SYDNEY, William

A pedigree constructed in the seventeenth century on behalf of the Sidneys of Penshurst, Kent, the descendants of our MP, gave him an illustrious series of ancestors dating from the time of Henry II. Four forged deeds were inserted into the family archive to support the pedigree. Yet in reality the history of the family began with a Surrey yeoman of the late thirteenth century, and their original home was a farm in the parish of Alford on the border of Surrey and Sussex, about ten miles south of Guildford. In 1325 William Sydney made an enfeoffment in tail to Nicholas de Eyot and Isabel his wife of lands at Kingsham near Chichester, together with the advowson of St. Pancras church in the city, and this property was to be reacquired by our MP a century later. More property was accrued in the course of the fourteenth century in the neighbourhood of Cranleigh, together with lands in Bromley and Wonersh, and in 1403 another William Sydney (probably our William’s father) purchased two parts of a moiety of the manor of Loseley. That William and his son William were mentioned in 1408 in connexion with tenements in Rudgwick, just over the Sussex border.10 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. pp. v-ix, 2-3.

The father lived at Cranleigh; the son is commonly distinguished from him as William Sydney ‘of Kingsham’, or ‘the younger’, and was the first member of the family to achieve any distinction. Until this time the Sydneys were little account in county affairs, but our William established himself among the armigerous gentry of Sussex, and his growing reputation as a lawyer specializing in the settlement of landed estates led to constant employment by aristocratic and knightly patrons and election to Parliament.11 There has been much confusion regarding the William Sydneys: the father and son (our MP) and the latter’s two sons of the same name. For clarification, see KB27/849, rot. 40; Add. 39376, ff. 184v, 194. He put the profits of his profession into the expansion of his landed holdings in Sussex, an expansion charted by transactions in 1423 when he bought from the Scardevilles their part of the Kingsham property, and subsequent dealings with John Michelgrove* which were in part intended to consolidate this same estate. His acquisition of Wayhurst in Rudgwick in 1427 was confirmed by the bishop of Chichester six years later. For many years his principal home remained in Sussex, for although he participated in settlements of the family property in Surrey, this did not finally come into his possession until his elderly father’s death in 1449, only three years before his own.12 VCH Suss. iii. 105; Feudal Aids, v. 157; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 3-4.

Of the public career of William Sydney senior little is known, although it was probably he who had been a tax collector in Surrey in 1395, and it is possible that some of the commissions ascribed to his son in the cursus above were in fact directed to him. There is no doubt, however, that the younger William was by far the more able when it came to local administration. Where he was trained in the law has not been discovered, but from the start his clients were by no means all drawn from the south of England, for in 1419 he stood surety for Makelin Walwyn* of Herefordshire, guaranteeing that he would keep the peace towards Sir John Skydemore*; and four years later he was asked to arbitrate in a quarrel over property at Stanwell in Middlesex, presumably at the nomination of one of the parties, Robert Okebourne of Salisbury, who later made him a feoffee of the property in question. Nor was this the only occasion he was asked to make awards in such disputes: in 1428 he did likewise in a matter pending in a bill in Chancery between a widow from Chertsey and a Surrey gentleman.13 CCR, 1419-22, p. 49; 1422-9, pp. 208-10, 394; 1429-35, pp. 51-52.

Both father and son long demonstrated a close interest in the parliamentary representation of Surrey and Sussex. The older William regularly attested the Surrey elections held at Guildford, doing so for nine of the Parliaments between 1414 and 1435, and on two occasions heading the list of attestors. His standing in the county was also made clear by his inclusion among those required to take the oath against maintenance as administered by the shire knights of 1433. The younger William joined his father at the Surrey hustings in the autumn of 1421, but otherwise preferred to attend those held at Chichester for the representatives of Sussex. That he did not appear on the Sussex list of those taking the oath in 1434 was due to his position as one of the knights of the shire responsible for administering it in their locality.14 C219/11/5, 7; 12/2, 6; 13/3, 5; 14/1-5; 15/1, 4; CPR, 1429-36, p. 380. The Parliament of 1433 had been Sydney’s second, and by that date he had not only served on several ad hoc commissions but also for five years as a member of the quorum on the Sussex bench. He continued to be named to the quorum for 24 years without break, until his death, and for a while also served as a j.p. in Surrey, which he represented in Parliament in 1439 while so engaged.

