MYNORS, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 812-13.

Although Mynors actively supported Hugh Erdeswyk* in the disturbances in Staffordshire in 1408 and 1409, he did not go on to support Erdeswyk in his feud with Sir Edmund Ferrers of Chartley in 1413. Indeed, his most serious offences were committed as an adherent of Sir Humphrey Stafford*, with whom Erdeswyk was not on friendly terms. For reasons that are unclear Stafford embarked on a campaign of violent oppression against the townsmen of Wolverhampton, with Mynors and his brothers acting as his principal agents. In January or early February 1412 the townsmen presented a petition to the chancellor, Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, detailing their sufferings. Among the offences they laid at the door of our MP was participation in three murders, including that of a veteran of the battle of Shrewsbury in Wolverhampton church, and the destruction of several local mills. The petition is not the only source for these serious offences. At sessions of the peace on 12 Jan. and 4 Aug. 1412 Mynors was indicted for the murders of Richard Featherstone and Roger Ryng in the previous year, both offences cited in the petition, and, again as in the petition, for damaging various mills, including one owned by the dean of Wolverhampton, on 3 Jan. 1412.4 SC8/306/15290; B.H. Putnam, Procs. J.P.s, 315-16. His alleged involvement in these serious crimes was pardoned by Henry V as the new King sought to pacify disturbances in Staffordshire and other midland counties in advance of the invasion of France.

In the earlier biography the annuity Mynors was granted by Sir Richard Vernon* in 1429 (or before) is erroneously given as £12 13s. 4d. rather than £2 13s. 4d.5 S.M. Wright, Derbys. Gentry (Derbys. Rec. Soc. viii), 249. Later, he was called upon to prove his right to another annuity: on 18 Nov. 1432, along with Sir Nicholas Montgomery† and John Stanley II*, he was summoned to produce before the duchy of Lancaster council at Westminster the letters patent by which he claimed to hold an annuity from the priory of Tutbury. He again had cause for irritation with the duchy authorities in January 1440, when his tenure of the office of bailiff of the New Liberty was threatened by a grant of the office to Walter Blount*. He was, however, quickly able to prove his prior title.6 DL42/18, ff. 19, 133v, 149.

Due to confusion with his son and namesake there is no certain reference to Mynors after 1443, when the same office was granted in survivorship to father and son. This may have been made in anticipation of his imminent death, and it is possible that the namesake, described as ‘senior’ in a lawsuit of 1456, was his son. Thus it was either he or his son who held the farm of the rectory of Uttoxeter from the dean and canons of St. George’s, Windsor, in 1460-1, and had probably done so since the 1440s. An earlier account of the canons, to be dated to about 1443, refers to 3s. 4d. paid as a reward to the clerks of the King’s secretary for a royal letter to be sent to Mynors, perhaps in connexion with some dispute over the farm of the rectory.7 St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, archs. XV.48.18, m. 5; 26, m. 1. Even if, however, the MP lived to 1460, it is much more likely to have been his son or his grandson who was distrained to take up the honour of knighthood in 1465 and served as escheator of Staffordshire in 1470-1.8 CFR, xxi. 83.