SPENCER, John III

There were many contemporaries called John Spencer, and some of the details provided here of the life of the MP for Lyme Regis possibly relate to others of the same name. It is clear, however, that he did not come from a gentry family possessed of much land, and his place of residence in the earlier stages of his career is uncertain. Spencer’s paternal grandfather had lived at Dewlish, some eight miles north of Dorchester,2 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 333-4. but he himself had landed interests further east, and in 1435 he sued neighbours from Hinton Martell and Wimborne Minster for debt and for detaining a pyx containing his title deeds. In the 1440s he was called ‘of Frampton, gentleman’, and this place, some five miles to the north-west of Dorchester, became his more permanent home. He brought pleas against local men for stealing crops there, said to be worth £20.3 CP40/696, rot. 48; 738, rot. 267d.

It may be safely assumed that the MP was the John Spencer who often served as a juror at inquisitions post mortem conducted in Dorset in the reign of Henry VI, doing so most notably after the deaths of John, earl of Arundel, in 1435, and of the earl’s mother Eleanor, widow of Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, 20 years later.4 CIPM, xxii. 657; C139/71/37; 82/47; 85/24; 159/35. We may also be confident that he was the man who in May 1430 shared a grant with Hungerford’s servant Walter Sergeant* of the wardship and marriage of Walter Wothe*, the heir to land in his home county.5 CFR, xv. 321. By that date Spencer had established a close association with the Staffords, the wealthiest landowners in the region, who were seated at Hooke. Later in the same year he was a co-feoffee with John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, of land in Milton upon Stour,6 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 342. and the description then accorded him as ‘esquire’ may point to a position in the household of a dignitary of Stafford’s importance. It may have been to Bishop Stafford, the chancellor, that Spencer owed his appointment as escheator of Somerset and Dorset in November 1438. He was on amicable terms with the bishop’s nephew, William Stafford*, the younger son of Sir Humphrey Stafford* (d.1442). William deeply resented the loss of the principal family estates to Sir James Butler, the earl of Ormond’s heir, who had married the heiress Avice, Sir Humphrey’s grand-daughter. In August 1444 he and his armed followers, among them Spencer, clashed with Butler’s retainers at Lower Kingcombe. In the heat of the confrontation one John Yerdeley was slain. Yerdeley’s widow later appealed Stafford and three others of the murder, and Spencer and more than 30 of his fellows as accessories to the crime. Stafford’s uncle, now archbishop of Canterbury and still chancellor, may have eased their extrication from the legal processes, for in May 1446 several of the accused, including Spencer, were able to obtain royal pardons for any felonies, murders or riots they had committed.7 E13/144, rots. 19, 20; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 438-9.

Other records of Spencer provide a patchy picture. At all three of the parliamentary elections in Dorset of the 1440s which he attended his name was recorded on indentures attesting the returns of John Filoll*. He was a feoffee of land in Lillington in 1446; appeared as ‘esquire’ on the juries at inquisitions post mortem after John, Viscount Lisle, and Sir Edward Hull* fell at the battle of Castillon in 1453; and as ‘formerly of Frampton, gentleman’ he was the defendant in a suit brought in 1455 by John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton, for a debt of £7 13s. 4d.8 Dorset Feet of Fines, 365-6; C139/155/38, 41; CP40/778, rot. 42.

Spencer’s personal circumstances changed in 1450 following the death of his distant kinswoman Alice Deverell. Alice had produced several children for her husband Robert Frampton, but they all died young, leaving Spencer as her heir at common law. He seems to have had difficulties establishing his title to her lands, especially as the taking of an inquisition post mortem was delayed until October 1456, but when this showed him to be heir to property and many acres of land in Combe Deverell, he hastened to have its findings exemplified in letters patent, which issued from Chancery on 20 Dec. following. Even so, the inheritance never came into his possession, for it was kept for life ‘by the courtesy’ by Alice’s widower, who outlived him.9 J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 395-8; ii. 619; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 333-4; C139/162/19.

It was not until late in his life that Spencer was returned to Parliament, as a representative of the borough of Lyme Regis in the Commons summoned to meet on 7 Oct. 1460. He had no known connexion with the town, and while the return of at least five of the MPs from the Dorset boroughs may be attributed to their attachment to the intimate circle of John Newburgh II*, one of the shire knights, he himself is not recorded as belonging to that group. During his time in the Commons he may have lent his support to the regime controlled by the Yorkist lords following their victory at Northampton. Two weeks into the first session he was commissioned to investigate a case of alleged piracy by the crew of Le Petre Courtenay, owned by Sir Hugh Courtenay*, who had been in favour with the Lancastrian court; his fellow commissioners are deemed to have been of Yorkist persuasion.10 CPR, 1452-61, p. 649.

Spencer is not recorded alive thereafter, and he died childless before Michaelmas 1462, leaving his sister Alice, the wife of William Lifelong, as his heir. In a final concord of that date relating to the former Deverell property at Combe Deverell, Alice and her husband were named as parties, and when Robert Frampton died in 1465 she was confirmed as the heir of his late wife Alice Deverell.11 Dorset Feet of Fines, 401; C140/14/35, 36.