The wealth of evidence of Sydney’s activities as a feoffee and executor indicates that many of the landowners of the region depended on his expertise in the law and regarded him as entirely trustworthy. In the 1420s he was active on behalf of the families of Fust and Thorner,15 Add. Ch. 8871; CP25(1)/240/85/21. and as an executor of the will of John Symond of Barnham he zealously pursued the testator’s debtors in the court of common pleas.16 CP40/740, rot. 51; 754, rot. 38d. The same decade saw him engaged by various members of the nobility. Thus, he was a feoffee of the estates of the late Lord Camoys, inherited by the wives of Ralph Rademylde† and Roger Lewknor*,17 CP40/669, rot. 121. and the earl of Northumberland employed him as steward of his Sussex estates. Together with the earl and Robert, Lord Poynings, Sydney was made a trustee of manors belonging to Thomas Poynings, Lord St. John, for whom he acted as co-patron of one of his livings in 1430, and made settlements on behalf of his widow and heirs three years later.18 CP25(1)/292/66/51; Reg. Chichele, i. 267; Cat. Goodwood Estate Archs. ed. Steer and Venables, i. 36, E274. The wayward Thomas St. Cler entrusted him with his holdings in Sussex in 1427, and this led to further dealings regarding the extensive St. Cler estates (notably while Sydney’s first Parliament was in progress at Westminster in 1429), and to a close business relationship with his fellow lawyer John Halle†. When Halle made his will in 1432 he named Sydney with Lord Poynings among his executors, and they were also among the trustees who made settlements on Halle and his wife shortly before he died. Sydney was still active as Halle’s executor 17 years later.19 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 319, 326; 1429-35, p. 40; CP25(1)/232/71/1; Reg. Chichele, ii. 500; Add. Ch. 30229; Add. 39376, f. 52; CP40/754, rot. 37. Another important connexion, probably also made before his first election to Parliament, was with the influential Sir Roger Fiennes*, who shortly after the Commons were dismissed enfeoffed Sydney of land in Kent and Berkshire, and before too long he had also taken on the feoffeeship of Sir Roger’s impressive castle and manor of Herstmonceux.20 CPR, 1429-36, p. 56; Egerton Ch. 589.

Besides serving the earl of Northumberland, Sydney was also engaged by John Arundel, Lord Mautravers and de jure earl of Arundel, who in the will he made in 1430 named him among his feoffees, and noted that along with the lawyer John Hody* and John Lyly he was owed the sum of 230 marks for bonds they had entered on his behalf. As Arundel’s feoffee Sydney made presentations to churches in his patronage. Following the earl’s death in 1435, his brother William petitioned the chancellor to complain that Sydney and his fellows refused to give him seisin of the lands in Somerset promised to him by their late father and endorsed by Earl John at Rouen a few months earlier.21 CIPM, xxiv. 362-77; Reg. Chichele, i. 298; ii. 543; iii. 490; C1/9/467; Procs. Chancery Eliz. ed. Caley and Bayley, i. p. xxxv; CPR, 1436-41, p. 23. At an unknown date the earl had appointed Sydney as steward of his Sussex lordships, with an annual fee of £10. He was confirmed in office by the Crown, for the duration of the minority of the earl’s young son and heir, Humphrey,22 CPR, 1429-36, p. 468. and probably continued to be steward after Humphrey’s death in 1438 and the succession of his uncle William, for his close involvement in the affairs of the latter and his mother the dowager Countess Eleanor, suggests that he remained in the Arundels’ service until he died. What part, if any, his links to this aristocratic family played in his elections to Parliament in 1429 and 1433 can only be guessed, although it seems very likely that he was one of the lawyers who supported John Arundel when he successfully made his claim to the earldom during the second of these Parliaments.

