ZOUCHE, Sir John

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 940-2.

A final concord levied in 1392 provides details of the provision Zouche’s father made for him. He and his wife were jointly granted in fee tail the reversion, expectant on the death of his uncle Thomas, of the manors of Aveley in Assington in Suffolk, Ightham and Eynsford in Kent, ‘Ing’s Place’ in Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire and King’s Worthy in Hampshire.3 CP25(1)/289/56/246. The settlement upon him of the manor of Westoning (Beds.), licensed in 1391, was never carried through: CPR, 1391-6, p. 2; CFR, xii. 298. This was a noteworthy settlement in two respects. First, even for a baronial family, it was generous provision for a younger son both in terms of the value of the lands settled and in the legal estate, which was tail general rather than tail-male or life. Second, it was a joint settlement. This implies that it was the price Lord Zouche was prepared to pay to secure the hand of a wealthy bride for one of his younger sons. Due to the liberality of her first husband, Sir John Lowdham, Margaret held the greater part of a knightly estate in jointure and dower. Moreover, her desirability as a bride was enhanced by the fact that only a young half-brother, Thomas Burgh, stood between her and a share of the substantial Burgh inheritance. When the reversions fell in on the death of Thomas Zouche in 1404, the settlement made in her favour 12 years earlier had already been amply justified by her half-brother’s childless death.4 S.J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian Eng. 46-47.

By 1412 Zouche had also acquired from the senior line of the family the manor of ‘Le Conyngar’ in Amesbury in Wiltshire and an annuity of £20 charged on the manor of Ilkeston in Derbyshire, mistakenly described as a royal annuity in the earlier biography.5 Feudal Aids, vi. 415, 535. The earlier biography is also in error in dating the death of Thomas Burgh to 1411. In fact Zouche and Margaret were in possession of their share of his property, principally consisting of the manor of Kirklington, by 8 Sept. 1401. This was an extremely valuable manor: between this date and Michaelmas 1402 its gross receipts amounted to more than £112. Moreover, a schedule attached to this account shows that in the same period Zouche received a further £131 from other sources including Margaret’s dower. Not all this was recurring income – it includes, for instance, £10 borrowed from Sir Thomas Rempston† – but it makes a mockery of his derisory Nottinghamshire subsidy assessment of £25 in 1412. It is no doubt more than a coincidence that he was one of the assessors of this tax. In 1436 his land in all counties was valued at £120 p.a., another significant underassessment to a tax for which he was again an assessor.6 Notts. Archs., Foljambe of Osberton mss, DD FJ 6/2/1; Payling, 222, 227. At the height of his career he held lands in no fewer than nine counties, and it is a reasonable speculation that he was worth in excess of £200 p.a.

In 1402-3 Zouche and his wife, together with Thomas Bekering and Thomas Foljambe†, the husbands of Sir John Lowdham’s sisters and heiresses, entered into an indenture with Lowdham’s executors and feoffees. Lowdham had put all his lands, save only his manor of Walton, in feoffment for the payment of his debts. It was now agreed that his widow and heirs should have immediate possession of the property in return for discharging debts totalling nearly £70, Zouche taking responsibility for the payment of a modest £10.7 Foljambe of Osberton mss, DD FJ 4/2/2. In 1410 Zouche and his wife faced a potentially damaging action in the court of common pleas. Sir Andrew Metham of Metham (Yorkshire) sued a writ of formedon against them for the manor of Kirklington, claiming as heir in tail under the terms of a fine levied in 1346. The case came to pleading in the following term and a jury was summoned. The jurors’ task was not a difficult one. Metham’s claim was without substance and based on what was a self-evidently strained chronology. The jurors can have had little difficulty in rejecting his contention that he was a fifth generation descendant of the first tenant in tail under the terms of the fine. In fact, as Zouche must easily have been able to prove, the first tenant was not Metham’s great-great-great-grandfather, who died in about 1301, but rather John de Bella Aqua (described in the pleadings as cum torto pede), first cousin twice-removed of Zouche’s wife.8 CP40/597, rot. 309; 598, rot. 372.

When royal commissioners of inquiry visited Nottingham on 1 June 1414 Zouche found himself indicted for offences other than the maintenance of Alexander Meryng (for which he had already suffered a brief term of imprisonment). The grand jury claimed that, at Southwell on 12 Nov. 1413, he had threatened a coroner’s juror who had opposed his will, extorting from him 40s. and a horse worth the same sum. More interestingly, he was also indicted for preventing the execution of a royal writ in the lordship of Southwell on 18 Mar. 1414 in his capacity as the archbishop of York’s steward there. These two charges were no doubt specimen charges illustrative of his interference with the processes of local justice. He was put to the inconvenience of appearing in person in the court of King’s bench on 10 May 1415 to plead the general pardon he had obtained three weeks earlier.9 KB9/204/2/6, 7; KB27/616, rex rot. 28d; C67/37, m. 44. His stewardship of Southwell explains why he owed Abp. Bowet 400 marks in 1423: Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 81.

