STONE, Henry

Stone enjoyed a long and varied career and was one of the most important men to represent Northampton during this period. Judging from early references he was a native of the town (although, by the 1440s, he is known to have had kinsmen in London). In June 1445 John Stone, a London stockfishmonger, granted all his goods to our MP and others: CCR, 1441-7, p. 309. He is described as ‘of Northampton’ both in a general pardon granted to him in July 1415 and in a deed of the following December, by which he was granted a tenement in St. Sepulchre’s Street there in company with a rising lawyer, William Tresham*. C67/37, m. 36; Add. Ch. 22373. This connexion with Tresham is significant because there can be little doubt that, at least during the first part of his career, Stone followed the same calling. In a near-contemporary list of the town’s bailiffs he is described as a ‘man of law’, and the accuracy of this description is implied by his personal appearances in the court of King’s bench and as mainpernor and litigant. In Easter term 1417 he offered mainprise in that court for a Huntingdonshire clerk indicted of felonious theft, and two terms later he appeared there personally on his own account, claiming damages of £10 against a husbandman of Helmdon for assaulting and wounding him at nearby Stutchbury on 12 July 1414. Northampton Recs. ed. Markham and Cox, ii. 557: KB27/624, rex rot. 9d; 626, rot. 8d. In November 1423 he renewed his association with Tresham, joining him in offering surety in Chancery that Thomas Chamberlain would not harm Margaret, widow of Sir John Pilkington, and in the following Hilary term he was again in King’s bench to pursue an action of trespass. CCR, 1422-9, p. 131; KB27/651, rot. 7. Legal knowledge would also explain his apparent popularity as an executor. In the 1420s he acted in this capacity for both John Crowethe, vicar of Hardingstone on the outskirts of the town, and Katherine Derby (perhaps the widow of John Derby, who had been bailiff of Northampton in 1411-12), and much later in his career he did likewise for one John Casthorpe. CP40/654, rot. 78d; 678, rot. 247; 783, rot. 294.

Stone’s administrative career began in 1424 with his appointment as one of the town’s bailiffs. On 3 Oct. 1427 he and John Bertram* offered mainprise for Thomas Compworth* on his election to Parliament, and at the next election he himself was returned. It is a measure of his standing that he was able to call upon two of the town’s former MPs, Bertram and John Bray*, and one of its future representatives, Richard Ward*, as his sureties. C219/13/5; 14/1. His importance was further emphasized a few years later when he served consecutive terms as mayor. It was as mayor that he complained to the chancellor against another of the leading townsmen, Edwin Stannop*, concerning the disinheritance of the hospital of St. Leonard at Far Cotton, of which the burgesses were patrons. A few years later, on 16 July 1442, he was recorded as present at the hustings as one of the 24 comburgesses (or mayor’s council) when penalties were devised for those who should breach the secrecy of the council’s deliberations. This is the only reference to him as one of the councillors but little is known of the council’s membership and it is likely that he long served in the role. C1/11/172; VCH Northants. ii. 159; Northampton Recs. ii. 277.

In the following year Stone was involved in a more significant episode. On 12 July 1443 he was one of a group of townsmen, including the younger William Rushden*, Thomas Boltesham*, the mayor, and two mercers, William Derby and Geoffrey Holt, who found mainprise (each for the other) in Chancery to be of good behaviour until the following Michaelmas term. There can be no doubt that this mutual mainprise was connected with an action of trespass brought against them in that term by Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin. Indeed, on the same day as they had been required to find surety, the royal council instructed Grey to keep the peace towards the townsmen and all those either entering or leaving Northampton. The point at issue between the town and its powerful neighbour is not recorded, but the immediate disappearance of Grey’s suit from the plea rolls implies that the council’s action was effective in bringing the dispute to a close. CCR, 1441-7, p. 102; KB27/730, rot. 22; PPC, v. 305-6.

Thereafter Stone’s involvement in Northampton’s affairs diminished. In the later part of his career he developed mercantile rather than legal interests. From the early 1440s he is generally described as either ‘mercer’ or ‘merchant’. For instance, in Hilary term 1443, it was as a mercer that he was sued by John Heton* for breaking into his houses at Northampton and taking goods worth as much as £20, and he is again described as a mercer in 1448 when a writ was issued for his arrest to answer the Crown on a trespass against the statute of victuallers. CP40/728, rot. 249; KB27/750, rex rot. 32. Whether he appeared to answer does not appear, but he was later to encounter difficulties in private actions. In Easter term 1456 he appeared personally with his wife in the court of King’s bench to sue a writ of trespass against a London draper, Thomas Wattes. Unfortunately for him, Wattes replied by obtaining his outlawry on a plea of debt, and he did not secure a pardon of this disability until January 1462. KB27/780, rot. 16d; CPR, 1461-7, p. 5.

By that date Stone must have been very elderly. He made his will on 10 Dec. 1464. PCC 8 Godyn. Uncontroversially he wanted to be buried, like other leading men of the town, in the chapel of Corpus Christi in the town’s main church, that of All Saints, but the principal terms of the will were to prove contentious. He instructed his feoffees to convey to his executors all his lands in the town and fields of Northampton; the executors were then to sell them, giving £100 from the proceeds to his daughter, Alice, and spending, at the rate of £2 p.a., some of the rest to keep his anniversary in the church of All Saints for ten years. His kinsman and executor, another Henry Stone, a London stockfishmonger, was to have first refusal as purchaser. Immediately after our MP’s death these terms led to litigation. In a petition to the chancellor, presented shortly before the chancellor, George Neville, was elevated to archbishop of York on 15 Mar. 1465, his two executors, Stone and another London stockfishmonger, Richard Pierrepont, sought to enforce them. They complained that our MP’s brother-in-law William Meye and Meye’s mother Julian, his feoffees in a messuage in Northampton called Le Hert, had refused to convey to them. Meye entered an involved defence. He claimed that the feoffment had been part of the arrangements contingent on the marriage of his sister to our MP: in return for the large portion of £100 in cash and £40 in household goods, the groom had agreed that the enfeoffed property would be settled on the couple and their issue in jointure. This settlement, he contended, had not been made because the groom had subsequently agreed that he should hold the property pending the repayment of a loan £38 8s. 6d. He now declared his readiness to make conveyance to his niece, Alice. His story carries conviction, and it is probable that he was attempting to prevent the executors disinheriting Alice or at least to secure for her a greater compensatory payment than the £100 laid down in the will. However this may be, the Chancery case did not bring the dispute to a conclusion. By the end of the year the rival parties were litigating in the court of common pleas over Stone’s goods. On 14 Nov. 1465 Meye came personally into the court to sue John Pierrepont, a kinsman of one of the executors, by bill. The pleading shows that the point at issue was whether goods worth £45 7s. 8d., allegedly taken from Meye’s possession by the defendant, rightly belonged to him, as grantee of the testator, or to the executors. C1/28/156-7; KB27/818, rex rot. 133. The outcome is not recorded.