A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



persons, and that he had only cut hazels and rods with 

 which to stretch the nets. He admitted taking a cat, 

 but did not comment on its alleged tameness." John 

 died in 1296 seised of Pytchley, consisting of a chief 

 messuage, 120 acres of arable land, 3 acres of meadow, 

 a water-mill,- and ;^io yearly rents of bondmen, held 

 of the king by serjeanty of hunting the wolf, the fox, 

 and the badger; and 33/. yearly rents of villeins, held 

 of the Abbot of Peterborough by service o( ^ of a 

 knight's fee.' His son John Engayne settled lands on 

 his wife Ellen, and died in 1322, holding Pytchley by 

 grand serjeanty of finding coursing dogs tor destroying 

 wolves, foxes, cats, and other vermin, as well within 

 parks as without, in the counties of Northampton, Rut- 

 land, Oxford, Essex, Huntingdon, and Buckingham, 

 with 33/. 6t^. and i lb. of pepper rent held of Peter- 

 borough by knight service.* Ellen died in 1 339,' when 

 her third of the manor was delivered to John, the son 

 of her husband's brother Nicholas.* This Sir John 

 Dengayne of Dillington (Hunts.) died in February 

 1358, seized of 14 virgates in Pytchley held of the king 

 as parcel of the serjeanty of Laxton, with 10 virgates 

 there held by free tenants of the Abbot of Peterborough 

 for one-fourth of a knight's fee, and rendering for each 

 virgate 2s. ^J. for ward of Rockingham Castle; Sir 

 John, it was said, had received nothing therefrom 

 except two attendances yearly from each tenant at his 

 court at Pytchley, the profits of which were worth 

 nothing.' When his son Sir Thomas died s.p. in 1367 

 the lands passed to his three sisters and co-heirs: Joyce, 

 the wife of John de Goldington; Elizabeth wife of Sir 

 Lawrence de Pabenham; and Mary wife of William 

 de Bernak.* In 1368 John de Goldington and his wife 

 Joyce transferred their third to William Bernak and his 

 wife Mary.' In 1377 a conveyance of Laxton, Pytch- 

 ley, and other manors was made to John de Goldington 

 and his wife Joyce by the other two sisters and their 

 husbands,'" and a second conveyance finally left this 

 manor of Pytchley, then held in dower by Katharine, 

 widow of Sir Thomas Engayne, the property of Eliza- 

 beth and Lawrence de Pabenham." Elizabeth pre- 

 deceased her husband, and at his death in 1399 their 

 heirwas theirdaughter Katharine, aged 27.'^ Katharine 

 married first Sir William Cheyne of Fen Ditton 

 (Cambs.),'3 and secondly Sir Thomas Aylesbury, in 

 whose hands the two Pytchley manors are consequently 

 found at his death in September 1418.'*' The manor of 

 Engaynes then consisted of three parcels, one being held 

 by the hunting serjeanty, another of the Abbot of 

 Peterborough, and the remainder of John Knj'vet as 

 of his manor of Weldon.'^ On the death of Katharine 

 Aylesbury, in 1436, her son Lawrence Cheyne in- 

 herited the manor,'* and in 1449 settled it on himself 

 and his wife Elizabeth, with remainder to their son 



John." Sir Thomas Cheyney, son of the last-named 

 Sir John, in 1503 granted the manor of Pytchley to 

 Ralph Lane and Katharine his wife, kinswoman of the 

 said Sir Thomas Cheyney, for life, with remainder for 

 life to John Dockwra, son of the said Katherine.'* In 

 1 5 1 1 , when a marriage was proposed between Eliza- 

 beth, the daughter and heir of this Sir Thomas Cheyney 

 (of Irtlingborough), and Thomas Vaux, son and heir 

 apparent of Sir Nicholas Vaux, the reversion of the 

 manor was settled in tail on Elizabeth." Sir Thomas 

 Cheyney died seised of the manor on 1 3 January 1 5 14, 

 his daughter being then 9 years old. Her subsequent 

 marriage with Sir Thomas Vaux conveyed Pytchley to 

 the Vaux of Harrowden (q.v.), who did not long hold 

 it however. Sir Thomas Vaux, Lord Harrowden, with 

 William Vaux his son and heir, sold the manor of 

 Pytchley called Geynes in 1555 to Gregory Isham, 

 citizen and merchant of London.^" 



