FETTIPLACE, Peter

While it recorded that Fettiplace procured the wardship of ‘Thomas Broune’ in 1434, the previous biography failed to realize that the ward was Thomas Brown IV*, later to sit for Wallingford in the Parliament of 1449-50.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 69-70.

It also failed to note that Fettiplace claimed an interest at Denham, Buckinghamshire, in the right of his wife, in the form of a moiety of a rent of 40s. p.a. emanating from properties there. This led him into conflict with a London mercer, John Michell, from whom he seized cattle at Denham in July 1422, in lieu of arrears of that rent. Michell responded by suing the MP and one of his servants, John Warde, in the court of common pleas. In pleadings of Trinity term 1423, Fettiplace stated that his wife’s share of the rent, 20s. p.a., had descended to her from her maternal grandfather, George Durdaunt of Stokenchurch, to whom it had been granted in 1318. For his part, Michell claimed that Durdaunt had acquired the rent for the term of his life only and that, in any case, he had relinquished it during his lifetime. The parties agreed to refer the matter to a jury but it is unclear whether a trial followed.3 CP40/649, rot. 108; 650, rot. 113.

By the mid 1430s, Fettiplace was acting as a feoffee for the Buckinghamshire knight, Sir Thomas Sackville*, like him a friend of the Stonor family, within whose circle they had perhaps met.4 CP25/1/292/68/189.

Late in his career Fettiplace was involved in affairs in Kent, a county in which he is not known to have had any previous dealings, for in about 1440 Alison, widow of John Kirkby† of Romsey, Hampshire, petitioned the Crown to complain about his designs on her property at Cliffe there. According to Alison, Fettiplace had ‘secretly’ begun a wrongful lawsuit against her, her son (another John Kirkby) and John Yevan, taking advantage of the fact that she did not reside in Kent and of her son’s absence in northern England with the bishop of Salisbury. She also alleged that Fettiplace had contrived to deny her the services of her counsel, John Bamburgh*, in order to stymie her defence of that lawsuit. The petition further reveals that she had married John Brinkley, formerly treasurer of the wharves at Calais, after Kirkby’s death in 1424, but he had likewise predeceased her, dying in the mid 1430s.5 SC8/181/9009. In support of the suggested date of this petition are two commissions, of May and June 1440, that ordered Robert, Lord Poynings, and others to hold an assize of novel disseisin over a tenement in Cliffe that Fettiplace, in association with John II* and Edmund Hampden*, had brought against Yevan and others: C66/447, 22d; 445, m. 21d. Fettiplace’s participation in this obscure quarrel, the outcome of which is not known, must have arisen from his connexion with Alice, widow of Thomas Stonor I*. Alice, who had married Richard Drayton* not long after Stonor’s death in 1431, was the daughter and heir of Thomas Kirby (or Kirkby) of Horton Kirby, apparently a relative of the late John Kirkby. She was also related to Alison Kirkby, like her a kinswoman of the late Richard Hallum, bishop of Salisbury. Following Hallum’s death in 1417, Alice and Stonor had taken possession of estates at Cliffe and elsewhere in Kent by grant of the bishop’s heir, Gilbert Hallum, who also had taken holy orders and was Alison Kirkby’s brother. Alice Stonor had retained possession of these lands after Stonor died but it is possible that Alison asserted a claim to at least some of them and that the two women were in dispute over the property mentioned in the petition. If so, it seems likely that Fettiplace had clashed with Alison in his capacity as a feoffee and friend of Alice and her second husband, Richard Drayton.6 C241/228/97; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 521-2; iv. 483-5; Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Pprs. ed. Carpenter, 136. Alison Kirkby is referred to as ‘Alice’ in her petition but for clarity she is called ‘Alison’ (as she is known in the biography of John Kirkby) here.

Fettiplace made a will that is no longer extant, for a royal pardon of 1455 identifies John Fettiplace of Wolley, Berkshire, as his executor.7 C67/41, m. 22 (12 Nov.). The exact relationship between the two men is unknown.