NANFAN, John

Nanfan was born, probably at some point in the final years of Richard II’s reign, into an ancient gentry family from western Cornwall which had for several generations provided MPs for the county’s boroughs.17 T.R. Nash, Worcs. i. 85-86, began a tradition that there were two John Nanfans, father and son, the elder of whom died in 1446, on the basis of a will of that year. The details of Nanfan’s career do, however, show that there was in fact only a single man of this name. Nash’s conclusion is repeated by VCH Worcs. iv. 30 and elsewhere. A later tradition held that he spent his early years in the service of the Eriseys of Erisey (in Grade and Ruan Major), and although no definite evidence to this effect has been discovered, his son would eventually settle all his Cornish lands on a member of that family in his will.18 Maclean, 191; D. Gilbert, Parochial Hist. Cornw. i. 1408. The name of John’s father has not been discovered, but his mother was Geta, one of the three grand-daughters and ultimate coheirs of Michael Pennek and his wife Sara, and by the summer of 1416 Nanfan had succeeded to her holdings in ‘Tredyver’ and was forced to defend his title in the law-courts.19 CP40/622, rots. 353, 361; Maclean, 218-19. Like many of his neighbours, he was able to augment the income from the cultivation of his estates by the profits of tin mining, an activity reflected in his commercial dealings with pewterers in various parts of England, as well as later exemptions from payments of coinage and customs duties for his tin.20 CP40/802, rot. 364d; E159/223, brevia Easter rot. 8d, Trin. rot. 19; 231, brevia Mich. rot. 13(ii)d; E207/15/16. In addition, over the course of a long career Nanfan amassed considerable wealth, both on the battlefields of France during the successful campaigns of Henry V and the duke of Bedford, and at home, in the form of fees and annuities from the Crown and a succession of aristocratic patrons. It was this wealth which allowed him to round off his Cornish possessions with a purchase of the manor of Trethewell and other neighbouring properties, and, more importantly, to acquire extensive estates in Worcestershire which centred on the manor of Birtsmorton, the remainder of which after the death of Elizabeth, widow of its last proprietor, Richard Ruyhale†, he was able to buy from the heir, John Merbury*, in 1425. When the twice-widowed Elizabeth Ruyhale (her second husband had been Richard Oldcastle of Eyton, Herefordshire) died in October 1428, Birtsmorton became Nanfan’s seat, and it was probably he who reconstructed the magnificent crenellated manor-house that survives to the present day with the spoils of his French campaigns.21 Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 982, 991; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 308; Maclean, ‘Birt’s Morton’, 195; Reg. Lacy, ii (Canterbury and York Soc. lxi), 320; Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 293-4; CP25(1)/1/260/27/14; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 718; iv. 262; Guerre et Société ed. Contamine, Keen and Giry-Deloison, 222; VCH Worcs. iv. 30-31.

Nanfan embarked on the first of these in July 1417 in the retinue of Richard Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny.22 E101/51/2. It is possible that Nanfan had served in France before this date: in 1445 a royal grant remembered his service to Hen. V and Hen. VI ‘by the space of 30 years and more’: CPR, 1441-6, p. 367. It is not clear whether his bond with Beauchamp was first forged on the battlefields of France, or whether it predated the expedition of 1417, but it would outlast Abergavenny himself. When the latter (newly elevated to the earldom of Worcester) once more set sail for France in June 1421, Nanfan was again in his retinue, and he may have remained by his master’s side until the earl’s death at the siege of Meaux the following March.23 E101/50/1, m. 4. It may have been on this occasion that Nanfan himself was captured by the French and had to find a substantial ransom for his release: some 25 years later his capture during Henry V’s reign was remembered in a royal grant.24 CPR, 1446-52, p. 17. On his return to England, Nanfan remained in the service of his late master’s widow, Isabel Despenser, as one of her esquires and most trusted servants. In May 1423 the countess appointed him as her chief forester in Glamorgan and Morgannok.25 CPR, 1446-52, p. 268. In later years, he was included among her feoffees, and, in December 1439, named one of the executors of her will.26 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 359-60; 1494-1509, p. 99; Test. Vetusta ed. Nicolas, 240; Fifty Earliest English Wills (EETS lxxviii), 119; E159/227, brevia Mich. rot. 11. In November 1423, Isabel had married her deceased husband’s cousin and namesake, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and Nanfan followed her into the Warwick household. He soon became as indispensable to Earl Richard as he had previously been to the countess. In 1427-8 he served as Beauchamp’s deputy in the shrievalty of Worcestershire, which the earl held in fee, and two years later he accompanied his new master on a fresh expedition to France.27 A.F.J. Sinclair, ‘Beauchamp Earls of Warwick’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1987), 352. Warwick’s generous reward for Nanfan’s service consisted of a grant for life of his entire holdings in Buckinghamshire, the manors of Amersham, Buckland and Singleborough, altogether thought to be worth £40 p.a.28 SC12/18/45, f. 15.