The descent of the Ishams of Pytchley has already 

 been dealt with in the genealogical volume for North- 

 amptonshire.^' Henry de Isham of Northampton, to 

 whom a debt of ^^200 was owing in 1325,^^ may have 

 been identical with the Henry de Isham who in 1309^' 

 was bailiff of Richard son of Roger son of Henry in the 

 case of a free tenement in Pytchley claimed by Richard 

 against his brothers Roger and John and his sisters 

 Beatrice, Emma, and Joan.^'* It seems probable that he 

 was the Henry de Isham the lands of whose widow 

 Agnes at Pytchley were in 1349 the scene of a conflict 

 between the bailiff of the sheriff and Henry Dengayne 

 and others. ^5 Henry's great-grandson Robert settled 

 lands in Pytchley on his son William Isham,-* who was 

 succeeded by his son Thomas. Thomas Isham married 

 Ellen, daughter of Richard Vere and granddaughter 

 of John Green of Drayton, and was the father of that 

 Euseby Isham of Pytchley who, with his wife Anne, 

 daughter of Giles Pulton of Desborough,^' brought up 

 on his farm at Ringstead the family of twenty children 

 of whom Gregory, the purchaser of Engaynes, was no 

 unworthy member. How Gregory, the third of the 

 brothers, had been sent up to London by his father to 

 be apprenticed, and there accumulated the fortune 

 which enabled him to return to his own county and 

 purchase Engaynes and the Earl of Rutland's manors 

 in Braunston before his death in 1558; and how Giles, 

 the eldest, associated with Gregory in the fine of 1 5 5 5 

 conveying Engaynes to him, had been sent to London 

 to study the law, and returning on the death of Euseby 

 to succeed him at Pytchley, was also in the commission 

 of the peace, and died in i 5 59, is recorded in the family 

 archives preserved by the descendants of their brother 

 John at Lamport (q.v.); which tell, too, how Robert, 

 the second of the brothers, was chaplain to Queen 

 Mary, at whose death he resigned his stall at Peter- 



' Assize R. 619, m. 34. 

 ^ A mill is mentioned in 1194: Pipe 

 R. 6 Ric. I, m. 2 d. 



^ Cal. Inq. p.m. iii, 418. 

 ■♦ Ibid, vi, no. 427, p. 253. 

 s Ibid, viii, no. 219. 



* Cal. Close, 1339-41, p. 183. 



' CaA /wy. ^.m. X, no. 433, p. 343. 



* Chan. Inq. p.m. 41 Edw. Ill, no. 25; 

 Add. Ch. 33137. 



' Cal. Pat. 1367-70, p. 162; Feet of 

 F. Northants. 42 Edw. Ill, file 84, no. 

 606. 



'» Feet of F. Div. Co. East. 50 Edw. Ill, 

 no. 142. 



■' Ibid. 



'^ Chan. Inq. p.m. 22 Ric. II, no. 37. 



'5 Baker, Hist, of Northants. i, 714. 



'* Chan. Inq. p.m. 6 Hen. V, no. 35. 



'5 Ibid. John Knyvet, returned with 

 John Aylesbury as heir of Ralph Basset 

 of Weldon, held Weldon in chief at his 

 death on 4 Dec. 1418, and was succeeded 

 by his son John : ibid. 6 Hen. V, no. 32. 



■* Ibid. 15 Hen. VI, n. 150. 



'•' Cal. Pat. 1446-52, p. 259; Add. Ch. 

 7569. 



^8 Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), xxix, 3; 

 Cal. Pat. 1494-1509, p. 403. 



" Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), xxix, 3; 

 Coll. Topog. et Gen. v, 88. Abstract of will 

 of Sir Thomas Cheyney. 



^0 Com. Pleas, Deeds Enr. Trin. i Mary; 

 Recov. R. Hil. 1555, ro. 354; Feet of F. 

 Northants. East. 2 & 3 Ph. and M. 



" Op. cit. i, 141, &c. 



^- Cal. Close, 1323-7, p. 524. 



" Assize R. 1343, m. 29. 



-■• A family of Henrys in Pytchley may 

 have descended from one of the many 

 Henrys of Isham. Cf Philip Henry of 

 Pytchley in 1387: Cal. Pat. 1385-9, 

 p. 357; and Thomas Henry in 1394: ibid. 

 1391-6, p. 389. 



« Ibid. 1348-50, p. 455. 



-^ Exch. Inq. p.m. dclxxvi, 6. 



" Visit, of Northants. ed. by Walter 

 Metcalfe. 



210 



