BOYS, Sir John

Boys’s connexion with Cardinal Beaufort, noted in the earlier biography,2 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 320-1. is confirmed not only by his appointment as constable of Beaufort’s castle at Farnham, but also by his personal attendance on the cardinal when he crossed to France in the spring of 1431.3 DKR, xlviii. 282.

Following his wife’s death Boys held her inheritance ‘by the courtesy’. At some point in the 1430s or early 1440s he agreed with their son Harry that the young man might take possession of his manor of Uxendon together with lands and tenements in Harrow in return for an annual payment of £10, and should pay him £10 p.a. more to have tenure of his property in London. However, after this arrangement had been in place for four years Harry asked to be discharged from the London rent, leaving Sir John free to take back the Middlesex estate to hold for his lifetime. Sir John made substantial investments there by planting wheat and beans and engaging in ‘grete husbandrie’, but his son then re-entered the property, took his father’s household goods, worth £40, and proposed to reap the valuable crops. This serious falling out led our MP to seek redress through a petition to the chancellor.4 C1/39/49. Father and son apparently made up their quarrel before Sir John’s death.5 Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 163v.