Throughout the 1420s Warwick served as governor to the young King Henry VI, and it was natural that the members of his inner circle should come into contact with the monarch, develop personal ties with him, and ultimately be taken into his household. In an early display of royal favour, in 1430 Nanfan received a grant of lands in Normandy worth some 800 livres tournois, by 1435 he was accorded the status of a King’s esquire, and he would continue to receive robes in this capacity until he was taken into the King’s inner household as an esquire for Henry VI’s body at some point prior to the autumn of 1447.29 Sinclair, 352; E101/409/9, 11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9; CPR, 1446-52, p. 17; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 83, 298. Membership of even the wider royal household probably played its part in securing Nanfan an independent command in France, even though the later tradition that he had conducted himself with considerable valour in his earlier campaigns cannot be discounted. Nanfan mustered at Barham Down in June 1435 with a retinue of 40 men-at-arms and 340 archers, alongside a force assembled by Sir Christopher Talbot*, son of John, Lord Talbot. Later in the same year, he was appointed captain of Meaux, the very town where his first lord, the earl of Worcester, had lost his life 14 years earlier, and which had subsequently been under the command of Nanfan’s more recent master, the earl of Warwick.30 Maclean, ‘Birt’s Morton’, 191; Gilbert, i. 1408; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 475, 490; E403/719, mm. 6, 7, 13; E404/51/311; 57/157-8; E101/53/13; CP, xii (2), 381. Nanfan retained this captaincy for at least a year, and probably until the early months of 1438, when he exchanged it for a similar post at Touques. He must have carried out his duties by deputy for at least part of this time, for he continued to hold his Welsh offices and was periodically required to attend in person about the earl, who in July 1437 was appointed lieutenant general and governor of France and Normandy. When Warwick died at Rouen on 30 Apr. 1439 Nanfan was in his personal retinue and may in the first instance have remained behind in France to settle his master’s affairs when the earl’s body was returned to England.31 CP, xii (2), 381-2; E101/53/13; E404/57/157-8; Bibliothèque Nationale, fr 26064/3416; 26079/6146; Sinclair, 352; PPC, v. 225. Following Countess Isabel’s death just eight months after Warwick’s, Nanfan, already a feoffee of the Warwick estates, as well as a member of the King’s household, must have seemed a natural choice to be included among the keepers of her lands during the minority of her son and heir.32 CFR, xvii. 122. Probably familiar with Henry Beauchamp from his birth, Nanfan was one of a group of household servants who were associated with him in royal grants such as that of the custody of the estates and heir of Sir William Bodrugan* in April 1442, and he was appointed the earl’s constable and receiver of his lordship of Cardiff in August 1443.33 CPR, 1441-6, p. 83; 1446-52, p. 268; CFR, xvii. 249; E159/219, brevia Easter rot. 10d. About the same time, he headed a group of Cornishmen whom William Clerk alias Tanner, who had married Bodrugan’s widow, accused of having conspired to have him indicted and imprisoned on false charges of purloining the Bodrugan muniments, which rightfully pertained to the earl of Warwick.34 CP40/736, rot. 338; 737, rot. 311. Two years later, Henry Beauchamp, newly elevated to a dukedom, appointed him to the Warwick chamberlainship of the Exchequer which was then in his gift, just months after Nanfan had been elected to the Commons as one of the knights of the shire for Worcestershire (where he had served a second term as deputy sheriff by Beauchamp’s nomination in 1441-2). The young duke of Warwick had barely attained his majority when he in turn died in June 1446, leaving a single daughter, Anne, an infant of just over two years. The Beauchamp estates were taken into the King’s hands, and Henry VI’s cash-starved regime lost little time in redistributing the resources of patronage now at its disposal: within two days of the duke’s death Nanfan’s offices of constable of Cardiff and master forester of Glamorgan and Morgannok were granted to John Wenlock*. Nanfan in his turn must have used his own connexions at court to complain of his treatment, and on 17 July 1447 he was granted an annuity of £60 from the Warwick estates to compensate him for his lost fees. This arrangement was only to remain in force during Anne Beauchamp’s life, and when the young countess died in January 1449 Nanfan attempted to recover his offices which remained in the King’s hands during the minority of the heir, George Neville, son and heir of Elizabeth Beauchamp, Anne’s aunt of the half-blood, who had married Edward Neville, Lord Abergavenny. On 7 July 1449 the King confirmed all of Nanfan’s Welsh appointments, yet such was the confusion of the administration that less than a month later, on 2 Aug., the same offices were granted to two other members of the Household, Sir Edmund Hungerford* and Hugh Kemys.35 CPR, 1441-6, p. 437; 1446-52, pp. 17, 121, 268, 274-5; CCR, 1447-54, p. 3; E159/226, recorda Mich. rot. 17d; 227, brevia Easter rot. 11.

