OVERTON, Clement

Overton’s origins are obscure.4 There is a possibility that he was a kinsman of Thomas Overton, Sir John Fastolf’s receiver in Normandy, who in a suit before the parlement of Paris claimed to be a well-educated clerk from Winchester with lands in both England and Normandy. But Fastolf countered that he had raised his servant from a mean estate: English Suits Parlement of Paris (Cam. Soc. ser.4, xxvi), 231-68, 300-1. The first reference to him suggests a connexion with the city of London. In 1412 he sued John Preston, the marshal of the Marshalsea, for allowing William Gascoigne, a servant of the canonist Dr. William Lyndwood, to escape from his custody. He had successfully brought a suit against Gascoigne before the civic authorities, but before Gascoigne could pay the 100s. awarded against him he had been committed to the Marshalsea to answer a suit for trespass in King’s bench. In a recognizance taken before the chancellor on 19 Feb. that year Preston and an associate were bound over to pay Overton the 100s. due to him. Overton’s petition to the chancellor, Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, also reveals a Kentish connexion, as one of his sureties was the former Canterbury MP, William Ickham†.5 C1/16/83; CCR, 1409-13, p. 320.

Shortly afterwards, Overton was established in New Romney as bailiff of the Port. The office was in the gift of the archbishop of Canterbury, but as the date of his appointment is not known it is uncertain whether he owed it to Archbishop Arundel, or rather was appointed during the brief period when the temporalities were in the Crown’s hands following Arundel’s death on 19 Feb. 1414. Arundel’s successor, Archbishop Chichele, appointed William Clitheroe† to the post in the following July, before formally re-instating Overton on 7 Dec.6 Reg. Chichele, i. 97, 110-11. In the course of the next 24 years Overton is intermittently recorded serving as bailiff, although his tenure of this poorly-documented office was by no means continuous. By the start of Henry VI’s reign he had been admitted to the freedom of the Port and had begun to pay maltolts, albeit on an irregular basis.7 Assmt. bk. NR/FAc 2, ff. 108, 123v, 137v. This irregularity was probably due to absence on military service in Normandy. While in the duchy in 1419 he had received grants of land in the bailliages of Caux and Rouen,8 DKR, xli. 774; xlii. 316, 367. and a year later he had been appointed captain of Montivilliers. When a muster of his company was taken on 1 June 1422 he himself was said to be elsewhere on royal service, along with one of his retinue, a kinsman named John Overton. Still recorded as captain of Montivilliers in 1433-4,9 Archives Nationales, Paris, K 60/19/1; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English, ii. 545-6. he probably relinquished his command shortly after, and the castle fell to the French in 1436.

Back home, in September 1435 Overton was elected to his first Parliament as a baron for New Romney, alongside the experienced parliamentarian Richard Clitheroe*. Both men received wages for 41 days service at the rate of 2s. a day, and Overton was paid another 3s. for a ‘reward’ given to Geoffrey Lowther*, the lieutenant of Dover castle, probably at the parliamentary elections. A ‘contribution’ of 53s. 4d. which Overton made to the Port’s coffers around that time is not explained. Within two weeks of the dissolution of the Parliament (on 23 Dec.), he was again acting as bailiff of New Romney.10 Assmt. bk. NR/FAc 2, f. 122; feet of fines, NR/JBr 8/19. No doubt because of his experience as a soldier, on 18 Mar. 1436 he was one of those appointed to take the muster of the retinue of Edmund Beaufort, count of Mortain, at Winchelsea. The following month he attended a meeting of the Brodhull as a deputy for Romney, which also reflected on his service in Normandy as this meeting was concerned primarily with the arrangements for shipping the duke of York’s army across the Channel.11 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 8. In January 1437 Overton took his seat in the Commons for a second time as one of the barons for Romney, again accompanying Clitheroe. On this occasion the two men were paid for 71 days’ attendance. Overton’s involvement in the public affairs of east Kent continued the next year when he was appointed as one of the commissioners to investigate wastes on lands belonging to the rectory of Newington by Hythe. He was last recorded as bailiff of New Romney in February 1438 and by August 1439 Clitheroe had replaced him. Meanwhile the jurats of New Romney had discharged a debt of 40s. still owed to him for his parliamentary wages in 1435.12 Assmt. bk. NR/FAc 2, ff. 126v, 129; NR/JBr 8/12, 14-18.

Little is recorded about Overton’s private affairs, and the identity of his first wife, by whom he had two sons, is not known. At some point after 1434 he married the widow of the Thanet landowner, Thomas Salesbury, and in May 1439 the couple sued John Sandeway, who had married Salesbury’s daughter and heir, over the profits of certain property on the Isle of Thanet. In his will Salesbury had instructed his feoffees to assign these profits to his widow, but instead they had delivered seisin to Sandeway and his wife.13 C1/19/27. By that date Overton, accorded the status of an ‘esquire’, had established connexions among the wider Kentish community. For instance, in October 1439, along with John Greenford*, the steward of Dover castle, he stood surety for John Fogg† in a bond to keep the peace towards another Kentishman, John May.14 E159/219, recorda Hil. rots. 21-24d.

Overton had made his will earlier that year, on 21 May, asking to be buried before the altar of St. George in his parish church of St. Nicholas atte Wade on the Isle of Thanet. To his son Nicholas he left his best horse, while his second son and namesake received his next best horse and five marks in cash. Apart from items of clothing bequeathed to the sons and certain servants, the testator’s goods were to remain in the keeping of his widow and executrix. The date of Overton’s death is not known, but he lived on at least five months longer, and probate was not granted until June 1442.15 Reg. Chichele, iv. 597-8. The MP’s elder son, Nicholas, prospered in Lancastrian service in the late 1450s: he was appointed searcher of ships in the port of Sandwich in 1456-8 and again in 1459-60, and in December 1459, immediately after the attainder of the Yorkist lords at Coventry, he was appointed one of the serjeants-at-arms in recognition of his long service on both sides of the Channel. Described in May 1460 as ‘of Chislet, Kent, esquire’, he then stood surety for John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, in a grant of lands lately belonging to the attainted earl of Salisbury. In March both he and his brother had been commissioned to arrest and bring before the King six followers of Salisbury’s son the earl of Warwick.16 CFR, xix. 173, 220, 260, 273; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 533, 605. The fortunes of the brothers after the Yorkist triumph at Northampton and the accession of Edward IV are not recorded.