MOTON, Sir Robert

The Motons were a knightly family of antiquity and distinction. Since the mid twelfth century they had been established as tenants of the honour of Leicester at Peckleton, eight miles to the west of Leicester. They adopted arms closely resembling those of the earls of Leicester, and one of our MP’s direct ancestors, another Sir Robert Moton, died fighting for his feudal overlord, Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, at the battle of Evesham in 1265.2 Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 94-96; Knights of Edw. I (Harl. Soc. lxxxii), 222; CIMisc. i. 772. More prosaically, our MP’s great-grandfather, Sir William†, represented Leicestershire in Parliament on as many as nine occasions between 1327 and 1343, and advanced the family by his marriage to Joan, daughter and heir of Sir William Inge (d.1322), c.j.KB, and widow of Eon la Zouche (d.1326).3 CP, xii (2), 940-1. Their son, Sir Robert (d.1367), pursued a military career that earned him the commendation of the chronicler Froissart and an even better marriage to Alice, daughter and ultimately coheiress of Ralph, Lord Basset of Sapcote.4 J. Nichols, Leics. iv (2), 869. It was as a result of this marriage that the Motons became, for the first time, tenants-in-chief of the Crown. On Alice’s death in May 1390, our MP’s father inherited a small part of the Basset of Sapcote inheritance, comprising moieties of the site of the castle of Benefield in Northamptonshire, held in chief, and of the Leicestershire manors at Sapcote and Stoney Stanton.5 CIPM, xvi. 846; CCR, 1392-6, p. 201.

Sir William’s brief tenure of these lands and his son’s minority rendered his property liable, on his death on 8 Sept. 1391, to royal wardship. On the following 28 June the King duly granted the wardship of the lands and the marriage of our MP to the Lancastrian retainer Sir Walter Blount† for a payment of 200 marks. This grant was successfully contested by Sir William’s feoffees: Alan de Kereby, parson of Kirkby Mallory, and two others claimed seisin of the Moton lands in Leicestershire and Blount’s letters patent were revoked in February 1394.6 CPR, 1391-6, pp. 98, 248; CCR, 1392-6, pp. 201-2. According to the inqs. only Sir William’s Warws. lands were in the hands of feoffees: CIPM, xvii. 186. By this date our MP was probably already married, not through the ties of wardship but through those of kinship and neighbourhood. His bride was the daughter of his near-neighbour, Sir Anketin Mallory, and Alice, widow of Lord Basset, and the marriage created an extraordinary family relationship. Few men can have had a mother-in-law who was also the stepmother of their own grandmother: Moton could now boast that rare distinction.7 CP, ii. 8. It may be that Sir William Moton committed his son to Mallory’s keeping in the will he is known to have made but which does not survive. The young couple probably spent part of his minority in Mallory’s household. This is implied by the finding of inqs. taken in Dec. 1392 and Jan. 1393, that Mallory was in receipt of the issues of the Moton lands in Northants.: CIPM, xvii. 184-5. More importantly, the marriage brought the young Robert to the notice of Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor, the husband of his wife’s maternal half-sister, Elizabeth, the second Basset coheir, and a trusted supporter of Henry IV. It was in Grey’s service that he began his adult career. In the spring of 1402, while Grey held office as admiral of the King’s fleet from the Thames northwards, Moton served in his retinue at sea, and this marked the beginning of an association that was to last until Grey’s death in 1418.8 CPR, 1401-5, p. 175.

Moton’s naval service enabled him to delay process in an important suit, an action of formedon brought against him by William, Lord Zouche of Harringworth, for a moiety of the manor of Oldbury in Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire. Their competing claims derived from the marriage of his great-grandfather, Sir William Moton, to Joan Inge, who had been granted the moiety on her earlier marriage to Eon la Zouche. As a descendant of this first marriage, Lord Zouche’s claim appears superior, but the descent of the Inge lands was complicated by Eon’s forfeiture for involvement in the murder of Sir Roger Bellers. In 1380 Lord Zouche’s father had unsuccessfully sued Moton’s grandmother, Alice, for the manor, but our MP was able only to delay not to defeat the renewal of the Zouche claim. He did, however, manage to retain the manor of ‘Clare’ in Pyrton in Oxfordshire, the only other Inge manor the Motons held.9 VCH Bucks. ii. 361; Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 123; VCH Oxon. viii. 151.

