SKELTON, John III

Although Skelton’s origins are obscure, the key to his election to Parliament may undoubtedly be found in his position as a Chancery official, holding the post of spigurnel (the man responsible for sealing the writs). He was not the John Skelton who was dep. at the Exchequer to three successive Warwick chamberlains from 1401 to 1433 (PRO List ‘Exchequer Offsicers’, 185), as that John died bef. Nov. 1434: E403/717, m. 7. Given his later connexions with Surrey, it is possible that he was related to another John Skelton, a baker who with his wife Katherine was living in Guildford in the 1430s; CP25(1)/232/71/64; C131/62/21; C241/223/2. although he himself attained armigerous rank by the end of that decade – if he was the John Skelton, esquire, sued by the executors of Symkyn Prentout, a wax chandler of London, with regard to property in Walton and Molesey of which he and others had been enfeoffed by Symkyn’s brother John, a London draper. C1/9/122; 69/339.

Skelton may have begun his career as serjeant of the catery of the Household, as such receiving an assignment at the Exchequer on behalf of Sir Roger Fiennes*, the keeper of the wardrobe, for the supply of fish and other victuals in the summer of 1445, E403/757, m. 8. but if so he took a different course a few years later, to emerge in the circle of the chancellor, Cardinal John Kemp, successively archbishop of York and Canterbury. As ‘gentleman of London’, in July 1451 and on two subsequent occasions in the course of the next ten months, Skelton stood surety in the Exchequer for Gervase Clifton* and his stepson John Scott*, two esquires from Kent, who were closely associated with the chancellor. CFR, xviii. 214, 235-5, 247. Skelton himself was to be described as Kemp’s ‘servant’ when he collected payments of the archbishop’s fees as a member of the King’s Council, and as ‘servant of the chancellor’ when he appeared in the Exchequer at other times. E403/793, mm. 1, 7. It seems likely that he took up office as spigurnel of the Chancery (presumably on Kemp’s nomination) in about 1452, in succession to Geoffrey Godelok*. The position, which entitled him to wear the King’s livery as issued at the great wardrobe, may well have proved lucrative. No record has been found to show the size of his regular salary, but his income would have been bolstered by fees paid to him by the beneficiaries of the writs he sealed. M. Richardson, Med. Chancery under Hen. V (L. and I. Soc. special ser. xxx), 17. An earlier spigurnel had been paid 6d. a day, although not necessarily simply for his activities in Chancery: ibid. 130. His position in the Chancery explains his occasional appearance as a recipient of ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels, enrolled on the close rolls. e.g. CCR, 1447-54, p. 440; 1461-8, p. 131. Skelton’s status as an ‘esquire’, and his place of residence, sometimes given as Lambeth – the location of the archbishop’s palace –strongly suggests that he was attached to Kemp’s household at this time. Before the cardinal’s death, at some point before May 1454 Skelton allied himself by marriage to John Pury, an important figure in the royal Household, who was well acquainted with others of influence at Court. To cement the link, and advance his career, he was prepared to overlook his wife’s illegitimate birth, and to lend his father-in-law money on request. C1/60/115; 64/444.

While it is certain that Skelton represented Poole in the Parliament of 1455, it may be conjectured that he also did so in the previous Parliament, that of 1453-4. The names of Poole’s MPs on that occasion, as given on the schedule attached to the electoral indenture for Dorset, are now illegible, save for the surname of one of them, who is thought to have been William Denys* of Combe-Raleigh, Devon. The evidence for Skelton being the other is entirely circumstantial: on 19 May 1453, during the second session of the Parliament, he was associated with Denys and with Walter Reynell*, knight of the shire for Devon, in recognizances in 500 marks to Thomas Dowrich II*. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 434-6. The transactions concerned the Devonshire manor of West Ogwell. During the final session, on 22 Mar. 1454, Chancellor Kemp died, but Skelton was kept on as spigurnel in the Chancery by the new chancellor, the earl of Salisbury, and the following year by Salisbury’s successor Archbishop Bourgchier. He was therefore in office when returned to the Parliament of 1455. He had no known connexion with the Dorset port he represented; nor did his fellow MP, Thomas Bayen*, who, significantly, also held a clerical office in the Chancery. It is entirely possible that the two officials’ names were inserted on the schedule when it came in to Chancery at the start of the parliamentary session on 9 July, especially as Poole had not been included in the composite indenture for the knights and burgesses elected in Dorset, and was the last borough to be listed on the schedule. Skelton’s participation in the business of the Commons is not recorded, although on 12 Mar. 1456, the final day of the Parliament, he appeared in the Exchequer as a mainpernor for Sir James Pickering*, one of the knights of the shire for Yorkshire. CFR, xix. 159.

