NEWPORT, John I

As a younger son, John was virtually landless at the time of his election to Parliament, and was apparently then residing at the family home at Soberton. It may not have been until later in the 1440s that he acquired lands and rents of his own, perhaps through marriage. He is first recorded, on 8 Dec. 1439, standing surety at the Exchequer for his widowed mother, Elizabeth, when she purchased the marriage of her godson John Philipot* and the keeping of the young man’s manor of Woodhall in Kelshall, Hertfordshire, which had been surrendered by his elder brother, Richard; and he took on the task of executing her will some ten years later.3 CFR, xvii. 120; CPR, 1436-41, p. 357; CCR, 1447-54, p. 124.

Newport forged a career for himself initially as a ‘familier’ and esquire in the household of Richard, duke of York. No doubt hoping to win his fortune fighting under York’s banner in the wars in France, he mustered at Portsdown in the duke’s retinue prior to embarkation in March 1441 and crossed to Normandy where York resumed office as the King’s lieutenant.4 E101/53/33. Unfortunately, having been taken prisoner at Dieppe in 1443, he was held to ransom for 1,500 salus and had to turn to York’s retainer (Sir) Walter Devereux I*, the bailli of Caux, for help. Devereux pledged 400 salus to Griffith Doon esquire towards the payment of the ransom, which sum Newport undertook to pay him back in September 1445. Surprisingly, Henry VI also assisted him in his need: in March 1446 the King generously gave him £100 and granted him a licence to ship 40 pockets of ‘pille’ wool and lambswool and 2,000 skins called ‘shorlyngs and moreyns’ free of subsidies to help free him from the debt. Before too long Newport was accepted as an esquire in the royal household.5 Longleat House, Wilts., Devereux pprs. DE/1/7; E404/62/235; Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 454; E101/410/1.

Back home, Newport was appointed escheator of Hampshire and Wiltshire for the term beginning in November 1446, and on the following 6 Feb. he was elected at Winchester to represent his home county in the Parliament summoned to assemble at Bury St. Edmunds just four days later. His companion in the Commons was Robert Fiennes*, like him a landless younger son and member of the Household, albeit with a father and uncle on intimate terms with the King. For some time Newport’s brother Richard had been an official on the estates pertaining to the bishopric of Winchester by appointment of Cardinal Beaufort, and it was in association with him and their friend John Wayte that he was drawn into upheavals linked with the administration of those estates in Hampshire that same year, as Beaufort’s death (in April 1447) and the succession of Bishop Waynflete prompted disturbances. Together with his brother and Wayte he was sent by Waynflete to put down a revolt of tenantry at East Meon that summer, and all three were accused (and indicted) of maltreating John Bishop of Hamble-le-Rice, either at Bishop’s home on Southampton Water, or at Waynflete’s lordship at Farnham.6 C1/16/436-8; KB27/752, rex rot. 27d; Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe roll, 11M59/B1/184 (formerly 159438). Newport later claimed to have been on sufficiently good terms with another member of the nobility, William, earl of Arundel, as to name him in February 1448 as a feoffee of all his lands and recipient of his goods and chattels.7 CCR, 1447-54, p. 405, where the earl is named John by mistake.