Moton’s career for the next ten years or so is obscure. His service at sea earned him knighthood, a rank he had assumed by Hilary term 1403, and it may be that he then campaigned under Lord Grey in the subjugation of the Welsh.10 Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 124; CPR, 1405-8, p. 230. Later the death of his mother-in-law Alice in 1412 supplemented his landed estate, although not to the extent he might have hoped. After her husband Lord Basset’s death as long before as 1378, the bulk of his inheritance had remained in her hands as dower and a generous jointure. When it was finally divided between the Basset coheirs at her death, the division did not favour Moton. He was the descendant of Basset’s first marriage, but Basset had settled most of his inheritance on his second wife and his issue by her. Hence on the division of the estate, most of it passed into the hands of Lady Alice’s daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, our MP’s master, Lord Grey. Nevertheless, what did come Sir Robert’s way was a useful supplement to the property that his father had inherited in 1390: to the moieties of the site of the castle of Benefield and of the manors of Sapcote and Stoney Stanton, he added shares in the manor of Cheadle in Staffordshire and in the manors of Castle Bytham, Little Bytham, Counthorpe, Corby, Careby and Witham in south Lincolnshire.11 CFR, xiii. 254-7; CIPM, xix. 1031-5. Until the death of Lord Grey in 1418, and probably beyond, the two coheirs each held a moiety of each of these newly-acquired manors, but the division was later rationalized, with the manors of Cheadle, Little Bytham, Counthorpe, and Careby being assigned to our MP.12 C138/30/5; 144/34; CCR, 1441-7, p. 24. Only the manor of Castle Bytham and those properties that had descended to the coheirs before Alice’s death remained divided into moieties. This windfall, less than it might have been but still significant, probably increased Moton’s annual income to beyond £100.13 In the subsidy returns of 1436 he was assessed, no doubt conservatively, at only £66 p.a.: E179/192/59. This, however, excludes the property, including his share of the manor of Stoney Stanton, settled on the marriage of his son Reynold to Margaret, sis. and h. of Baldwin Bugge: CIPM, xxvi. 293. Reynold was assessed at £26 p.a., part at least of which was derived from this settlement.

Henry V’s ambitions in France gave Moton the opportunity to resume his military career. In the campaign of 1415 he served in the retinue of Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel; in the Norman campaign of 1417 he followed Lord Grey; and he was then, perhaps only briefly, in the garrison at Harfleur under Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter.14 E101/47/1, m. 1; 48/17; 51/2, m. 18. Whether he participated in any of Henry V’s later campaigns can only be a matter for speculation. In any event, no more is known of him until his election, in company with many former soldiers, to the Parliament of 1422.

For some reason, despite this election to Parliament, the end of Moton’s military service did not prove to be the prelude to an active career in local administration. Although, from 1433 at the latest, he held a minor office in the duchy of Lancaster as bailiff of Desford in the immediate vicinity of his residence at Peckleton, he never sat on the Leicestershire bench and was rarely appointed to ad hoc commissions of local government. His apparent lack of interest in administration did not extend to the other facets of gentry life. Unusually for a man of his rank, he regularly appeared at parliamentary elections. After attending two elections early in his career, he witnessed as many as 11 of the 15 documented Leicestershire elections between 1423 and 1455.15 C219/13/2, 3, 5; 14/2-4; 15/1, 2, 7; 16/1, 2. He was also active in the affairs of his neighbours, particularly as a very frequent witness to deeds, acting in that capacity over the years for, among others, his former master’s widow, Elizabeth, Lady Grey of Codnor, William, Lord Lovell, Sir John Grey, son and heir apparent of Reynold, Lord Grey of Ruthin, and Sir Leonard Hastings*.16 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 57-58, 1435-41, p. 345; 1441-7, p. 314; Nichols, iv (2), 455-6. In June 1428, with other leading gentry of the county, he was at Leicester to witness an important arbitration award, returned by William Babington, c.j.c.p., concerning a right of way in the town, and in May 1446 he was one of the many to attach his seal to the declaration of Robert Sherard of Stapleford that his daughter, although she lived only two hours, had been born alive.17 Leicester Bor. Recs. ed. Bateson, ii. 244; Leics. RO, Sherard mss, DG40/481. Often a witness, he is far less frequently found as a feoffee, although he did perform that role for two of his lesser gentry neighbours, Robert Temple of Sibson and Reynold Lathbury of Cadeby, whose widow he was later to marry.18 CAD, vi. C4574; Leics. Village Notes ed. Farnham, vi. 275.

Despite his lack of administrative involvement, Moton was clearly an important local figure. His son, Reynold, found a place in the service of Joan, (d.1435), widow of William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, and sister of the earl of Arundel under whom our MP had servd in 1415.19 In her will of 10 Jan. 1435 she bequeathed to Reynold the large sum of 100 marks together with a further 100 marks to the marriage of his putative daughter Isabel: Reg. Chichele, ii. 537. This Abergavenny connexion also explains the marriage of Sir Robert’s brother, Alan, to Margaret Cassy, one of Lady Joan’s domicella.20 CP40/710, rot. 476d. In September 1436 Sir Robert himself, in company with Reynold, witnessed a deed for her feoffees, and in May 1449 he fulfilled the same function for her grandson and chosen heir, Sir James Butler, soon to be elevated to the earldom of Wiltshire.21 HMC Hastings, i. 1-2. The range and importance of his connexions is revealed in the feoffees he himself chose in 1441: headed by the chancellor, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, they also included the two leading baronial landholders in Leicestershire, John, Viscount Beaumont, and Sir Edward Grey, later Lord Ferrers of Groby, together with the viscount’s younger brother, Henry Beaumont II*.22 CCR, 1435-41, p. 478.

