A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Henry I, however, Armston alone is described as 

 extending over more than 5 hides, the whole still 

 forming part of the Peterborough fee,"- and this 

 overlordship continued until the 15th century. 



The five knights, tenants of Peterborough Abbey 

 in io86,'2 were followed by five others in the next 

 century.'^ One of these knights was probably 

 Geoffrey of Winchester, who held 3 virgates in 

 Burghley of the Abbot.^^ Geoffrey's fees went to 

 William de Burghley, who claimed to be hereditary 

 reeve of the abbot's liberty of Stamford, and is men- 

 tioned in 1 1 16 and lliS.*'' He was succeeded by 

 Roger de Burghley, who surrendered the office of 

 reeve of Stamford, and was living in 1143-4.'^ The 

 next holder apparently was William de Burghley, 

 who was holding in 1189 and by 1212 had been 

 succeeded by a third William, who was holding two 

 fees in Burghley and Armston in 1227.^' Probably a 

 fourth William was holding in 1254 and 1260,^' and 

 was succeeded by his son, Roger, who died in 1280.*' 

 Roger was followed by Thomas de Burghley ,1 and he 

 by Geoffrey de Burghley, who did homage to the 

 abbot in 1322 and 1327 for his fee in Armston.- 

 Geoffrev, by his wife Mariota, had a son Peter.' In 

 1346, Mariota, widow of Geoffrey, is mentioned as 

 holding a fee in Burghley,"" and in 1428 she is named 

 as a former tenant of the fee of the abbot of Peter- 

 borough in Armston, then held by Gerveys Wykes.^ 



Another mesne lordship here, possibly over the 

 same lands, belonged to Reginald de Grey in 1256, 

 who settled on John de Grey a knight's fee in Armston 

 inherited from his mother, Emma.* His successor, 

 Reginald de Grey, in 1295 

 held of the Burghley heirs,' 

 and Richard de Syward was 

 his sub-tenant.' Below Syward 

 again came James Byron. 

 Richard Byron, probably 

 James's great nephew and 

 heir,' complained in 1308 that 

 the prior of the Hospital of 

 Armston and others had be- 

 sieged him in his manor house 

 for two days and assaulted 

 him in the High Street of 



Armston.^" Sir James Byron was dealing with lands in 

 Kingsthorp and Armston in the middle of the 14th 

 century,'! anj John Byron was holding lands there 

 in 1364.!^ A small property in Armston, held of 

 John Byron by Sir John Knyvet of Winwick, Hunts, 

 who died in 1381,'' seems to have been part of this 

 Byron manor which was included in a settlement 

 made in 1441 on Sir Robert Booth and others by 



BvRoN. Argent three 

 bastons gules. 



•' y.C.H. Norihanls. i, 366A. 



" Ibid. 



" Ibid. 



•*lbid. 315 a; Pytchlcy, Bk. of Fees 

 (Northanu Rec. Soc.) 88 n. 



•• Ibid. 88 n. 



•• Ibid. 88, 88 n. 



•' Ibid. 88 n, 89 n ; Cal. Chart. R. 

 1226-57, p. 20. 



•• Pytchlcy, op. cit. 88, 89 n ; Egerton 

 MS. 2733, f. 128 b. 



" Pytchlcy, Bk. of Fees, 89 n. 



' Ibid. 



• Cott. MS. Vcipaiian E xxi, i. 41, 

 78 b. 81. 



• Pytchlcy, op. cit. 88, 89 n. 



• Ibid. 



* Frud. Aids, iv, 47. 



* Feet of F. Div. Cos. case 283, file 14, 

 no. 318. 



' Intj. .T.q.d. file 24, no. i8. • Ibid. 



* Thoroton, Hist. Nolls, ii, 2S5. 

 "Cal. Pal. 1307-13, p. 168, Rich.ird's 



•on, J.ime», must be the J.imes Byron 

 mentioned in the return of 1428, and the 

 Abbey's former ten.int in Armston. 

 {Feud. Aids, iv, 47.) 



" Bucclcuch Deeds, A. 69, F. 42. 



