WESTON, William II (d.c.1419), of Dedswell in Send, Surr. and Hindhall in Buxted, Suss.

It is difficult to disentangle the career of this William Weston from that of his more prominent kinsman, William Weston I, several times knight of the shire for Surrey, especially as the family pedigrees are inextricably confused. It seems clear, however, that he came from a younger branch of the family seated at West Clandon, and was most likely a grandson of the Thomas Weston of Albury who, as the result of a marriage contracted in about 1350, acquired the manor of Dedswell in Send, together with property in Sussex situated at Buxted, Fletching and Grinstead. Certainly, our William Weston held lands at Buxted worth £20 a year, according to the assessments made in 1412, as well as property at unspecified places in Surrey worth a similar amount.VCH Surr. iii. 368; Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), no. 2097; Feudal Aids, vi. 518, 526. In the confused pedigrees in Surr. Arch. Coll. xii. addenda, his parents are given as Thomas Weston of Send and Margaret, da. of William Newdigate† of Newdigate Surr. These holdings in Surrey may well have included the manor of Weston and lands in Albury of which his own grandson was later to die possessed.

Weston was described on the parliamentary return in 1415 as ‘of Hindhall’, in order to distinguish him both from his namesake elected to the same Parliament for Surrey, and the latter’s son, William Weston III, then returned as a burgess by Guildford. With the exception of his shrievalty of 1417-18, there is no royal service which may be confidently ascribed to him, although it is most unlikely that he would have been appointed sheriff before proving himself to be reasonably competent in administrative matters. Similarly, his local connexions are shrouded in obscurity, although it was almost certainly he who had been associated in 1409 with John Waterton, a prominent member of Henry IV’s household, as the latter’s co-feoffee of two Sussex manors, for Waterton was his wife’s stepfather.Suss. Feet of Fines, no. 2799. Weston had married into the well-to-do family of Wintershall, now recovered from the effects of the execution of his wife’s father for treason at the very beginning of the century. But he was never to enjoy possession of any of the Wintershall estates, for he died at some unknown date between November 1418 (when he relinquished the post of sheriff) and the death of his brother-in-law, Thomas Wintershall, in October 1420. His widow, Joan, shared her inheritance with her sister, Agnes Basset, and subsequently married William Catton of Winchelsea. She died before 1441 when her heir was Weston’s son, John. In a royal pardon granted to John in 1446 he was described as both tenant of lands once belonging to his parents and administrator of the goods of the one-time sheriff of Henry V’s reign.C138/50/86; CFR, xiv. 369; CCR, 1419-22, p. 95; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 320-1, 375; C67/39 m. 13. The combined Weston and Wintershall estates descended to John’s son, William (d.1485): O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. 17; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 162.