The date of Moton’s first wife’s death is unknown.23 She was alive in Apr. 1412 when remembered with a bequest in the will of her mother: Reg. Repingdon (Lincoln Rec. Soc. lviii), 275. In the early 1440s, however, he took as his second wife the twice-widowed Elizabeth Mulsho. This marriage arose out of that of Margaret, sister and heiress of Elizabeth’s second husband, Baldwin Bugge, to Sir Robert’s son, Reynold, probably at about the time of Baldwin’s death in 1435. By a fine levied in Michaelmas term 1437 Reynold and Margaret settled small parcels of land in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, her jointure and dower from the Bugge estates, on Elizabeth for her life. These were not valuable lands but, given the already-established connexion between the families of Moton and Bugge, they made Elizabeth an attractive marriage proposition for our MP. Moreover, she had the additional recommendation of a dower from her first husband, Reynold Lathbury, for whom Sir Robert had acted as a feoffee in the manor of Cadeby near Peckleton. Although she was assessed on a modest annual income of only £13 in the tax returns of 1436, it is likely that her two dowers were worth more. By a deed dated at Cadeby on 10 Dec. 1439, probably in preparation for her marriage to our MP, she conveyed all her lands to a powerful group of feoffees, headed by John, Lord Beaumont, and including Sir Edward Grey, and Thomas Boughton*, who was later to act as a feoffee for Sir Robert.24 CP25(1)/292/69/205; E179/192/59; Leics. Village Notes, vi. 275.

The last years of Moton’s life were largely concerned with his efforts to disinherit his grand-daughters of the bulk of his inheritance in favour of his son by this second marriage. Soon after the death of his son and heir in March 1445, Sir Robert presented a petition to the chancellor. He asserted that, on Reynold’s marriage to the Bugge heiress, he had bound himself to her cousin, the ubiquitous Bartholomew Brokesby*, in the large sum of 400 marks to settle lands worth £20 p.a. in jointure on the couple and Reynold’s issue. He had now learned that Margaret and her new husband, Thomas Everingham*, intended to sue him on the bond, claiming that it was made to some other purpose than the settlement of jointure. There can be no doubt that this was a disingenuous description of events. Everingham’s reply reveals the complexity of our MP’s affairs: he made the plausible counter-claim that the disputed obligation also included the proviso that Sir Robert should not alienate any of his inheritance from Reynold’s issue, but that he had nevertheless alienated the Moton caput of Peckleton and other lands to the use of William, his son by his second wife, to the disinheritance of Reynold’s two young daughters, Anne and Elizabeth.25 C1/22/114. Clearly Sir Robert was intent on perpetuating the Moton name and to do so was willing to set aside the common-law claim of his two young grand-daughters. Unfortunately for him, it appears his freedom of action was hampered not only by the entail made at the time of his elder son’s marriage but also by the non-alienation clause that was a common feature of marriage contracts.

The same tensions lie behind two further petitions presented to the chancellor by Sir Robert, similarly designed to forestall potential future trouble. In both, he described how he had conveyed his manor of Peckleton and other lands to his brother, Alan, his first wife’s brother-in-law, Sir John Bagot†, and others to the intent that they should reconvey the property to him and his second wife in fee. This the feoffees had done, and yet ‘open langage and noyse is spedde and dilate’ in Leicestershire that Alan had, between the two conveyances, made estate or release to Sir Robert’s now-deceased son, Reynold, or feoffees to his use with the purpose of excluding Elizabeth from her jointure. To lay these potentially damaging rumours to rest, our MP asked, in the first petition, that his ailing brother should be examined by Justice William Aiscough, and, in the second, that Alan’s confessor, John, prior of the Augustinian friars in Leicester, be summoned into Chancery to give a true account. The prior testified that the only lands Alan had conveyed to Reynold or feoffees to his use lay in Stoney Stanton and Countesthorpe in Leicestershire and in Pyrton in Oxfordshire, assigned to him at his marriage, and that it was Alan’s intention that this should be made public to lay the ‘noysefull esclaundre’. He also added that Reynold had forged an obligation in a large sum under Sir Robert’s seal with the intention of troubling him if he alienated any part of the Moton inheritance, clearly the bond mentioned in the other Chancery petition.26 C1/13/162-4; 15/124-6.