It is curious that Zouche is not named on any of the enrolled commissions of the peace for Nottinghamshire. The allegations made against him in 1414 are an improbable explanation. His exclusion may have been connected with his office as the archbishop’s steward, but he is unlikely to have held this office throughout his career. Further, he did serve briefly as a j.p. He was paid for sitting on the Nottinghamshire bench for six days between 30 Sept. 1427 and 5 Oct. 1431.10 Payling, 173; E372/275, rot. 36d; 277, rot. 29.

Zouche’s daughter and heiress-presumptive, Elizabeth Bowet, was dead by June 1437 when he contracted Elizabeth, the elder of her two daughters, to William, eldest son of his friend Sir Thomas Chaworth*. The contract makes clear that it was accepted by this date that the bride would fall heir to the lands of her mother. Those in south Yorkshire were to be settled on the couple within a month of the deaths of Zouche and his wife. In return Chaworth undertook to settle upon the bride a jointure with an annual value of as much as 40 marks. Later, however, it became clear that the bride and her sister would fall heir not only to the Burgh lands but also to the property settled on our MP in 1392. Thus in 1445 and 1447 fines were levied to protect their interests against any claim that might be made by the senior line of the Zouche family to break the entail. The second of these was particularly important. Its purpose extended beyond mere protection: it was designed entirely to extinguish the senior line’s rights. In it our MP’s nephew, William, Lord Zouche (d.1462), and his wife Alice warranted the five manors for themselves and Alice’s heirs to Sir Thomas Chaworth and his heirs. They thus created a collateral warranty that would bar the senior line from claiming the manors against the descendants of Sir Thomas through Elizabeth Bowet as long as that line traced its descent back to Alice. The occasion of the levying of this fine was probably the marriage of the second grand-daughter, Margaret Bowet, to Chaworth’s younger son, John. However this may be, Lord Zouche is unlikely to have entered so disadvantageous an arrangement without a considerable financial inducement, and it may be that it was he rather than our MP who received the bulk of the sum the wealthy Sir Thomas must have paid for the marriages.11 Add. Ch. 20542; CP25(1)/293/71/304, 314.

Sir John drew up a long and detailed will on 9 Sept. 1445 to which was added a schedule of additional bequests dated on the following 10 Aug. He was particularly generous to his servants, assigning annuities totalling £8 6s. 8d. to the young groom of his chamber and six others. After his will had been executed his wife was to enjoy all the revenues of his lands for her life. On her death his surviving feoffees were to convey these lands (with the exception of some small parcels of purchased land) to the heirs of his body with remainder to the right heirs of his father. According to the schedule, his wife had joint estate with him in all lands which feoffees had of his enfeoffment in Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Kent, Hampshire and Wiltshire, hence his instructions could not in conscience be carried through during her lifetime without her consent. He, therefore, provided that, in return for this consent, the feoffees should receive instructions from her for the disposal, after her death, of a sum of money equal to the sum spent by the feoffees in discharge of his instructions.12 Nottingham Univ. Lib. Middleton mss, Mi F 6, no. 18 (imperfectly calendared in HMC Middleton, 112-14). The earlier biography mistakenly gives his date of death as 1445. The last reference to him alive dates from Easter 1447: CP25(1)/293/71/314. His elderly wife faced a similar problem when she came to compose her will in October 1449. She anticipated that its full implementation might be threatened should her grand-daughters recover her late husband’s lands against the feoffees, as they were entitled to do since the feoffees’ legal interest in the property was extinguished by her death. She thus provided that, in this eventuality, her will should be performed from the issues of that part of her own inheritance she knew to be held in fee simple. Uncertain whether the manor of Kirklington was bound by entail, she added that, ‘if so be that it be tayled, I beseche my feffez to suffre my heirs to take the profittes therof and performe my will of the remenaunt of my landes’.13 Borthwick Inst. Univ. of York, Abps. Reg. 19, f. 156, calendared in Test. Ebor. ii (Surtees Soc. xxx), 155. These careful provisions are of considerable interest. They show that not all landowners were prepared to ignore the decree of common law and conscience that the issues of entailed land could not be put to the execution of last wills.

By fines levied in 1458 the manors settled on Zouche in 1392 were divided between his grand-daughters and their husbands. The manors of Eynsford, Ightham and Wheathampstead were conveyed to Elizabeth and William Chaworth; those of Aveley, King’s Worthy amd Amesbury to Margaret and John Chaworth. These settlements broke the entail of 1392. The final legal remainder with respect to the five entailed manors was settled not on the right heirs of our MP’s father but on the right heirs of Sir Thomas Chaworth. Clearly Sir Thomas was here taking advantage of the collateral warranty created in 1447 to secure the manors for the Chaworths even in the event of the failure of the issue of both his elder sons.14 CP25(1)/293/73/427-8.