MERBURY, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.5 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 716-20.

The Tudor antiquary, John Leland, was mistaken in his statement that the Merburys were lords of the Herefordshire castle of Lyonshall. Although John Merbury was recorded as holding a knight’s fee there in 1428 and 1431, his interest was not hereditary.6 J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, ii. 69; Feudal Aids, ii. 412, 416. The descent of the castle was complex. In 1300 its tenant, Sir William Devereux (de Ebroicis), granted a lease for life to the treasurer, Walter de Langton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and the family had thereafter been unable to re-establish title. Not until the 1380s did it come back into their hands when a younger son, John, Lord Devereux (d.1393), acquired it from the ill-fated Sir Simon Burley.7 CP, iv. 303-5; CIMisc. v. 195; CPR, 1388-92, p. 361. It then descended, through his daughter, to Walter, Lord Fitzwalter (d.1431), who appears to have held it as late as 1425. By the following year, however, possession had passed to a powerful group of feoffees, headed by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and including our MP. One can only speculate on the nature of their interest; when, however, ownership of the manor can again be discerned, it had passed into the hands of our MP’s adopted heir and son-in-law, Walter Devereux I*. The likelihood is that Merbury exploited his influence to secure the castle for the surviving male line of the Devereux family.8 CIPM, xxii. 185, 510 (p. 482); CCR, 1422-9, pp. 448-9; C67/42, m. 27; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 945.

As a young man, Merbury’s military experience may have been more extensive than suggested in the earlier biography. He is probably to be identified with the man who sued out a protection in December 1391 for service under Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, on the Scottish borders, and who in October 1401 did the same in respect of service in Aquitaine under Edward, earl of Rutland.9 C61/109, m. 12; C71/71, m. 6.

An agreement of 1429 confirms the impression created by his will that Merbury was, or at least became in the later part of his successful career, a man of considerable means. On 18 Aug. 1429 James, Lord Berkeley, was bound to him for the payment of 900 marks, and on the 22nd Berkeley conveyed the manors of Portbury (Somerset) and Alkington (Gloucestershire) to four of our MP’s associates, Richard de la Mare*, John Brugge†, Edmund Morris† and Thomas Lightfoot, as surety for payment. Three days later, our MP, his wife and others demised to Berkeley in fee the Welsh manor of Talgarth, which they held by the grant made in 1420 by Berkeley’s mother, Elizabeth Bluet, and her fourth husband, William ap Thomas. The probability is that Talgarth was the original security for the repayment of a loan made by Merbury to Berkeley when the latter needed funds to pursue his famous dispute with Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, over the inheritance of his uncle, Thomas, Lord Berkeley (d.1417). An award of 1425 had brought a temporary end to this quarrel, assigning to Berkeley, inter alia, the reversion of the manor of Portbury expectant on the earl’s death. The arrangement of 1429 thus marked a reworking of the security for the repayment of the loan.10 Cat. Med. Muns. Berkeley Castle ed. Wells-Furby (Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc.), i. 530-1, 669-70; A.F.J. Sinclair, ‘Great Berkeley Law-Suit’, Southern Hist. ix (1987), 45-46.

Merbury’s wealth is also reflected in loans to the Crown. In June 1430 he received an assignment in repayment of £93 6s. 8d. lent a year earlier, and on 21 Apr. 1433 he did likewise in repayment of £66 lent on the previous day.11 E403/698, m. 5; 709, m. 1. Earlier, he had played a part in raising gifts and loans for Henry V. In March 1417 he and John Russell I* spent three days at Monmouth, negotiating a gift from the men of the lordship there in aid of another French campaign. Later, on 7 Mar. 1421, as he toured England in the wake of the treaty of Troyes, the King himself came to Weobley, where it is likely that Merbury entertained him. One purpose of this tour was to encourage men to lend for a new campaign in France, and it is noticeable that several of the county’s leading gentry made generous advances (although, curiously, Merbury was not among them).12 DL29/615/9845; J.A. Doig, ‘Hen. V’s Royal Progress in 1421’, Nottingham Med. Studies, xl. (1996), 169; E401/696, 13 May. Another matter discussed between the King and our MP was probably candidature to the forthcoming Parliament, and it may not be coincidental that Merbury was returned on 19 Apr.13 C219/12/5.

Both of Merbury’s wives made a significant contribution to his wealth, bringing him the landed estate that did not come to him through birth. Much of what is known of his private affairs concerns their lands. With his first wife he acquired a family, and he may have been instrumental in contracting her son, Richard Oldcastle, in marriage to Elizabeth, widow of Richard Ruyhale† of Birtsmorton (Worcestershire). His influence may also explain Oldcastle’s appointment as constable of Aberystwyth castle in 1411.14 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 262; Griffiths, i. 237. But his relations with his stepchildren were not always harmonius. On 1 Feb. 1419 he took a statute merchant in the massive sum of 1,000 marks from Richard, and Sir Robert Whitney* and Walter Hakluyt, the husbands of his stepdaughters, and late in his life he sued the husbands for execution.15 C241/228/148; CP40/705, rot. 190. The landed interests that came with his second wife were extensive. By a final concord levied in 1417, shortly after they married, all her lands were settled jointly upon her and Merbury and their issue, with remainder to her right heirs. Since Agnes was past child-bearing, this conveyance was not designed to disinherit her common-law heir, her grandson, Walter Devereux I, with whom our MP was on good terms (indeed, Walter later married Merbury’s daughter), but to ensure Merbury a life interest if Agnes predeceased him. Later Merbury entered into an arrangement with another of his stepsons, Thomas Parr*. He and his wife surrendered her dower interest in the Parrs’ barony of Kendal (Westmorland) in return for an annual rent of 40 marks.16 CP25(1)/291/64/67; CFR, xvii. 31-33; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 144-5.