"Ibid. G. 25. 



"Chan. Inq. p.m. Ric. II, file 15, 

 no. 32. 



" Feet of F. Div. Cos. case 293, file 

 70, no. 253. 



" Fts. of Now. (Harl. Soc. iv), 9. 



104 



Sir John Byron of Clayton and his wife Margery,** 

 daughter of John Booth of Barton, Lancashire.'^ 

 Bridges identifies the carucate possessed by James 

 Byron in 1295 with lands called from their owner 

 ' Buren's thing.' These lands were settled in 1463 

 by William Aldvvincle, lord of Ticlimarsh manor in 

 Aldwincle, on his wife, Elizabeth, who, with her 

 second husband, William Chamber, granted them in 

 1489 to the chantry they had founded in the church 

 of Aldvvincle.'* The manor of Armston belonging to 

 this chantry was sold to Sir Edward Montagu in 

 1547," and descended from that time with Barnwell 

 St. Andrew (q.v.),but was not sold in 191 3 and is still 

 in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch. 



Another of the five Peterborough tenants in 

 Armston, in the reign of Henry I, was Guy Maufe, 

 who held a hide of the Abbey land.'* Some part of 

 his fee seems to have been included in Hervey de 

 Borham's grant to Thorney Abbey, of the manor of 

 Kingsthorpe (q.v.), and was held by this house in 

 1291." As lands in Armston of the late Abbey of 

 Thorney, then occupied by John Robery, they were 

 acquired by Sir Edward Montagu, with the manor of 

 Luddington (q.v.), in 1544. 



From the first half of the 12th century the history of 

 the rest of t!:e Peterborough lands in Armston, held by 

 Turkil, by Geoffrey de Gunthorpe, and by Tedrick,^* 

 is obscure. Geoffrey may have been ancestor of the 

 Geoffrey of Southorpe who did homage to the Abbot 

 for lands in Armston in 1275,^' but no later mention 

 of the tenure of this family occurs, and it can only 

 be supposed that all three holdings were eventually 

 united in the manor of Armston, in Armston, and 

 that the nucleus of it may have been the lands held 

 by a family who bore the name of the hamlet. 



These lands were originally held apparenily by 

 Gudold the Beadle, whose lands were confirmed to 

 Peterborough Abbey by Henry I.-^ Philip de Armston 

 paid lid. towards an aid at the close of the 12th 

 century, and held land in Armston by the service 

 of •[\ of a knight's fee payable to the chamber of the 

 Abbot.2' It was probably the same Philip who was 

 holding of the Honour of Peterborough in 1211-12,2* 

 and with his son Reginald witnessed a charter of Abbot 

 Robert de Lindsey (1214-22). ^^ Philip also had a son 

 Bartholomew, whose son Geoffrey,^® with Stephen de 

 Winwick, held J of a fee in 1 254.2^ The descent at 

 this date becomes uncertain. A John de Armston, 

 probably a brother or son of Geoffrey, had a son 

 Robert, who took the name of Berncwcll,-' and a 

 daughter Isabel, who had a son John.-" John de 

 Armston seems also to have had a son ' John de 

 Armston, called Despenser,''" whose name frequently 



*• Bridges, op. cit. ii, 211. 



" Pat. 38 Hen. VIII, pt. 7, ni. 36. 



•• r.C.H. Northaiits. i. 366*. 



'» Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 55 b. 



" V.C.H. Norihanls. ii, 366*. 



" Soc. Aniiq. MS. 60, 159/1. 



" Pytchlcy, Bk. of Fees (Northanti 

 Rec. Soc), 136 n. This land may have 

 been held later byTuricor Teduck. Ibid. 



» Ibid. 



» Red. Bk. of the Exch. (Rolls Scr.), 

 ii, 619. 



'• Pytchlcy, loc. cit. 



■" Bucclcuch Deeds, A, 31, D. 11. 



" Soc. Antiq. MS. 60, f. 249. 



" Buccleuch Deeds, A. 15, F. 3. 



" Ibid. F. 3. "Ibid. K. 3. 