Important though Nanfan’s bonds with the royal household and the earls of Warwick were, they did not prevent him from playing his part as a member of county society both in his native Cornwall and in his adopted county of Worcestershire. In Cornwall, where he held the shrievalty four times, he was added to the bench in 1442. He had previously served for several years as sub-bailiff of the hundred of Penwith for the powerful Sir John Arundell I* of Lanherne, who held the hundred in fee from the duchy of Cornwall, and with whom Nanfan’s family was connected by ties of feudal tenure. Arundell appears to have placed considerable trust in Nanfan, who in 1429 had been among the witnesses to Sir John’s complicated settlement of his vast estates.36 Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 293-4; Cornish Lands of the Arundells (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. n.s. xli), 14, 29, 32, 67, 83, 108; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR2/740; CCR, 1429-35, p. 245. Some years later, Nanfan would marry Arundell’s twice-widowed daughter-in-law, Joan Colshull, and by virtue of her dower from her second husband himself become tenant of some of the Arundell estates. Joan was appointed executrix by her second husband, Sir Renfrew Arundell, and the settlement of his affairs not only embroiled the Nanfans in protracted litigation, but eventually caused a serious rift with Sir John Arundell’s grandson and ultimate heir who laid claim to a stake of some £500 in the inheritance.37 C67/39, m. 17; E159/223, brevia Mich. rots. 47d, 52d; CP40/781, rot. 444; 786, rots. 118, 119, 145; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. 1110.

Perhaps the most important of Nanfan’s south-western connexions was Sir William (later Lord) Bonville*, for whom he found sureties at the Exchequer in 1443, while among the lesser (albeit in Cornish terms not insignificant) gentry with whom he associated were men such as Richard Kendale*, Thomas Bodulgate* (a fellow member of the royal household), Richard Joce* and John Treworgy, who in their turns served as Nanfan’s mainpernors, Thomas Penarth*, who would serve under him in the Channel Islands in the early 1450s, and John Bassett for whom he attested property transactions later in the decade.38 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 83, 424; 1452-61, p. 48; CFR, xvii. 249; xviii. 182, 199-200; CCR, 1454-61, p. 226; CP40/781, rot. 422. Closer ties of trust connected him with the Colyns of Helland. Alongside his brother-in-law, John Colshull, Nanfan served as a feoffee of John Colyn†, one of the county coroners, and guaranteed the descent of the manor of ‘Penvrane’ to Colyn’s daughter Elizabeth. Within a few months of Colyn’s death in 1444, he took his underage son, Otto, into his own household, challenging the interests of the powerful earl of Devon, Thomas Courtenay, who claimed Otto’s wardship as his own, and began legal proceedings which were still continuing in the early 1450s. Meanwhile, Otto became one of Nanfan’s most trusted servants and would later act as his deputy in the Channel Islands.39 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 640; KB27/733, rot. 25; 743, rot. 72; 749, rots. 38d, 89d; 755, rot. 37; CFR, xviii. 182; E159/232, recorda Trin. rot. 1; Maclean, Trigg Minor, ii. 37; Arundell mss, AR1/353, 355, 356.

