WYMERSLEY HUNDRED 



WOOTTON 



Wootton. The younger Amabel died childless' before 

 1242-3, when her husband Luke de Colum was joint 

 tenant with Miles de Beauchamp II of the Wahull 

 knight's fee here.^ They perhaps had a daughter Joan 

 who predeceased them, for a Joan de Colum enfeoffed 

 Gilbert de Preston (and his wife Alice), tenant of the 

 other fee in Wootton, with ij virgates here.' The 

 Colums are no more mentioned. 



Amabel, second sister of John de Bidun II, obtained 

 a grant from Ralph fitz John in 12 19;* in 1225-6 she 

 had leave to assart 8 acres of wood in Wootton, and 

 when her daughter Sibyl gave them to St. Andrew's 

 Priory she confirmed, as did Miles de Beauchamp, her 

 son and heir.' As 'lady of Wootton' she, with Robert 

 fitz Geoffrey her nephew, recovered the advowson, 

 1 23 1-2, from Lavendon Abbey.* Miles the son was 

 joint lord 1 242-3,' and died in 1 264 leaving a son and 

 heir Richard, still living 1292,* but not mentioned in 

 Wootton. Miles (once called Miles de Wootton) had 

 given lands here to his sons William and Geoffrey, who 

 gave part to the parson's foster-son, but seem to have 

 kept lands and definitely taken the name Wootton.' 

 Their uncle or cousin'" John de Beauchamp alienated 

 the manor and advowson in 1274 to Robert Burnel," 

 Bishop of Bath and Wells. The bishop's younger 

 brother,'- Philip, died seised in 1 28 1, holding this estate 

 of the bishop, together with certain lands of the Hun- 

 tingdon fee here, and the bishop was his heir."' Neither 

 the bishop nor his nephew and heir, another Philip, 

 held anything here when they died,''' though Philip 

 had presented to the church in 1288." In 1283 the 

 manor, two mills, the advowson, and the goods of the 

 elder Philip had been taken into the king's hands,'* 

 possibly because his widow had remarried without 

 licence." Next year John de Hastings, overlord of the 

 Huntingdon fee, held the vill as half a knight's fee of 

 John de Wahull,'* while in 1304 this was said to be 

 J of a knight's fee and held by John de Hastings and 

 William de Wutton." 



John de Hastings demised the manor for life to 

 Margery, widow (1309 or earlier)^" of Alan, Earl of 

 Menteith,^' who had some obscure connexion with his 

 family; she, living here in 13 16, was tenant.-^ .After her 

 death it reverted to the Hastings family and descended 

 with Yardiey Hastings (q.v.) to the Greys, Earls of 

 Kent.^' In 1513 Sir Henry Grey, kt. (second son 

 of George, Earl of Kent), on whom the property 

 was settled, conveyed the manor and advowson to 

 Sir Henry Wyatt;^* but in a possibly fictitious suit, 

 c. 1 540,-' Thomas Grey said that Reynold Grey, Lord 



' Roberts, loc. cit. 



' Bk. of Feel, 940. 



' Ca}. Inij. p.m. ii, 69. Possibly 'Joan' 

 is a mistake, unless she was a daughter of 

 Luke by a second wife. 



♦ Sec above. 



* Farter, op. cit. 9. 



* Maitland, Bracton't Note-Book, 648; 

 Rot. Hug. de ffellei (Cant, and York Soc.), 

 ii, 168, 150. ' See above. 



• l^.C.H. Bucks, iv, 381. 



» Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A. 8270, 8853-4. 



" Cf. Farrer, op. cit. 99. 



" Feet of F. Northants. case 174, file 

 51, no. II. 



" Eyton, Shropshire, vi, 132. 



'* Cat. Infj. p.m. ii, 428. 



'* Ibid, iii, 65, 194. 



" Bridges, op. cit. 393. 



" Cal. Fine, 1272-1307, p. 174; Cal. 

 Inj. Misc. i, 1274; Chan. In<j. p.m. 11 

 Edw. I, no. 57. 



■' Cal. Pat. 1281-92, p. I 

 Close, 1279-88, p. 251. 



" Feud. Aids, iv, 5. 



*^ Cal. Inq. p.m. iv, 219, p. 141. 



" G.E.C. Complete Peerage (2nd ed.), 

 viii, 665 and n. 



" Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 108. 



" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, App. i, 199; 

 Feud. Aids, iv, 27. 



" Cat. Inq. p.m. vi, 612, p. 388; ix, 1 18, 

 p. 116; Feud. Aids, iv, 42. 



" Com. Pleas D. Enr. Trin. 5 Hen. 

 VIII; Early Chan. Proc. file 512, no. 32. 