The Parliament of 1455-6 had been held while the duke of York and his allies were in control of the government following their victory in the first battle of St. Albans, but there is nothing to show that Skelton was a partisan of the duke at this stage of the descent into civil war. The office of spigurnel is poorly documented, so it is not known whether he continued to hold it under Bourgchier’s successor as chancellor, Bishop Waynflete, a man much more closely associated with the Lancastrian regime. Yet there can be little doubt that he actively supported the Yorkists in the late 1450s, before Edward IV seized the throne. This timely support won him handsome rewards. On 8 Aug. 1461 the new King granted him the office of spigurnel for life, warranting the payment of his wages with effect from the beginning of the reign, and on the following day he was given, also for life, the constableship of the royal castle at Hadleigh in Essex, together with custody of the associated manor and lordship, at a farm of £16 p.a. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 39, 138. Furthermore, in October the same year, and specifically for his good service to King Edward and his brothers, Skelton was awarded the potentially lucrative post of surveyor of the search in the port of London, CPR, 1461-7, p. 52. which he was to occupy for at least six years, up until Easter 1467. E122/186/4. Two of his deputies were pardoned, in Nov. 1466, for offences against the statutes: CPR, 1461-7, pp. 536, 545. He may have indeed held the constableship of Hadleigh until he died, for although the lordship was granted to Edward’s queen on 5 July 1465, three days earlier Skelton’s position as constable had been secured by the authorization of a payment to him of £17 11s. 7d. for arrears of his wages, and the promise that henceforth he should receive 3d. a day. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 445, 469. Because the queen held Hadleigh, there are no letters patent appointing a successor to Skelton as constable until after Ric. III came to the throne. Styled ‘constable’ and as ‘of London, esquire’, on 20 Nov. that year he took out a royal pardon. C67/45, m. 5.

In the 1460s, following his second marriage, to Agnes, the daughter and heiress of Thomas Trussbut, a former coroner of Norfolk, Skelton went to live in her home county. In a bill sent into Chancery at some point between 1465 and 1467 (or possibly during the Readeption), the couple brought an action against the surviving feoffees named by her grandfather Laurence Trussbut (onetime steward of the bishop of Norwich’s liberty of Lynn), for possession of lands in west Norfolk at Shouldham, Bishop’s Lynn, West Winch, Fincham and Marham. Agnes claimed that the feoffees had failed to perform her grandfather’s will, which was to transfer seisin to her father and his issue in tail. In another petition the Skeltons also laid claim to property in Runcton Holme and elsewhere in the same part of the county, stating that as all of Laurence’s sons and daughters had died childless, with the exception of Agnes’s father, she was now the sole heir. C1/33/6, 330. The marriage had taken place by June 1468, for in a pardon he purchased in that month Skelton was not only called ‘formerly of London, esquire’, but also ‘formerly of Runcton Holme’. The reason why he was also described as ‘of Orsett, Essex’ has not been ascertained, although Orsett was not far from Hadleigh, and he may well have bought property in the neighbourhood. C67/46, m. 1.