Among his immediate relatives, Nanfan seems to have maintained close contacts with his kinsman James Nanfan*. In the early 1440s, the two men had been associated with the young earl of Warwick in the acquisition of the Bodrugan wardship, and some 25 years after John’s death the Cornish esquire Richard Flamank would claim that the two Nanfans had colluded in disseising his grandfather (another Richard Flamank) of certain family estates in ‘Treburthek Pye’.40 C1/81/64, 65. In December 1446 John’s connexions at court allowed him to secure the wardship of James’s grandson, John Trenewith*. For this he agreed to pay a fine of £40, but it is not clear whether he ever made this payment, for Nanfan’s own brother-in-law, Sir John Colshull, challenged the Crown’s title to the wardship, which he claimed for himself. Colshull lost little time in seizing the heir and his lands, and by the time that the resultant lawsuit came to be heard in Chancery in October 1448 Nanfan had lost interest, since Trenewith had in the interim reached full age.41 CPR, 1446-52, p. 51; A.R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parl. 178; C44/29/18.

Nanfan’s ties in Worcestershire are rather less well documented, but it appears that he was closely acquainted with the local landowner Sir William Peyto‡, for whom in 1445 he found substantial sureties of 250 marks for debts owing to the executors of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, and who in turn stood surety for him in the acquisition of the custody of the Trenewith heir the following year. Other local men with whom he maintained at least professional contact were the lawyers Thomas Portalyn* and William Menston, and the local landowner Thomas Charlecote alias Pratte (who through his marriage had some claim to Nanfan’s property at Berrow), while he must have been in frequent contact with other prominent members of the Beauchamp circle such as John Vampage*, John Throckmorton I* and Sir William Mountfort*.42 CP25(1)/260/27/39, 40; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 356, 369; CFR, xvii. 122; CPR, 1446-52, p. 51.

As an esquire for the body ‘attending about the King’s person’ Nanfan enjoyed Henry VI’s personal trust,43 E159/233, brevia Easter rot. 1d. and was thus charged with potentially delicate missions such as an embassy to the duchess of Burgundy in early 1451, in which he was accompanied by William Herbert* of Raglan, a fellow household esquire.44 Ferguson, 191; E404/67/128-9; 69/189; E403/785, m. 1; 796, m. 3; 800, m. 1; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 414, 451. Nanfan subsequently seems to have maintained his ties with Herbert, for whom he would later stand surety to the Crown: CPR, 1452-61, p. 360. From the autumn of 1450 he served in a series of shrievalties: in Cornwall in 1450-1, in Wiltshire the following year, Cornwall again in 1456-7 and the next year in Devon. Since these terms of office coincided with numerous other duties away from his shires, it is not entirely surprising to find him frequently embroiled in litigation over his official conduct, proceedings which would continue beyond his own death.45 E159/213, brevia Trin. rot. 21; 234, brevia Hil. rot. 8d; C67/53, m. 12; E13/145B, rots. 18d, 28. Yet, rewards also continued to flow. In December 1450 Nanfan was granted custody of the duchy of Cornwall borough and manor of Helston-in-Kirrier for a period of seven years, and just five months later this term was extended to a full 20 years.46 CFR, xviii. 182, 199-200; B.P. Wolffe, R. Demesne in English Hist. 254. Although removed from his position in the Household in the autumn of 1454 when the size of the royal establishment was reduced owing to the King’s incapacity, by February 1457 he was once more an esquire for the body, as such receiving an annuity of 50 marks from the manors of Cookham and Bray for his fee. Two months later he shared a grant of the royal forests of Clarendon, Groveley, Melchet and Buckholt with James Butler, earl of Wiltshire.47 E159/233, brevia Easter rot. 1d; 234, brevia Hil. rot. 8; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 342, 419.

Despite Nanfan’s proximity to the King, he experienced the same difficulty in securing payment (both of his wages for his service in France and of his annuities) from Henry VI’s increasingly desperate regime as less favoured men. While serving at Meaux he had to agree with the duke of York to accept just half of the £2,700 owing to him for the wages of himself and his retinue, and the exchequer process over the outstanding sums dragged on for several years after he had relinquished his captaincy. Over the years a number of tallies issued to him had to be reassigned, and in 1444 he was still owed over £1,600, for which he received an assignment on the customs of London, Hull, Ipswich and Boston. These customs were, however, already committed far into the future, so just a few months later Nanfan was granted exemption from the payment of coinage and customs on tin from his Cornish estates.48 E403/743, m. 4; 747, m. 12; 816, m. 2; E159/216, brevia Trin. rot. 11d; 217, recorda Hil. rot. 5, brevia Mich. rot. 35, Hil. rot. 4; 223, brevia Easter rot. 8d, Trin. rot. 19; 231, brevia Mich. rot. 13(ii)d; 233, brevia Easter rot. 1d; 234, brevia Hil. rot. 8; CPR, 1441-6, p. 315; 1446-52, p. 419.