These petitions were part of a well-organized campaign on Sir Robert’s part to secure his inheritance for his younger son, a plot hatched even before Reynold’s death, and it is interesting that both refer not to wrongs he had suffered but to those that he might suffer. He supplemented these actions in Chancery by a series of conveyances. On 14 Sept. 1446 he granted all his lands to Thomas Boughton, Thomas Billing* and others. The importance of this conveyance was attested not only by the standing of those who witnessed it – the wealthy knights, Sir Robert Harcourt*, Sir William Trussell†, and Sir John Griffith – but also by the fact that Moton took the trouble to have it enrolled on the close roll.27 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 23-24. On 10 Dec. 1446 his yr. bro. Richard quitclaimed his right in these lands to the feoffees, and this deed was also enrolled on the close roll: ibid. p. 457. Later, by a fine levied in Hilary term 1452, the manors of Peckleton and Cheadle and land in Congerstone with the advowson of the church there were settled on him and his wife and their issue, saving the reversion to Billing and another feoffee.28 CP25(1)/293/72/367.

The story of his grand-daughters’ defence of their rights against these conveyances is not told in the surviving records, but, according to Nichols, the dispute was eventually settled by the arbitration of John, Viscount Beaumont. What Nichols preserves of the award demonstrates that the grand-daughters or their representatives had claimed the manor of Peckleton as entailed on the issue of Sir Robert by his first wife. Beaumont awarded that this false deed be surrendered to William Moton. Other evidence shows that William was also to inherit the other property settled in the 1452 fine. But Beaumont’s award was not entirely in Sir Robert’s favour. The fine of 1452 shows that it had been Moton’s intention that Peckleton should pass to his issue by Elizabeth; Beaumont decreed that this descent should be limited to the male issue with remainder to the descendants of his first marriage.29 Nichols, iv (2), 869; CP40/780, rots. 127, 332d, 335d. Nichols does not tell us what the award determined with respect to the other Moton property, principally the Basset of Sapcote lands in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, but it was later to descend through our MP’s grand-daughters.30 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 888, 966.

Little else is known of the later years of Moton’s lengthy career. A plea pending in 1451 provides a diverting insight into his domestic arrangements: he claimed that a husbandman had killed his pet deer at Peckleton. His appointment as sheriff in the same year, when in his mid 70s, must have been as unexpected as it was unwelcome. He petitioned that ‘his greet age feblenesse and long seruice’ to the Crown both at home and abroad, ‘to his gret and sumptuose charges’, meant he was ‘so empouerisshed in his goodes and enfebled in his persone’ that he was incapable of exercising the office. A compromise was reached whereby he accepted the appointment and, in return, the Crown granted him the privilege of accounting by deputy and, more importantly, of being discharged on oath of those parts of the farm that were difficult to collect. On 10 Feb. 1452 the king sent the necessary instructions to the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer.31 CP40/763, rot. 7; E199/45/10, m. 3. When the King was at Kenilworth on 26 Aug. 1452, he wrote to Moton instructing him not to execute a tailor, condemned for treason, because he had pardoned him: SC1/43/184. Towards the end of his shrievalty Moton sold a small part of his Basset inheritance in south Lincolnshire to Ralph, Lord Cromwell, who added the acquisition to the endowment of the collegiate foundation at Tattershall.32 CP26(1)/27; Lincs. AO, Holywell mss, 71/16, 24, 31.

Sir Robert died between Hilary term 1456, when he suffered the recoveries attendant on Beaumont’s award, and Easter term 1457, when his widow sued a plea of trespass in her own account. His will has not been traced, but, according to Nichols, it reflected his concern that his grand-daughters would attempt to recover the manor of Peckleton. In an effort to forestall this eventuality, he left them certain lands (which Nichols unfortunately does not specify) on condition they allowed his wife and son to hold the manor in peace. He was buried in the church of Peckleton, for many generations the family mausoleum. His tomb chest is now lost but the brass that adorned it was discovered in digging a grave in the chancel.33 KB27/784, rot. 17; Nichols, iv (2), 869. On 30 Jan. 1458 his widow was pardoned as the administrator of his goods and chattels and tenant of his manor of Peckleton. Less happily, in 1460 the husbands of the troublesome grand-daughters, William Grimsby* and Ralph Pole, sued her for waste, an action which may represent an unsuccessful attempt to undo Viscount Beaumont’s award.34 C67/42, m. 42; CP40/798, rot. 203. She died in 1468 and the family’s caput honoris passed to William, her son by our MP. The ancient family failed in the male line on the death of William’s grandson, Edward, in 1511.35 CPR, 1467-77, p. 104; C140/27/15; Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xvii. 109-11.