As yet, Newport retained the good will of his former lord the duke of York, and was perhaps the man of this name who was mustered in June 1448 under Thomas Mulsho*, York’s lieutenant at Pont de l’Arche.8 Add. Ch. 6987. It is not known when York misguidedly appointed him steward of the Isle of Wight. After his dismissal from this post, Newport’s behaviour in office was to become the subject of petitions to Parliament from the inhabitants of the island. It was alleged that although his fee was only ten marks a year he ‘kepte an houshold and a countenance like a Lord, with as rich wynys as couthe be ymagened, namyng himsilf Newport the Galaunt, otherwise Newport the riche’, so that the ‘contray courson dayly that evir he com ther’. ‘For the whiche mysgovernaunce’ York discharged him from office. Newport’s response was to gather ‘other of his secte’ in the summer of 1449 and so threaten the people of the island by land and sea that many deserted it, leaving it indefensible. Having ‘no lyvelode to mentayne his gret countenaunce’ except what he grasped by extortion, he was accused of many offences, the worst being ‘morthering the kinggis peple and his frendis, castyng them owte of har vessellis into the see, as thei have be comyng to the port of Hampton’ and extortionately seizing great quantities of corn in the King’s name. His piractical acts allegedly resulted in the loss to customs revenues of 5,000 or 6,000 marks a year, clearly an exaggeration.9 RP, v. 204-5 (cf. PROME, xii. 157). Perhaps to this same period should also be assigned Newport’s alleged theft of a ship called the Christopher and its cargo of armour, chests, clothes, three dozen spears and axes and bills, all belonging to John Parnell, a baker from Portsmouth, whom he got thrown into gaol at Winchester on suspicion of felony.10 C1/16/406-7. Despite all this, Newport remained a trusted member of the royal household. In the same summer of 1449 Charles VIII had reopened the war across the Channel, and his armies entered the duchy of Normandy. The English collapse was swift. Rouen fell on 29 Oct., and on 15 Nov. Newport was paid ten marks for going as the King’s messenger to Normandy. Barely three weeks later, on 5 Dec., he and Robert Galant were instructed to organize the victualling of the towns of Harfleur and Honfleur, then under siege by land and sea; a warrant was issued to pay him 20 marks for the transport of supplies, but the beleagured garrisons surrendered on 1 Jan. 1450.11 E101/410/3; E404/66/77, 95; CPR, 1446-52, p. 301.

It was probably at this stage that the petitions against Newport from the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were presented to the Parliament which had first assembled on 6 Nov. 1449, most likely during either the session of January-March (at Westminster) or that meeting at Leicester from April to June. The petitioners were well aware of the immediate danger of attacks on their island following the fall of Normandy, and recounted the credible reports of men returning home from the duchy that the French intended to launch an invasion. Five years earlier, they said, the island had boasted 10,000 fencible men and 30 knights and esquires. Now, because of war, pestilence and Newport’s tyrannical rule, there remained only a ‘skante 700’ men capable of fighting, no knights and only one esquire, namely Henry Bruyn* (like Newport an esquire of the royal household), whom York had appointed steward in his place (and on whom, in contrast to their opinion of Newport, the petitioners heaped praise). Rumour had it that because of the Act of Resumption in the process of being passed by the Parliament the island would soon return to the King’s hands, out of York’s control, and that Newport ‘sewith dailli to the King’ to be lieutenant, steward and receiver there. It was also ‘openli spoken and noysed’ that Newport had ‘sold’ the island (presumably to the French).12 RP, v. 204-5. That Newport still had access to royal patronage at the beginning of 1450 is clear from the warrant issued on 25 Feb. instructing the Exchequer to pay him 100 marks as a reward for his good service,13 E404/66/120. but his ambitions to be lieutenant of the Isle of Wight came to nothing in June, when John, Lord Beauchamp of Powick, received the appointment, a matter of days before Beauchamp was also made treasurer of England in place of the ill-fated James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele.14 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 330, 333.

It is of interest to note that a month later one Robert Spicer of Newport attempted to become ‘captain and governor’ of the island (only to be later indicted for treason), especially as the rebel’s name brings to mind that of Newport’s father, the sometime pirate.15 KB9/109/10. Indeed, John himself was referred to by the same alias (‘otherwise called John Spicer’) in yet another petition, which was presented by the Commons to the Parliament of 1450-1, most likely during the last two weeks of the first session, which ended on 18 Dec. In this petition the Lower House asked that certain named persons (numbering 29 altogether and including Newport) should be permanently removed from the King’s household, banished to outside a radius of 12 miles from his presence, and made to forfeit their household offices as from the previous 1 Dec. Henry VI’s reply was that he would be attended by whomsoever he wished, but he agreed that some of those named might be suspended for one year pending inquiries. Even so, Newport continued to receive his fees at the Household without interruption for at least two years longer. The petitioners’ list of proscribed persons was headed by the King’s chief minister Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, whose London house had just been ransacked by followers of the duke of York (recently returned to England from Ireland). Despite his dismissal from York’s employment, Newport had not gone so far as to seek patronage from his rival Somerset. On the contrary: Duke Edmund later complained to the chancellor that during the night of 10 Dec. Newport had assembled many riotous people to raid his castle at Corfe near the Dorset coast, and after assaulting his servants had made away with goods and chattels to the value of 1,000 marks.16 PROME, xii. 184-6; E101/410/6,9; Procs. Chancery Eliz. ed. Caley and Bayley, i. p. xlvi. However, it seems likely, in view of Newport’s chequered relationship with York, that his raid on Corfe was carried out independently of the looting of Somerset’s London property, and should be regarded simply as an opportunistic attempt at self-aggrandisement typical of the man.