By 1449 the English position in Normandy had grown untenable, and a year later the duchy was lost to the French in its entirety. Nanfan was still formally captain of Touques in September 1449, but left the humiliating task of surrendering the castle to Edward Bromfield, who had perhaps previously served as his deputy. He himself soon found himself redeployed elsewhere. In March 1450 Richard Neville, the new earl of Warwick, was put in control of the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, the last bastion which stood between England and France, once the last English foothold on the Norman mainland had been lost. Not much over two years later, in July 1452, he was replaced by Nanfan, who was appointed warden and governor of the islands for a period of five years to run from 24 Sept., and who mustered with a force of 130 archers, four ships for the crossing having been arrested in the port of Poole.49 Wolffe, 259; CPR, 1446-52, p. 585.

In view of Nanfan’s earlier close relations with the Beauchamps and his military record, there is no reason to suppose that his appointment did not meet with the earl of Warwick’s approval. He already possessed ties with the Nevilles: Earl Richard’s sister, Cecily, had been Henry Beauchamp’s wife, and in 1447 Nanfan had been associated with their father, Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, in an enfeoffment of lands in Berkshire. By that time he was also a feoffee for Salisbury’s brother, Edward Neville, Lord Abergavenny, and within a few years he was attesting charters for Warwick himself alongside other prominent members of the earl’s retinue.50 CCR, 1447-54, p. 65; CPR, 1476-85, p. 97; E159/223, brevia Mich. rots. 47d, 52d; C67/39, m. 17. Warwick, for his part, had served the King loyally during Cade’s rebellion, and had been granted a substantial reward for this service.51 E13/145B, rot. 3d; M.A. Hicks, Warwick, 49. Subsequently, however, he had taken sides against the court party of the dukes of Suffolk and Somerset in the ensuing political crisis, and after Somerset’s recovery of his position about the King had seen his influence wane.52 Hicks, 76. If the earl’s removal from the captaincy of the Channel Islands represented a snub on the part of the government, the appointment of Nanfan who, albeit a household esquire, was also a member of Warwick’s circle, may have represented a compromise which allowed the earl to retain a measure of influence. The lordship of the Channel Islands had come to Warwick as part of his wife’s inheritance, and there is no indication that he considered his authority diminished by Nanfan’s appointment as the Crown’s representative there: in 1455 he was still writing to Nanfan as lord of the islands, and as late as May 1459 his rule seems to have been recognized there.53 T. Thornton, ‘Jersey and Guernsey’, in Authority and Consent ed. Bernard and Gunn, 199-200.

The government attributed great importance to the Channel Islands and – by the standards of Henry VI’s reign – made exceptionally generous financial provision for Nanfan and his retinue. Not only was the Exchequer ordered to pay the wages of the garrison for the first quarter of its half-year term in advance, but the new governor was in addition granted all customs dues from the islands and given full powers of search and arrest to ensure that he might be able to enforce his claim. Nevertheless, Nanfan’s task proved fraught from the outset. On his arrival, he found Jersey in ‘grete poverte, myserye and simple state’ on account of a recent French invasion, and before long the supply of money from England dried up. In a state of some exasperation he returned to England in time for the final session of the Parliament of 1453-4, and presented his plight to the Lords. These were in the first instance preoccupied by the need to make provision for the government of the realm during Henry VI’s incapacity, and only in March 1454 did they agree that the King’s agreement with Nanfan ought to be honoured. Nevertheless, John’s performance in office evidently satisfied the authorities, for in September 1457 he was reappointed as warden and governor and his grants of customs were renewed.54 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 55, 294, 332, 387; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 84-85, 159-60, 244-5; SC8/118/5892; E404/68/160; E403/788, m. 5; 814, m. 4; E159/232, recorda Trin. rot. 1; 233, brevia Mich. rot. 25d; 234, brevia Mich. rot. 8d; 235, brevia Mich. rot. 10(i); DKR, xlviii. 392, 424; Hicks, 82, 100, 132; Griffiths, 429, 441. Almost immediately, however, he was recalled to England to take up the shrievalty of Devon, a county only recently in upheaval as a result of the open feuding of the earl of Devon and Lord Bonville.