Sydney’s legal work was by no means confined to the earls of Northumberland and Arundel. The wealthy Sir John Bohun made him a feoffee of his lordship of Midhurst, and as a consequence he was party to the agreement made between Sir John and the townsmen of Midhurst, which brought to an end the disputes between them in 1432.23 W. Suss. RO, Add. mss, 20801; CCR, 1447-54, p. 24. His association with Sir Roger Fiennes, who by the time Sydney was elected to his third Parliament in 1439 had risen to be treasurer of Henry VI’s household, continued with his participation in transactions regarding the estates of Sir Roger’s son-in-law Nicholas Carew* (his fellow knight of the shire for Surrey), and shortly before Fiennes died in 1449 he acted as a feoffee of his property in London.24 Add. Chs. 23178, 23634; CCR, 1435-41, p. 45; 1447-54, p. 100; Corp. London RO, hr 178/2, 3. Also in the City, in the 1430s Sydney became a feoffee of a tenement in Milk Street from which rents were bequeathed to the Cluniac priory at Lewes.25 CAD, ii. A2444. The trusteeship of the estates of Robert Tauk in Sussex and Hampshire caused him trouble with the authorities, for it was suspected that Tauk and his advisors had attempted to prevent the inheritance coming into the possession of the Crown during the minority of Robert’s son Thomas Tauk*.26 CCR, 1435-41, p. 129; CPR, 1436-41, p. 388; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 439-40. In the 1440s Sydney held a supervisory position in the administration of the Sussex manor of Glynde (the subject of litigation),27 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. ed. Dell, 12. and along with the chancellor, Bishop Stafford of Bath and Wells, he took on the feoffeeship of other manors in the county by grant of Sir Godfrey Hilton†.28 CCR, 1441-7, p. 46. In the same decade he also became a feoffee of property in Middlesex which came into the possession of the chancellor of the Exchequer and royal physician, Master John Somerset*.29 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 147-8. Together with Edmund Mille*, another Sussex lawyer who was often his colleague and for whom he acted as a trustee, Sydney was enfeoffed of the reversionary rights to Bodiam manor and castle, on behalf of Richard Dallingridge*, who like him served the earls of Arundel.30 Sel. Cases in Exchequer Chamber, ii (Selden Soc. lxiv), 26-27; CP25(1)/241/90/4. As a feoffee of the estates of William Fynch*, Sydney appeared in the 1440s as a defendant in several suits in the court of common pleas resulting from claims to the wardship of Fynch’s son and heir and the demands of his widow and her new husband Babylon Grantford*.31 Add. 39376, ff. 30v, 56-57, 66v-67, 73.

Sydney also established amicable relations with the diocesan. In 1438 he stood surety for Richard Praty, the dean of the King’s chapel, when he was given keeping of the temporalities of the bishopric of Chichester prior to his installation, and Praty named him among the executors of his will in 1445. Praty’s successor, the ill-fated Bishop Moleyns, had a reversionary interest in lands in Sidlesham, of which Sydney was a feoffee,32 CFR, xvii. 19; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 383-4; Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 128v. and the two men were associated in 1448 as co-feoffees of the widespread estates of Earl William of Arundel.33 CP25(1)/293/71/330; C139/159/35; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 87-90.

Sydney’s activities as legal advisor, feoffee and executor, as well as his commitments in the service of the Crown, left him vulnerable to suits in the law-courts and the processes of the Exchequer. No doubt as a precaution against such prosecutions he took out royal pardons, one in 1437 describing him as ‘of Kingsham, Sussex, and of Cranleigh, Surrey, gentleman’, and another in 1446 in which reference was made to him being a j.p. resident at Chichester.34 C67/38, m. 9; 39 m. 24.