" Early Chan. Proc. file 991, no. 49. 



" Cal. Inf. Hen. yil, i, 372. John 

 Mauntcll had tenements 1425: Cat. 

 Anct. D. (P.R.O.), A. 7629. 



" f^.C.H. Bucks, iv, 185, 195. 



»• Cal. Chart, vi, 275. 



'" Bridges, op. cit. 393. 



'° Coll. Topog. et Gen. v, ch. 24, 308 ; 

 Early Chin. Proc. file 1090, nos. 41-2. 



Hastings, had enfeoffed his younger son Robert who 

 held it for 24 years and more and left a son Humphrey 

 aged 1 2 ; whereupon Edmund, Earl of Kent, (grand)son 

 of Reynold seized Humphrey and the manor and docu- 

 ments, which had now come to Sir John Allen, alder- 

 man of London, although Humphrey had a son. Sir 

 Edward Grey, father of the petitioner. The Wyatts 

 kept the manor. Sir Henry Wyatt had already obtained 

 in 1 5 1 1 another small estate, called on two occasions 

 a manor, in this Wahull fee. It was held of Edmund, 

 Earl of Kent, for the service of 6<j'. yearly by Walter 

 Mauntell, who died seised in 1487 leaving a grandson 

 John, son of his son Henry.-* Like his Buckinghamshire 

 lands,^' these came to Richard Empson, and were 

 granted in 1 5 11 to Sir Henry Wyatt,^' patron of the 

 living in 1523." However Sir Walter Mauntell just 

 before his death in 1523 willed a 'manor' here to trus- 

 tees for his son John, still a minor 19 years later, when 

 the surviving daughters claimed. ■"' Sir Henry Wyatt's 

 son, the poet Sir Thomas, and Elizabeth his wife, 

 conveyed manor and advowson in i 541-2 to the Sir 

 John Allen" mentioned above. He made a settlement 

 I 544 and died shortly afterwards, leaving a son Chris- 

 topher.'- Sir Christopher Allen and Audrey his wife 

 conveyed the advowson in 1565 to Bartholomew 

 Tate'J of Delapre Abbey, and the manor in the following 

 year to Edmund Huddleston,'* who with Dorothy his 

 wife conveyed it to Sir Robert Lane, 3' and he in 1 579, 

 with his wife Mary and William Lane, granted it to 

 William Bradbourne.-i* William Rande and Dorothy 

 his wife conveyed it in 1 582 to William Whittle, '' who 

 with William Whittle jun. conveyed it in 1594 to 

 Thomas Rowland. '' Thomas settled it on his wife 

 Jane with reversion to his brother John, a Londoner, 

 who made a conveyance in 1625-6-" but predeceased 

 his brother's widow in 1636, when she was wife of Sir 

 Arthur Smithes. He left a son Thomas. ••° Thomas 

 and John Rowland granted the manor in 1670 to Sir 

 Richard Raynsford, justice of the pleas. ^' About 1720 

 Bridges noted that the manor was sunk and the lord- 

 ship divided amongst several freeholders ;''^ but in 

 1743-4 John Garth and Rebecca his wife and Eliza- 

 beth Brompton, spinster, adjusted their claims to a 

 third of the manor with Richard Hind and John Evans, 

 clerk, ■'■' and in 176 1-2 Shuckburgh .Ashby and Eliza- 

 beth his wife conveyed a third of the manor to John 

 Harris, -"^ while George William Johnson, who derived 

 his title from Edmund Wilson, was also concerned with 

 one third.'" The Harris family recovered the manorial 

 rights.''* William Harris was concerned with the whole 



hi: Cal. 



" Feet of F. Northants. East. 33 Hen. 

 VIII. 



" Chan. Inq. p.m. (Scr. 2), Ixxii, 57. 



" Cal. of Fines Northants. Trin. 7 Elii. 



" Ibid. Mich. 7 & 8 Eliz. 



" Feet of F. Northants. Mich. 13 i 14 

 Eliz. 



" Ibid. East. 21 Eliz. 



" Ibid. East. 24 Eliz. 



" Ibid. East. 36 Eliz. 



" Ibid. nil. I Chas. I. 



*" Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cccclmi, 

 94. 



'•' Feet of F. Northants. Mil. 21 & 22 

 Chas. II. 



** Bridges, op. cit. 392. 



■•J Recov. R. Mich. 17 Ceo, II, rot. 

 282 ; Feet of F. Northants. Trin. 1 7 Geo. 

 II. " Ibid. Mich. 2 Geo. III. 



*' Recov. R. Trin. 2 Geo. MI, rot. 265. 



<' Whellan, Gazetteer of Northants. 

 {1874), p. 283. 



293 