Nanfan’s removal from the Cornish bench in February 1459 was probably a recognition of his heavy responsibilities outside the county, rather than a symptom of any mistrust on the part of the administration, for only a month earlier he had been confirmed once more as a j.p. in Worcestershire.55 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 662, 681. His whereabouts in the autumn of 1459 have not been ascertained, but it is possible that he was somewhere in England when the desertion of the members of the Calais garrison under Andrew Trollope forced the Yorkist earls of Warwick, March and Salisbury to flee the field of Ludford and seek refuge in Guernsey. Here the fugitives refreshed themselves before sailing on to Calais. Absence from his command would go some way to explain why no blame for offering them succour was attached to Nanfan, whose appointment as governor was renewed for a further ten years in May 1460. Just days earlier, orders had been issued for the repair of the fortifications of the islands, presumably as much as a safeguard against a French attack as against an assault by the Yorkist lords at Calais.56 DKR, xlviii. 441. Conversely, when the exiles invaded England and seized control of the King and the government just two months later, they also allowed Nanfan to remain in post. Following the Lancastrian defeat in the battle of Northampton, Queen Margaret had turned to the French king, Charles VII, for assistance, which he had promised in return for the cession of the Channel Islands. This price the French king was determined to exact, and in May 1461 he authorized an invasion of Jersey by the experienced soldier Pierre de Brézé. When a detachment of de Brézé’s force arrived at the castle of Mont Orgueil, where Nanfan was in personal command, they found the gates and battlements unguarded, and were able to enter unopposed. They discovered the governor asleep in bed, and took him and the garrison captive. Nanfan’s easy capture caused some consternation among the islanders and a great deal of amusement among the French, who quipped that ‘il était bien nommé Nenfant et que pour lors il se monstroit bien n’estre qu’un enfant’.57 Chroniques de Jersey ed. Mourant, 13. Later, a more sinister interpretation was placed on the governor’s inactivity, and there were suggestions that Nanfan, ‘who was of the Lancastrian faction, and the creature of the Queen’ had received secret orders from Margaret to surrender the islands to the French.58 M. de la Croix, Jersey, iii. 80-81. The supposed hostility to the Yorkist regime inherent in this latter conspiracy theory seems hard to reconcile with Nanfan’s long-established ties with the earl of Warwick, so a third explanation (offered by a Latin manuscript chronicle) may be closer to the truth. According to this version of events, the castle of Mont Orgueil was sold to the French commander Robert de Flocques by four brothers from the local gentry family of St. Martin, a story lent plausibility by the earlier clashes between the St. Martins and Nanfan’s deputy Otto Colyn.59 Ibid. 84; Thornton, 201-2. Whatever the truth of the matter, Nanfan did not live to see Jersey recaptured, for he died, perhaps still in French captivity, before May 1463. At the time, he was said to have died intestate and the administration of his goods was entrusted to his Birtsmorton neighbours Thomas Aworthington and Simon West.60 Reg. Bourgchier (Canterbury and York Soc. liv), 203. In fact, it appears that Nanfan had made a will a long time before, in 1446, by which he had asked to be buried in Tewkesbury abbey, made bequests to that house, the priory of St. Michael’s Mount and St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London, appointed the abbot of Tewkesbury among his executors, and named Cecily, duchess of Warwick, as overseer of the will, but this document may have been mislaid or forgotten at the time of his death.61 This will was purportedly seen by the antiquary Thomas Nash in the late 18th cent., and its existence may be confirmed by a royal licence of March 1445 allowing Nanfan to grant lands worth 40 marks to Tewkesbury abbey: Nash, i. 85; CPR, 1441-6, p. 367.

Nanfan was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, then a minor, who was still being prosecuted for the unfinished business of his father’s shrievalties as late as 1483, even though the older Nanfan had been granted a general pardon in January 1458.62 C67/42, m.38; KB27/885, rex rot. 25. John’s widow, Joan, went on to marry William Houghton and died in December 1497, nearly 40 years after her third husband, having inherited the vast estates of her brother, Sir John Colshull. She was buried at Birtsmorton, where she had continued to reside after Nanfan’s death, and probably commissioned the altar tomb in memory of her three husbands and their children which survives in the parish church.63 CFR, xxii. 591; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 680, 769; iii. 366, 436; VCH Worcs. iv. 32-33.