yeovil people
John Stourton MP
Of Preston Plucknett
John Stourton
was the younger
son of John
Stourton of
Stourton,
Wiltshire, by
his second wife
Alice (d
1407).
The family of Stourton, resident at Stourton in the southwest
corner of
Wiltshire, was
already of some
standing by the
end of the
fourteenth
century, but
owed its
prominence in
the fifteenth
very much to
John’s elder
brother, William
(the Speaker of
the House of
Commons of
1413), and to
William's son John, who was
created Lord
Stourton by
Henry VI. John,
while closely
allied to his
brother was, in
comparison, less
prominent in
national
affairs.
John Stourton’s early activities, regularly recorded after 1399, were
usually
performed in
William’s
company, or else
concerned his
affairs; and it
is of
significance
that he himself
was not returned
to Parliament
until after his
brother’s death.
Like William,
John seems to
have trained as
a lawyer. From
his work on
royal
commissions it
is clear that
his interests
and activities
were
predominantly
concerned with
Somerset, rather
than with his
native county of
Wiltshire, while
his personal
leanings led to
an involvement
in the affairs
of the local
ecclesiastical
authorities. As
steward of the
estates of the
diocesan bishop
he was to enjoy
influence over a
wide area in the
county, and his
other dealings,
particularly
with the
cathedral at
Wells and the
priory at Stavordale,
indicate a man
of firm orthodox
views. These
would seem to
have been formed
by his family
upbringing:
another brother,
Master Richard
Stourton, became
a canon at
Wells, and a
sister,
Margaret, was a
nun, who from
1423 to 1441
presided as
abbess of
Shaftesbury.
Stourton was instrumental in the foundation of a chantry at
Yeovil in 1410,
in a grant for
the maintenance
of Montacute
priory in 1411,
and, after his
first wife’s
death, in the
benefaction of a
chantry at White
Hall priory,
Ilchester. His
inclusion on the
royal commission
to seek out
lollards in
Somerset and
Dorset in 1414
comes as no
surprise, and in
July 1422 the
Crown paid him
£13 6s
8d as part of a
gift of twice
that sum for
capturing Thomas
Payne of
Glamorgan, a
heretic and
‘late clerk and
servant of Sir John Oldcastle’. Payne, a notorious conspirator, had
escaped from the
Tower of London
on the night of
11 April along
with two
prisoners of
war, whom
Stourton also
recaptured.
Stourton’s estates, mostly acquired through marriage, nearly all
lay within the
county of
Somerset. His
first wife’s
father had held
the serjeanty of
East Perrott,
the manors and
advowsons of
Radstock and
Wheathill, and
lands and rents
in Lovington and
from the bedelry
of the hundred
of Wells ‘Foreyn’,
which, together
with a portion
of the manor and
advowson of East
Lydford, were
worth about £43
a year. At
Michaelmas 1404
he brought a
suit against the
local bailiff
for attempting
to usurp the
franchise of
return of writs
within the
limits of the
serjeanty, which
he held in right
of his wife.
Stourton
purchased the
manor and
advowson of
Pendomer in
1407, and he
also held lands
at Marston
Bigott and
Woodford and
property in
Bridgwater.
At Preston Plucknett, his home, (acquired around 1380) he built
the manor house,
later
Preston Great
Farm and
today known as
Abbey Farm.
According to the
1412 assessment
his lands in
Somerset were
then valued at
£66 13s 4d a
year and he also
declared that he
possessed
holdings in
Devon worth £10
and the manor of
Wyke in Dorset
worth £4. In
addition, he
later acquired
the reversion of
the manor and
advowson of
Brympton, and,
through his
third marriage,
four more manors
in Somerset. As
well as this
Stourton
received several
temporary grants
of land from the
Crown. In May
1400 he had
shared with William Yerde the keeping
of the valuable
manor of
Fremington,
Devon, forfeited
by the rebel
earl of
Huntingdon;
along with his
brother,
William, from
November 1412 he
occupied the
Wiltshire
estates late of
their
brother-in-law,
Sir John
Beauchamp of
Bletsoe; and
before William’s
death in the
following year
they had paid
£20 of the £100
required for the
right to dispose
of the marriage
of Beauchamp’s
heir, their
nephew. Together
with Sir William
Hankford, John
Stourton enjoyed
possession of
his own
brother’s lands
and the disposal
of the marriage
of his only son
John alias
Jenkyn
in 1413, and it
was no doubt
they who
arranged for the
younger John
Stourton to
marry the
daughter of a
former judge and
colleague of Hankford’s, Sir John Wadham.
After John junior came of age in 1421 (around which time he built
St James' church,
Preston
Plucknett) he sat in the House of
Commons in
December that
year as a knight
of the shire for
Wiltshire, while
his uncle
represented
Somerset.
Together, and in
association with Sir Giles Daubeney and Ralph Bush, in 1426 they were granted custody of premises
previously held
by John Kendale.
