. Meanwhile, in 1437 he and his wife had received from the lawyer Robert Rempston* of Purbeck seisin of two tenements and a curtilage in the West Street of the town, one of the properties being situated next door to the New Inn, to hold of the King in chief and pass on to their descendants. In this conveyance Martin’s occupation was given as ‘draper’, and it was so styled that he appeared as a defendant in the court of common pleas seven years later. Then, William Stafford* (Avice’s uncle) accused him along with four other Dorchester men of detaining the sum of £75 owing to him.9 Dorchester Recs. 284; CP40/734, rot. 350. It may be that the debt had arisen from Martin’s official position as bailiff, and was due to Stafford in the capacity of sheriff of the county.

Martin was listed among the fidedignorum of Dorchester in 1447, and stood pledge for the borough’s MPs returned to the Parliament of February 1449. He himself was elected to represent the borough for the second time in 1450, although nothing is known about his activities in the Commons. He was again called upon to stand surety for the appearance of the Dorchester representatives in the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455.10 C219/15/6; 16/2, 3. By the latter date he was a relatively old man (aged 67 if we are to believe his testimony of 1438), and was generally referred to as ‘senior’. As such and as ‘alias Hunte and Durrycole’ on 2 June 1452 he had sued out a royal pardon, albeit for reasons unknown.11 C67/40, m. 31. Martin was similarly called ‘senior’ on a deed of March 1460, and when listed as a potential juror from the borough of Dorchester at sessions of oyer and terminer held there in May 1462,12 Dorchester Recs. 292; KB9/21/38. but it is uncertain whether it was he who, as ‘of Dorchester, draper’ but not called ‘senior’, brought a suit for debt in 1465 against the chaplain of the chantry of St. Michael at Bridport.13 CP40/815, rot. 386d.

Nothing more is heard of the MP’s twin sons, but in a will made in Dorchester in 1500 by a later John Martin the testator mentioned a burgage and shop next to the New Inn – undoubtedly the same properties as had been held by his namesake of the mid fifteenth century. Perhaps this John was the MP’s grandson.14 Dorchester Recs. 310-11.