Skelton’s office in the Chancery must have presented him with a dilemma regarding his allegiance to the monarch, not only when Edward IV was forced to go into exile in the autumn of 1470, but also when he returned in the following spring to regain his throne from Henry VI. Controversy surrounded Skelton’s movements at this crucial time, and in 1471 his loyalty to the restored King was called into question by Thomas Gaunsell* esquire, a man with whom he had quarrelled in the past. Gaunsell claimed that when news came that Edward had landed again in England he himself had taken a troop of men to join his army at Warwick, but was taken captive by followers of the Lancastrian John de Vere, earl of Oxford, and ordered to join his force instead. He said that Skelton had assigned one of his own servants to de Vere’s retinue, and that this servant duly followed the earl at the battle of Barnet, though he, Gaunsell, remaining loyal to King Edward, was robbed of his horse and equipment by the rebels. Skelton strenuously denied the imputation of treachery, protesting that he had always been true and faithful to King Edward, and never did nor exhorted any other man to do anything contrary to his allegiance. According to him, Gaunsell had willingly joined de Vere when the earl had been recruiting men in Norfolk, and that he, knowing Gaunsell’s malicious disposition towards him, had sent his servant to de Vere’s camp to counter these slanders, instructing him not to take the field against the rightful King. C1/44/248. Skelton’s own petitions to Bishop Stillington, after he was restored as chancellor, took the story further. He pointed out that, as had been demonstrated to the King and council by Geoffrey Buntyng of Fordham, after Edward’s victory at Tewkesbury Gaunsell openly proclaimed in Norfolk that this had in fact been a defeat, and that Edward had fled again; he incited the men of the county to rise in support of Henry VI, promising them substantial rewards if they did so. Although pardoned by the victorious monarch, Gaunsell had maliciously forged a bill naming certain people from west Norfolk (including Skelton) as traitors. This bill, widely publicized in the locality, had left the slandered Skelton in great jeopardy of his life. He had been put to the enormous expense of keeping guards at his house and having them ride with him for his protection. Furthermore, he had sustained great losses ‘in lettyng of his besyness in his contrey and of his office of sealyng and attendaunce upon [the chancellor’s] good lordship’, so that he had incurred costs amounting to £40. Skelton brought copies of the original bill and the supposedly forged bill into Chancery. The latter accused him and a number of others, headed by the abbot of West Dereham, of congregating at Downham Market, using ‘unfittyng language’ against the King, and openly rejoicing that Henry VI had been advanced again to the Crown. In May 1472 a Westminster scrivener, John Bothe, was brought in to Chancery to testify. He took an oath before the chancellor that Gaunsell had come to him in his shop at the end of the previous Michaelmas term, asking him first to make a copy of the original bill and the next day for the copy to be ‘new written’ inserting the names which Gaunsell gave him verbally. The chancellor ruled that Gaunsell be committed to the Fleet prison and kept there at his discretion pending trial. C1/43/284-90. Although Gaunsell later cleared his name, Skelton had proved his loyalty to the satisfaction of the chancellor and the Council: he had been appointed deputy butler in Boston by the restored regime the previous July. CPR, 1467-77, p. 263.

In the autumn of 1473 Skelton was looking for another wife. A neighbour, Thomas Derham of Crimplesham, died on 30 Aug. that year, leaving the manor of Wesenhams and some 500 acres of land to his infant son Thomas, whose wardship pertained to the Crown. C140/45/39. According to a petition sent to the chancellor subsequently, Skelton sought to marry Derham’s widow Jane, promising her that if she would be betrothed to him he would labour the King to grant the wardship by letters patent to her and to others to hold to her use. This happened: the wardship was granted (on 13 Dec.) to Jane and to William Purchase, a London mercer. But Skelton died before the marriage took place, and Jane instead married an esquire named John Grey. The couple were unable to take control of the wardship from Skelton’s executors – William Grey and the cleric Roger Lane (later rector of Runcton Holme) – and petitioned the chancellor for redress. William Grey responded that Skelton, ‘sore seke’, had lain dying in Purchase’s house for six or seven weeks, in the course of which he made his testament. In this, he instructed the executors to sell the wardship, for which he had paid £100. According to him, Skelton had never promised Jane to obtain the wardship for her, although in a codicil to his will he had left her £20, and he had told her when she visited him that she could keep all the tokens he had given her. After Skelton died Jane offered Purchase £106 for the wardship, but he would not agree; and John Grey argued with the executors over terms of payment. C1/51/332-3; 54/226; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 416-17.

This was not the only controversy surrounding Skelton’s estate. In yet another petition to the chancellor, the MP’s his son and heir John claimed that the executors had refused to prove the testament before the ordinary, taking instead a general letter of administration of the deceased’s goods and chattels, which they wasted ‘dayly and hourly’. They refused to hand over to John the items specifically bequeathed to him (including £40 in cash, an ‘owche’ of gold, a bed of silk, a gold chain and a signet worth some £40 more), or to reimburse him for sums he had paid his father’s creditors at their request. C1/1513/8-9. There is, however, evidence that the administrators pursued Skelton’s debtors in the law courts, CPR, 1476-85, p. 150. and that they also instigated suits against his one-time father-in-law, the elderly John Pury. The latter protested that although he had repaid £50 he had borrowed from our MP several years earlier, the administrators had sued an action of debt against him at Norwich. Furthermore, they had defrauded him of a legacy worth £40 which Skelton had left him. However, a different version of events was presented by Skelton’s son John. The young man claimed that Pury had owed his dying father £60, and that when he himself had attempted to bring a plea of debt against Pury in London the latter had used a writ of privilege of the court of common pleas to obtain a discharge, accused John of false imprisonment and sued him for debts amounting to £220, with the malicious intention that he would be kept in prison. C1/60/115; 64/444.