In the following
year the elder
John shared with (Sir) Thomas Brooke an
Exchequer lease
of property in
Taunton. But the
most important
grant of this
kind that he
ever received
was the joint
guardianship of
the
temporalities of
the bishopric of
Bath and Wells
following on the
death of
Nicholas Bubwith
in 1424. For
more than six
months he and
John Reynold, a
canon of Wells,
performed this
office,
rendering £872 7s.9d., after certain allowances, at the Exchequer, and
while
discharging
their duties
they made the
Crown a loan of
600 marks, for
which they
received as
security for
repayment an
assignment on
the wool
subsidies. It is
likely that
Stourton had
been serving as
steward of the
estates of the
bishopric before
Bubwith’s death,
for he had been
so close a
personal
associate as to
be named an
executor of his
will. Certainly,
he occupied the
stewardship
under Bubwith’s
successor,
Bishop Stafford,
probably in
return for a fee
of £20 p.a. He
was still
settling the
terms of Bishop
Bubwith’s will
as late as July
1437, and in his
own testamentary
depositions he
referred to a
grey ‘ambler’
horse ‘which I
had of the
receiver of the
Lord Bishop of
Bath’.
Stourton attended several elections to Parliament held in
Somerset
(including those
of 1407, 1410,
1414 (Apr.),
1421 (May), 1425
and 1431), and
by virtue of his
office as
sheriff he
presided over
those conducted
at Ilchester on
7 April and at
Dorchester on 14
April 1432.
His business and social connexions have left innumerable traces:
William, Lord
Botreaux, Sir Humphrey Stafford II, Sir William Sturmy, Robert Hill and William Carent (the
husband of his
niece, Margaret)
were all local
landowners with
whom he was
associated. He
was especially
close to
Botreaux, for
whom he
witnessed the
contract of
marriage for his
daughter to
marry Sir Walter Hungerford’s
son, and acted
as a trustee of
extensive
estates. Before
1421 Lord
William gave him
an annuity for
life of £10. On
one occasion the
dean and chapter
of Wells paid
him £1 for
executing a writ
on their behalf,
and a number of
the chapter’s
deeds bear his
name as a
witness.
Stourton’s dearest love among the religious foundations of
Somerset was the
small house of
Augustinian
canons at
Stavordale in
the south-east
of the county.
In fact, he
himself paid for
the rebuilding
of their church
(consecrated in
1443 after his
death) and also
made
arrangements for
the endowment of
the priory with
his advowson of
Thorn Coffin. It
was there that
Stourton wished
to be buried. He
stipulated that
his body should
be carried to
Stavordale in
his best wagon
drawn by ten
prize oxen, the
wagon and
beasts then ‘to
remain at the
said house for a
memorial of my
soul’. The prior
was to have £2
and every canon
£1 on the day of
his burial. His
executors were
to supervise the
completion of
the church and
cloister ‘as
well in glazing
the widows as in
other buildings
there to be
done’, and the
church was to be
‘throughout
honestly paved
with Tyle of my
arms and the
arms of my
mother’. He also
willed that two
images carried
thither by me
shall be
ordained and
placed in the
middle of the
choir of the
said church,
between the
stalls there,
and that
underneath shall
be made a
certain tomb,
ordained and
walled for the
bodies of me and
my wife to be
placed therein
reasonably and
honestly after
our death, with
one closet of
iron bars around
the said tomb;
and that the
lectern shall be
at the head of
the said tomb.
Much of the rest of Stourton’s will was concerned with farm implements, stock and domestic effects, including 14 oxen, ploughs, yokes, iron chains, ‘dragges’, harrows and other articles connected with husbandry, 200 sheep, brewing vessels and the equipment of the ‘bake house’. There was also a valuable relic, a silver cup ‘which belonged to St. Thomas the Martyr’. To his nephew, (Sir) John Stourton, he gave his ‘good psalter which belonged to William his father’, together with vestments of blue cloth of gold and plate and silk for his chapel, but the executors were warned that should the younger man not be satisfied with these bequests in respect of items that had been his father’s, they should not allow him to receive them. To his niece, Margaret, and her husband, William Carent, Stourton bequeathed a gold rosary, and to the latter ‘for his labour and friendship’ £10 and a black horse. John Godewyne, executor of his will and also of that of his deceased brother, Master Richard, was to have £10 too. Stourton’s executors were also instructed to make a tomb at Dawlish Wake of ‘two images, one of a man armed and the other of a gentlewoman, designed for a memorial of John Keynes and his wife’ (probably the testator’s sister). The will, dated to November 1438, prohibited any great expense at Stourton’s funeral: the amount usually spent on such occasions (up to £20) was to be distributed among the poor.
John Stourton died on 16 December 1438.
John Stourton left three daughters, each by a different wife, and his estates were divided between them. The eldest, Cecily, the widow of John Hill of Spaxton (for whom Stourton had acted as executor in 1434), was now the wife of Sir Thomas Kyriel of Sarrecourt, on the Isle of Thanet, currently making his reputation as a soldier; the second, Joan, was married to John Sydenham of Bridgwater; and the third, Alice, was aged seven and as yet unmarried. (Later she was wedded first to William Daubeney of South Ingleby, by whom she became the mother of Giles, 1st Lord Daubeney, and then to Robert Hill of Houndstone, nephew of his namesake of Spaxton).
Stourton’s widow, Katherine,
married secondly Sir John Beynton of
Hampreston,
Dorset, thirdly
William Wadham,
and lastly
William Carent
(the same person
as had
previously been
the husband of
Stourton’s
niece); she
survived John by
nearly 35 years,
eventually dying
in 1473.
