CHETWYND, John

The earlier biography correctly distinguishes the careers of the MP and his more important namesake of Shavington in Shropshire,4 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 543-4. but it incorrectly conflates the MP’s career with that of another Shropshire namesake, who by 1431 held in right of his wife the manor of Aston Boterell, and in 1439-40 served as the escheator of that county. The latter, born in about 1409, was the grandson and heir of William Chetwynd of Tur Langton (Leicestershire) and the son of Margaret. She, on the death of his father, Robert, married John Hampton of Stourton (Staffordshire), father of John Hampton II*, who from the 1420s made a successful career in the royal household. This connexion demonstrates that it was Margaret’s son and not the MP who was steward of Morfe and Shirlet from 1438 to 1447, when the office was surrendered to Hampton.5 CIPM, xxii. 707; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvii. 89; Feudal Aids, iv. 266; CPR, 1446-52, p. 106. The earlier biography is also probably in error in identifying the MP with one of the four esquires, who in 1428 were deputed to remain in constant attendance upon the young King and who, two years later, took part, in that capacity, in the coronation expedition to France.6 PPC, iii. 294; E403/693, m. 17. This was almost certainly his namesake of Shavington, a long-established retainer of the house of Lancaster. Although the MP was then in the service of the King’s governor, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, these esquires were drawn not from the earl’s retinue but from the royal household. Further, as a lawyer, the MP was an unlikely candidate for the role of a personal attendant on the King.

Of the MP’s status as a lawyer, there can be no doubt. It is implied by the small payments made to him and several known lawyers by John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, in the course of a legal action pending at Coventry in 1427-8;7 E101/514/7, mm. 2, 3. and demonstrated by his two, albeit brief, periods of service on the Warwickshire quorum and his several nominations as a commissioner of gaol delivery.8 He appears to have been active as a j.p.: KB27/698, rex rot. 9d; KB9/231/1/91; 238/54.

Early in his career Chetwynd was involved in his family’s violent dispute with the Poultneys of Poultney in Leicestershire. On 2 Oct. 1411 he allegedly joined his older brother, Richard, and his brother-in-law, William Purefoy, in assaulting James, son of Sir John Poultney†, at Misterton. Thirteen months later the three assailants entered into a bond, in the massive sum of £1,000, to abide arbitration in the dispute, but the matter was not resolved for, early in the next reign, the Poultneys were implicated in an assault on our MP’s brother, Richard.9 KB27/615, rex rot. 29d; C260/130/24; E40/2753; KB9/113/1.

The death of Chetwynd’s uncle, Sir Philip Chetwynd, on 10 May 1444 promised to transform the prospects of himself and his issue. This transformation had been promised for some time, but had recently been threatened by Sir Philip’s second marriage to a woman many years his junior, namely Joan, daughter and coheiress-presumptive of William Burley I*. Not only did this give the knight renewed hope of issue, but, even if this hope was frustrated, provision made for Joan’s widowhood was likely to delay significantly the descent of part, perhaps a large part, of the inheritance to John Chetwynd or his issue. Her prospects as an heiress ensured that she could claim a generous settlement, and on 28 June 1442 the two principal manors of the Chetwynd patrimony, Ingestre and Grendon, were settled on her and her new husband.10 P.J.C. Field, Sir Thomas Malory, 86; CIPM, xxvi. 402; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xii. 316-17.

Chetwynd must have viewed this development with dismay, and it is not surprising that frustration should have prompted him to wage a campaign against Joan in the wake of Sir Philip’s death. Immediately, he sued the executors for a chest containing charters, one of which, judging from a later action, was a deed of entail. He added to the pressure by bringing an assize of novel disseisin against her in respect of the manor of Grendon. Soon after, he resorted (or, at least, he was later accused of having done so) to more direct action: he is said to have broken into her closes and houses at Grendon, Ingestre and elsewhere in the summer and autumn of 1444.11 CP40/734, rot. 221d; C66/458, m. 14d; KB27/742, rot. 83d; 745, rot. 43.

If, however, Chetwynd’s task in undermining Joan’s rights was difficult in the immediate aftermath of Sir Philip’s death, it was soon to become very much more so. Late in 1444 or early in 1445 she protected herself by marrying Thomas Lyttleton, a well-connected apprentice-at-law who was later to enjoy a famous legal career. In Easter term 1445 Chetwynd set out the basis of his legal claim, suing an action of formedon against the new couple for the manor of Ingestre and other property in Staffordshire on the basis of an entail in tail-general upon his paternal grandparents, Philip and Alice Chetwynd. He also advanced an additional claim, asserting that the feoffees who had settled the jointure on Sir Philip and Joan did not have seisin. If either claim could be proved then Joan could have had her dower but not her jointure.12 CP40/737, rot. 373d; 750, rot. 305; William Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. iii. 177-8; C1/14/28.

As it was, however, Chetwynd was soon forced on the legal defensive. Before the justices of assize at Warwick on 17 July 1447 the Lyttletons won damages and costs of £40 against him for his alleged entry into Grendon, and they sued further actions against him for other alleged entries in Staffordshire.13 KB27/741, rot. 45; 745, rot. 43; 746, rot. 22; 748, rex rot. 33d; CP40/746, rot. 301d. Although, in May 1448, he had the satisfaction of securing surety of the peace against Lyttleton, the tide was running strongly against him. A compromise was all he could hope for, and perhaps all he deserved. He was allowed to occupy an insubstantial Staffordshire property in Gratwich, Mitton and Rule (in Haughton), probably the eight messuages, 12 virgates of land, 20 acres of meadow, 40 acres of pasture and 20 acres of wood of which he had been accused of disseising Joan.14 NLW, Peniarth mss, 280, p. 51. The great bulk of his hoped-for inheritance remained in the hands of the Lyttletons.

Chetwynd died while legal action was still pending. He last appears in the records at the end of Easter term 1450, as he vainly pursued an action of attaint against the jurors who had ruled against him in 1447, and he probably died before the next law term.15 KB27/747, rot. 76d. Despite the compromise cited above, the dispute survived his death. In 1454 his son, Robert, was obliged to confirm Joan’s estate in the manor of Ingestre and the rest of her jointure, and in 1460 he had to post a bond in 1,000 marks to refrain from coming within six miles of her. By this latter date the dispute was a wider one, with Robert, as our MP’s younger son, seeking to undermine the title of his nephew, William, son of our MP’s eldest son, Thomas.16 CCR, 1447-54, p. 513; CP40/797, cart. rot. 1. Not until Joan’s death in 1504 did the Chetwynds regain their patrimony.17 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 740.