SKILLING, John

Skilling came from a line of lawyers. His grandfather, Michael Skilling, was ‘King’s attorney’ to Richard II,3 CIPM, xv. 14-15. and his father, after whom he was named, was active in the administration of Wiltshire and Hampshire, including a term as escheator in the joint bailiwick in 1390-1 and several years as a j.p. of the quorum in Hampshire until July 1423 (his last appointment being dated February 1422). Despite this activity, John senior did not apparently ever sit in Parliament: our MP was called ‘junior’ on the return.

The Skillings had settled at Rushall in the Avon valley in the early fourteenth century. In 1389 our MP’s parents granted at farm to the local parson substantial parcels of arable land and pasture for some 500 sheep, in return for an annual payment of 50s. Besides this they had more landed holdings in the same area, notably at Cholderton, Upavon and Netheravon, in Wiltshire, as well as across the Hampshire border at Shoddesden, which were entailed on them and their issue.4 Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 38; Hungerford Cart. (ibid. xlix), 272-3, 275. John Skilling the elder also held the manor of ‘Rolveston’, for which he paid an annual rent of £5 10s. to Sir Hugh Cheyne† (d.1390) of Laverstock.5 CIPM, xvi. 819; CFR, x. 326. In 1403 he made a quitclaim to Sir Thomas Skelton† and his wife of the manor of Crawlboys and lands in Collingbourne and Biddesden, but all of these returned later to his son the MP.6 CCR, 1402-5, pp. 273-4. In 1412 John senior’s annual income from land in Hampshire and Wiltshire was assessed for the purposes of taxation at £65, placing the family among the moderately affluent gentry of the region.7 Feudal Aids, vi. 457, 538.

John Skilling was first recorded (as ‘the younger of Hampshire’) in December 1408 when he stood surety in £100 that he would bring the parson of Monxton into Chancery in the next Hilary term.8 CCR, 1405-9, p. 480. He was probably the esquire of this name who enlisted in the retinue of Sir Walter Hungerford† for Henry V’s invasion of Normandy in 1415, fought at Agincourt, and served under Sir Walter again in the following year. In that summer of 1416 a naval expedition put to sea to relieve the garrison of Harfleur, then under Franco-Genoese blockade. On 26 July Hungerford was appointed one of two admirals of the fleet which was under the general command of the duke of Bedford, and participated in the great English naval victory of the Seine on 15 Aug. A few days later, however, on the 28th, he and his retainer Skilling were both given sick-leave: Bedford, on board the Holy Ghost in the Seine, licensed the two men to return home to convalesce. Perhaps they had been injured in the battle.9 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Radnor mss, 490/1547. Despite this, Skilling was ready for further military service a year later, and on 1 Aug. 1417 he took out letters of attorney to cross to France in Henry V’s army, probably as a member of Hungerford’s company yet again.10 DKR, xliv. 601. Perhaps he remained with Hungerford, who was steward of the royal household, until the King and his entourage returned to England early in 1421. He may have been the John Skilling who sued a Wiltshire man for a debt of £20 in the court of common pleas in Michaelmas term 1422, not long after the King’s death.11 CP40/647, rot. 92.

Skilling was elected for Ludgershall to the Parliament summoned to meet at Leicester on 18 Feb. 1426. The borough was only a very short distance from the family manors of Crawlboys and Shoddesden, so he must have been well known to the inhabitants. Yet he may also have owed his return to a connexion with the influential diplomat and former Speaker Sir William Sturmy*, who farmed the royal lordship at Ludgershall and was chief steward of Queen Joan’s estates in the region. Skilling’s father had had private dealings with Sturmy, and in his youth the MP himself appears to have been attached to the household of Sturmy’s younger daughter, Agnes – for he had been at Marsh on the Isle of Wight in 1407 when she had given birth to her son William Ringbourne*.12 CIPM, xxiii. 421. Which John Skilling (called ‘senior’) transferred revenues from the dowager queen’s Wiltshire estates to her treasurer and receiver-general in May 1430, is unclear,13 SC6/1054/25. but it looks as if our MP’s father had died at some point before 1428. In that year the ‘heirs’ of John Skilling were said to be in possession of certain lands in Wiltshire, although a John Skilling was recorded as holding family property in fee, as of the duchy of Lancaster.14 Feudal Aids, v. 241, 243, 271. It was presumably our MP who was assessed for taxation on holdings worth £20 p.a. in Hampshire eight years later.15 E179/173/92.

The date of Skilling’s marriage to one of the daughters of the Hampshire landowner Edward Cowdray, and the terms of their contract is not recorded, although it had taken place within a few months of his Parliament, for in December 1426 he and his wife were named in the settlement of the manor of Herriard and specified lands in Hampshire and Berkshire which Cowdray was to hold for life with successive remainders in tail to his sons and their heirs, and then to his two daughters.16 Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/451. In 1429 Skilling was a juror at inquisitions post mortem conducted in Hampshire, as well as testifying at the proof of age of William Ringbourne, for whom he subsequently acted as a feoffee.17 CIPM, xxiii. 217, 421; KB27/684, rot. 55. The reason why in June 1433 he conveyed to Sir Walter Hungerford, now Lord Hungerford, and his nominees all his messuages, lands, tenements and rents in Rushall and Upavon can only be guessed, although this may have been a sale or a mortgage, suggesting that Skilling was then in financial difficulties. A few days later, at Hungerford’s request, he made a declaration that the only property of which he remained sole possessed in fee simple were the manors of Shoddesden and Crawlboys, which together with various other holdings in Hampshire and Wiltshire were unencumbered by entails or recognizances of debts. The judge William Westbury and Sir John Stourton II* witnessed the conveyance.18 Hungerford Cart. 276-8; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 248, 252; CP40/690, att. rot.

Skilling took the generally administered oath against maintenance in Hampshire in 1434,19 CPR, 1429-36, p. 396. but is not recorded alive after he attested the shire elections for the third time, to the Parliament of 1437. His precise relationship to a more distinguished figure, Michael Skilling (d.1463) of Sparsholt, who in 1436 had lands in the same county valued at £26 p.a., is not explained.20 E179/173/92; VCH Hants, iii. 445-6. A well-regarded lawyer, Michael received fees as legal counsel to the authorities at Southampton;21 Southampton City Archs., Soton. recs. SC5/1/7, f. 18; 8, f. 20v. and for at least seven years from August 1453 he served as justiciar of the bishop of Winchester’s court of pavilion at St. Giles fair.22 Hants RO, Reg. Waynflete, pt. 1, f. 4*; bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls 11M59/B1/190, 192, 193 (formerly 155827, 155828, 159444). A j.p. in Hampshire from 1439 to 1461, he was referred to as ‘that nobylle man Mayster Mykelle Skyllyng’, a ‘notabylle man and the most petefullyste judge of al thys londe in syttyng apon lyffe and dethe’.23 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 363, 407; Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 199-200; J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1406-7. He died bef. 8 Oct. 1463, having named a John Skilling among his executors: Reg. Waynflete, pt. 1, f. 79v*. It seems likely, however, that Michael was not our MP’s son. By 1482 the latter’s heir was Elizabeth, then wife of Thomas Wayte, described as daughter of John, son of John Skilling ‘the elder’. Together with her husband she held Shoddesden and Crawlboys as well as land at Biddesden and Netheravon, and the office of woodward of the forest at Collingbourne.24 VCH Hants, iv. 374; CCR, 1476-85, nos. 959, 1342; 1485-1500, no. 109; R.C. Hoare, Modern Wilts. (Ambresbury), 101-2.