ARNOLD, John II

There were at least three John Arnolds living in Winchester in the early fifteenth century, but the main outlines of the career of the Hampshire MP are quite clear.3 He was evidently not the John Arnold whom Bp. Wykeham described as ‘noster clericus commensalis’ when, in 1397, he appointed him as his apparitor-general and whom (although not called ‘clerk’) he confirmed in that office in 1402 as a reward for his past service. Two years later that John Arnold received a bequest of £5 in Wykeham’s will: Reg. Wykeham (Hants Rec. Soc. 1896-9), ii. 476, 534; R. Lowth, Wm. of Wykeham, p. xlv. This career began at the very beginning of Henry IV’s reign, when Arnold emerged from obscurity to be appointed one of the new King’s serjeants-at-arms, with a daily wage of 12d. This post involved Arnold in duties throughout the country, and in the following year he was kept busy on commissions of arrest and assisting in the delivery of supplies for a convoy sailing to Scotland in support of Henry IV’s army of invasion. The serjeants-at-arms were expected to impress mariners for royal service, arrange transport for the King’s servants, and conduct official inquiries into concealment of dues to the Crown, in all of which activities Arnold was engaged until the autumn of 1406.4 CPR, 1399-1401, p. 130; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 174.

Although he was to continue to draw his wages from the Exchequer for some time to come, from about 1405 Arnold served not only Henry IV but also his kinsman Henry Beaufort. His close connexion with Beaufort began before November 1402, when he was a member of the entourage which accompanied Beaufort, then bishop of Lincoln, on his voyage to Brittany to escort the King’s consort Joan of Navarre to England, and continued after Beaufort succeeded William of Wykeham as bishop of Winchester. Indeed, when Thomas Warrener, Wykeham’s kinsman, was removed from his office of bailiff of the Soke (which he had held for over 40 years), Arnold was appointed in his place. He remained in the post for perhaps as long as 20 years. From September 1406 he held on a 14-year lease the farm of all the demesne lands pertaining to Wolvesey palace, by Beaufort’s grant. Even more important, in 1407 the bishop made him his receiver at Wolvesey with responsibility for all the revenues of his wealthy diocese. Arnold attended the parliamentary elections for Hampshire held at Winchester in 1411, and two years later he was himself returned to Henry V’s first Parliament, which Beaufort opened as chancellor. While the Parliament was in session Arnold, styled ‘esquire’, stood surety for John Arnold ‘junior’, the newly-appointed joint alnager of Hampshire, who may well have been his son of that name.5 Winchester Coll. muns. 1083, 1104, 1128; E368/180, m. 108; 181, m. 110d; C219/10/6; CFR, xiv. 8; E101/320/38; Reg. of the Common Seal, 98. His wages as a royal serjeant-at-arms were confirmed by Henry V a year later in April 1414 ‘so that he be not retained with anyone else’, and they continued to be paid at the Exchequer for a further six years, even though there are few signs that he performed the duties expected of a serjeant in this period. He took out a pardon as ‘serjeant-at-arms alias of the Soke of Winchester’ on 12 Oct. 1415.6 CPR, 1399-1401, p. 130; 1413-16, p. 182; E404/35/129; C67/37, m. 21.

Arnold, like his younger namesake, was also involved in the cloth trade which flourished in and around Winchester, and it was perhaps he who in 1401-2 had been assessed for alnage on a small quantity of cloth sold in the city. The properties let to him by Beaufort in 1406 included, for the large annual rent of 40 marks, three local mills, two of which were used for fulling. Arnold’s powerful position as bailiff of the Soke enabled him to interfere with the workings of one of the city’s own mills, and a year later the fullers of Winchester complained that he ‘impedivit et interrupit cursum aque, preponens distruccionem et deterioracionem dicti molendi’, thus harming their industry. He was evidently on better terms later with at least one of their number, for he acted as executor of a draper named John Moule.7 E101/344/17; VCH Hants, v. 49; CPR, 1422-9, p. 238; Black Bk. Winchester ed. Bird, 191; Reg. of the Common Seal, 98.

Arnold was much in demand as an executor, and is known to have been asked to act as such by Dr. Thomas Ayleward (the parson of Havant and himself one of Bishop Wykeham’s executors), Thomas Lavington (the rector of Meon Stoke), and Thomas, 2nd Lord West. The last, in his will of 1 Aug. 1415, left Arnold the sum of ten marks, but after West’s death at sea in the following year he and his fellows refused to undertake the administration of the will. Arnold attended the Hampshire elections to the Parliaments of 1414 (Nov.) (when Lewis John*, a close associate of Bishop Beaufort’s cousin, Thomas Chaucer*, was elected), 1419 and 1420.8 C219/11/5; 12/3, 4; CPR, 1416-22, p. 19; Reg. Wykeham, i. p. xii; Reg. Chichele, ii. 98; Winchester Coll. muns. 19859, 19916; Hants RO, Reg. Beaufort, pt. 4, ff. 11, 43.

The full extent of Arnold’s property in and near Winchester is not known, though he certainly owned some buildings in Kingsgate Street, and leased from St. Swithun’s priory a lime-kiln and fishery. In 1431 his premises in the city were valued at £4 p.a. Although by then he had ceased to act as bailiff of the Soke, his commendable services to Cardinal Beaufort were by no means forgotten. In January 1433 the cardinal granted him and his son John the office of apparitor-general of the diocese for term of their lives in survivorship. Arnold senior did not occupy it for long: both he and his widow were dead by June that year.9 Winchester Coll. muns. 1080, 1083, 1092, 1287, 18076; Reg. of the Common Seal, 101; Feudal Aids, ii. 374.