Not surprisingly, this ambitious lawyer sought to expand his landed interests through marriage. What is more unexpected is that only one of his three wives came from Sussex. The first, Cecily, was the only child and heiress of Nicholas Wolbergh, from whom she inherited the manor of Westbury in Shenley, Buckinghamshire. The couple took possession of the manor in 1420 and ten years later settled it in tail-male on their sons, William and Richard.35 VCH Bucks. iv. 449; C139/46/42; CFR, xiv. 339; CP25(1)/22/119/25. Cecily may also have inherited from her father the manor of Wolbergh in Cranleigh, close to the Sydney family property,36 VCH Surr. iii. 225. but a greater attraction for the MP was her potential inheritance from her mother, for the latter, Margaret, was one of the two daughters and coheirs of Hamelin Matham (who had died in 1382 possessed of the manor of Mathams and land in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and that of Molesey Matham and its extensive appurtenances in Surrey), and one of the four daughters and coheirs of Cecily Lyons, who died in 1411 owning half the manor of Great Childerley, Cambridgeshire, and the manor of Great Oakley in Northamptonshire. Margaret, who after Wolbergh’s death had married the London grocer John Mitchell I*, increased her share of her parents’ estates as time went by, notably after the death of her sister Elizabeth in 1421.37 CIPM, xv. 530-1, 1014; CFR, xiii. 222; xiv. 386; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 741-3; VCH Surr. iii. 453-4. However, Sydney’s expectations regarding the Matham and Lyons estate were not to be realized in his lifetime. He was named among the executors of Mitchell’s will, made in 1441,38 PCC 29 Luffenham (PROB11/3, ff. 234v-7). but neither Cecily nor he was still alive when Margaret Mitchell eventually died in 1455: their elder son, William, was one of her three heirs.39 C139/158/31; CFR, xix. 152-3.

Sydney’s second wife appears in the records simply as ‘Isabel St. John’, but there can be no doubt that she came from the ancient and distinguished Sussex family to which William St. John* belonged, and may have been either that MP’s sister or widow. It is likely that she died before the summer of 1445, when a settlement was made regarding Sydney’s manor of Kingsham, together with eight messuages, some 200 acres of land and £2 rent in the same part of west Sussex, all of which were entailed on Sydney and his male issue by her.40 CP25(1)/241/89/19. In this way the interests of Isabel’s children were safeguarded when Sydney took a third wife, Thomasina Barrington, who although of Essex origin was the widow of a Sussex man, William Lunsford. In the following January Sydney assisted her and co-executors of Lunsford’s will in bringing actions for debt in the court of common pleas. Together with Thomasina he took possession in 1451 of lands in Up Waltham, Eartham, Fishbourne and the parish of St. Pancras outside Chichester, which probably formed part of her jointure.41 CP40/740, rot. 351d; Harl. Ch. 54 A 21.

