WHITHORNE, John

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 837-8.

In the will of his father-in-law John Stone, made at the close of 1412, Whithorne and his wife were left in tail a reversionary interest of a place called ‘Les Bernes’ and a garden known as ‘Langham’, in Wilton, to fall in after the death of her kinswoman Olive Haversham. His acquisition of property in the town’s South Street may be more firmly dated to September 1416, when Robert, son and heir of Thomas Cutting† of Wilton, leased to him a cottage and curtilage there for life, on payment of a rent of a rose for two years, then 3s. 4d. a year. Salisbury Domesday bk. ff. 113v-114; Dorset Hist. Centre, Weld of Lulworth Castle mss, D/WLC/T328. In addition, Whithorne was a feoffee of property in Kingsbury Street in the town on behalf of Nicholas Pak*, his fellow MP of 1422. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Wilton bor. recs., gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, f. 9.

Whithorne’s appearances as an attorney at the assizes at Salisbury had begun before 1417, JUST1/1531, rot. 46. and as well as the offices listed in the earlier biography, it should be noted that in 1422-3 (when serving in Henry VI’s first Parliament) he was under sheriff of Wiltshire, by nomination of William Darell*, and that he was employed in the same capacity for the sheriff John Paulet* six years later. The period he was one of the county coroners can be extended to the spring of 1432. KB9/227/2/3d, 5d.

Whithorne is often recorded bringing suits in the court of common pleas, sometimes appearing there in person (such as in Easter term 1425 when he was up at Westminster for his tenth Parliament). Usually these were suits for debt, brought for instance in his capacity as executor for John Wycheford and for John Lussh of Upton, whose widow married William Pakyn* of Salisbury, but on one occasion he accused someone of stealing two swans worth £2 at Wilton. CP40/657, rot. 18; 669, rots. 47d, 156; 680, rots. 18; 688, rot. 167; 700, rot. 18d. The suits sometimes reveal more about Whithorne’s property which included land in Avon, which he leased out, and four messuages and more than 200 acres in Whiteparish and Hamptworth. In 1433 he sued Maud Hall for substantial wastes and sales of timber on property at Damerham of which he held the reversionary interest. In this action he was only partially successful, for a local jury found that some of the alleged ‘waste’ had been caused by storms. CP40/680, rot. 155; 688, rots. 336d, 473.

Besides acting as receiver of the estates of the duke of Bedford in Wiltshire and elsewhere, in the 1430s Whithorne also held office for Bishop Beaufort of Winchester, as his bailiff at Downton and Knoyle, and of his liberties in the county at large, and this may have been a factor in the antipathy shown towards him by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, given the duke’s feud with Beaufort. Whithorne’s continuing receivership of the estates of Gloucester’s brother Bedford after the latter’s death in 1435 also seems to have lain behind their falling-out. As receiver Whithorne handled very large sums of money, on occasion exceeding £388 a year. He duly presented his accounts to Bedford’s receiver-general, Robert Whittingham I*, until Michaelmas 1437, but, as Whittingham later stated on oath at the Exchequer, he failed entirely to account for the period from then until 20 Mar. 1438. SC6/1116/11. This led at Easter 1440 to some of Whithorne’s property being taken into the hands of the sheriff, John St. Loe*. St. Loe duly accounted at the Exchequer for the issues of four messuages and 66 acres of land in Bulbridge in the suburbs of Wilton, 12 messuages and two cottages in Wilton itself, eight messuages and 26 acres of land in Avon and two messuages in Fisherton Anger and Salisbury, which from Michaelmas 1438 to June 1440 produced the sum of £15 11s. Yet from then until August 1441 Whithorne’s property was in Gloucester’s possession. E364/74, m. L; E199/48/13. The duke was in possession of Whithorne’s house in South Street, Wilton, in May 1443: Wilton deeds, G25/1/213.

The duke, claiming Whithorne was a villein from his manor of Bowcombe, also confiscated much more property from him (which Whithorne later claimed amounted to 60 messuages and 636 acres of land in numerous places in south Wiltshire), and having arrested him held him prisoner in his castle at Pembroke in Wales, incarcerating him in a dark dungeon, and starving him so that he lost his sight and suffered ‘other incurable ills’. He was not set free until after Gloucester’s death at Bury St. Edmunds in February 1447. A petition sent to the Parliament then in session led to his release, the restoration of his lands, and a full royal pardon, granted on 16 July following. RP, v. 448-9; SC8/248/12379; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 77-78. Whithorne’s imprisonment ‘ex grandi malicia et avarica insaciabili, contra omnem conscienciam’, even though he had never been a bondman of the duke (or so he said), is puzzling. Perhaps the fact that Beaufort had taken control over certain estates (including Wilton) that had been the duke of Bedford’s had fuelled Gloucester’s resentment against him and his officials, who numbered Whithorne among them.

Whithorne probably exaggerated the extent of the wrongs done to him by the duke. His imprisonment may not have lasted seven years, or have been continuous as he claimed, for he appears to have been at large in November 1446 when he, or someone on his behalf, purchased a royal pardon. C67/39, m. 11. At Salisbury in June 1442 he had sealed a bond in 40 marks to William Hynde, a canon of St. Mary’s, promising to repay him within a year. He failed to do so, and in May 1450 proceedings began against him. C241/235/70. Another hangover from his service to the late duke of Bedford was a suit for a debt of £80 brought in the common pleas earlier that year by Sir Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers, who had married the duke’s widow. CP40/756, rot. 16. How long Whithorne survived after that is not known, although he may have died only shortly before Michaelmas 1454, when his widow was made honorary portreeve of Wilton. Not 1453 as stated in the earlier biography: Wilton gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, f. 590. He had named as executor of his will Thomas Walrond*, a rising lawyer, who many years later, in 1480, was still tidying up his affairs. Particular problems had arisen from Whithorne’s own executorship of a Salisbury citizen, John More. In a deed of 1491, Whithorne’s widow was referred to as the mother of John Cokerell, although whether her other marriage pre or post-dated that to Whithorne has not been discovered. CCR, 1476-85, no. 599; 1485-1500, no. 547.