Newport is next recorded on 26 June 1451 when he and John Pennington* of Muncaster in Cumberland entered recognizances in 600 marks to John Titchbourne, but the background to this transaction is obscure, although he and Pennington had both seen service in France under York. That he still had influence at Court is clear from the issue of a warrant on the following 31 Aug. authorizing payment to him of £20 as compensation for various costs and expenses he had suffered at the King’s command, and the accounts of the great wardrobe for 1451-2 record his receipt of livery as one of the eight ‘henchmen’ of the King.17 CCR, 1447-54, p. 272; E404/67/224; E361/6, rot. 45d. It should also be noted that it was only at this stage (on 2 Aug. 1451) that he received an assignment of 100 marks for the reward warranted in Feb. 1450: E403/785, m. 12. On 23 May 1452 he was granted a licence to ship 800 whole cloths from Southampton to the Mediterranean, free of payment of customs and subsidies and evading the Calais staple, to cover the expense of a voyage to Aragon in the King’s service.18 E368/224, rot. 108.

Newport seems to have embarked on a number of similar missions around this time. In preparation for absence, on 9 Sept. the same year he placed his manor of Chark in Titchfield in the hands of feoffees, who included Thomas Uvedale*, his own brother, Richard, and their friend John Wayte. It may have been through marriage to a kinswoman of Wayte’s that he had acquired the manor in the first place, and it was to Wayte’s descendants that it was eventually to pass: a year later, in November 1453, Newport and his wife quitclaimed the manor for themselves and Isabel’s heirs to feoffees and the heirs of Wayte.19 CCR, 1447-54, p. 405; CP25(1)/207/33/38; VCH Hants, iii. 225. Meanwhile, he had set out with Clarenceaux King of Arms as a messenger to Alfonso V of Aragon and Casimir IV of Poland to invest and admit the two monarchs to the Order of the Garter. The herald was paid £20 on 26 Oct. 1452 to cover his expenses, but precisely when the journey was undertaken is unclear. The two kings had still not been formally installed four years later.20 E403/791 m. 2; Reg. Order of the Garter ed. Anstis, i. 156.

About this time (and before 1454) Newport brought a plea in Chancery against Richard Joynour*, the London grocer and creditor of the Crown, for the sum of 100 marks and the return of certain pledges. He said that he had ‘leyde in plegge’ to Joynour a warrant under the privy seal for 100 marks (probably the one issued to him in February 1450), a ‘cowrser’ worth £20 and other items including a silver collar valued at £10, a robe of crimson damask and a Matins book covered with cloth of gold, their total value set at £114, to be redeemed for the sum of £95 which was to be paid on a specified date. Before the day arrived the two men agreed instead that Newport should obtain at the Exchequer a tally for the 100 marks ‘sered’ on Joynour, and make him sufficient estate of all the property he then possessed in London (and worth £20 p.a.), to hold until he was contented of the £95, whereupon Joynour should return all the pledges and pay Newport the 100 marks. Although Newport had kept his side of the arrangement, or so he said, Joynour had not. But Joynour denied the charge, stated that the case was a matter for the common law and demanded costs and damages.21 C1/19/29.

Newport apparently ended his days in the service of the king of Aragon, Alfonso V, as his ‘chamberlain and counsellor’, no doubt owing the connexion to his earlier embassy with the royal herald. He was knighted before June 1456 (but by whom is not clear) when Pope Calixtus III granted him a safe conduct with 15 members of his household. This, initially to last for one year, was extended for seven more after he agreed to be the Pope’s commissary to Bosnia, Slavonia and Albania.22 CPL, xi. 113, 164. The John Newport who attested the Hants elections of 1478 (C219/17/3) was his nephew the lawyer. What became of ‘Newport the Galaunt’ thereafter is not recorded.