As already noted, even before his father’s death Sydney had acquired property in and near Cranleigh, and on 28 Nov. 1447 he secured from Henry VI a charter to create a park out of 800 acres of land adjoining his manor there, known as ‘Baynards’.42 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 417-18; CChR, vi. 98; VCH Surr. iii. 98, 100. This particular estate at Cranleigh was intended for his eldest son, William, and comprising altogether more than 2,500 acres and 15 messuages, was later (when held in dower by the latter’s widow) estimated to be worth at least £38 p.a.43 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 400-1. None of the Surrey estates were mentioned in the settlements our MP completed at Baynards on 15 Aug. 1451. On that occasion he made further provision for his son and daughter by his second wife and for his children by his third wife, as well as setting out what Thomasina should keep in her widowhood. His will was that she should hold Kingsham and lands in the parish of St. Pancras, a house in North Street, Chichester, which he had purchased, a moiety of the manor of Hunston and land in the parishes of Hunston, North Mundham, Oving, Wyke and Birdham (of all of which he had enfeoffed his father and others in 1448) until the younger of his sons named William (the child of Isabel St. John), came of age, then they were to be his in tail-male in accordance with the fine of 1445. Meanwhile, this William and his sister Anne were to be cared for by John Michelgrove and John Burdeville, using the revenues from Hunston and rental income from Manwood and Selsey. If young William died before attaining his majority his inheritance was to pass to his three youngest half-brothers (the sons of Thomasina): Lewis, Edward and Nicholas. In 1446 Sydney had made a settlement on Thomasina of jointure in the manor of West Preston, which he had acquired from the estate of the late John Halle, and he now stipulated that after her death this should pass to Lewis, with successive remainders to his two siblings.44 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 4-5. Sydney, who was still alive in January 1452, died before 28 Nov. that year.45 Ibid. 5; CFR, xix. 1 (a writ de diem clausit extremum for Bucks.; no post mortem survives).

The bulk of Sydney’s estates now fell to his namesake, his eldest son by his first wife. On 20 Dec. the latter granted his stepmother for life the manor of Loseley and other properties in Surrey, presumably as her dower portion,46 Harl. Ch. 56 B 25. It was called just half of the manor at his death: E149/212, no. 9. William took out a pardon as of Cranleigh, esquire, s. and h. of William Sydney late of Cranleigh and his w. Cecily, in Oct. 1455: C67/41, m. 23. but he did not long survive his father. It is a measure of our MP’s rise in status that his eldest son married the daughter of a knight – Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Norbury* of Stoke Dabernon – and when that William died, on 22 Oct. 1462, his two young daughters, as heiresses not only to a large part of the Sydney estates but also to his share of those of his grandmother Margaret Mitchell, naturally attracted prominent suitors.47 CFR, xx. 66, 170-1; C140/62/38; E149/212, no. 9; 233, no. 4. Their widowed mother married (Sir) Thomas Uvedale*, who subsequently wedded the younger girl to his son and heir, while her sister was matched with John Hampden†, of the important Buckinghamshire family. Our MP’s second son, the younger William, mounted a challenge to the Uvedales in the law-courts regarding their title to an estate at Rudgwick which they claimed as Elizabeth’s jointure, by contending that the property ought to descend in tail-male; and he also took possession of other of his late father’s properties in Surrey.48 CFR, xxi. no. 434; CPR, 1461-7, p. 273; Surr. Arch. Collns. iii. 163-70; C1/48/390; KB27/849, rot. 40; CCR, 1476-85, no. 172; Add. 39376, ff. 184v, 194. This William came of age in 1461, when he received seisin from his father’s feoffees of Kingsham and the other entailed lands in Sussex.49 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 5. It was probably he who had attended the Sussex elections of 28 Aug. 1460: C219/16/6.

Meanwhile, our MP’s widow, Thomasina, who held for life a substantial part of his lands, had acquired from the Crown in 1455 the wardship of her eldest son, the Lunsford heir, which she sold to her mother Eleanor Barrington in March 1457. A month later she also conveyed to her mother the manor of Lambourne Hall in Canewdon, Essex.50 C140/62/38; Harl. Chs. 45 G 19, 20; 46 I 43; 49 G 18; 56 B 26-31. This was shortly after Thomasina’s final marriage, to John Hopton, the wealthy Suffolk esquire.51 Harl. Ch. 51 G 12; Richmond, 100-1, 117-19, 128 (where Sydney’s death is wrongly dated 1449). She outlived her second husband Sydney by more than 45 years.52 She also outlived at least two of their sons, Lewis and Edward. Their da. Thomasina Sydney (d.1485) married William Tendring† (d.1499) of Harkstead and Holbrook, Suff.: CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 146, 175, 200; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 6; Richmond, 100-1.