The Newport family is now chiefly remembered for its attachment to Richard II, although by a curious paradox the subject of this biography seems to have enjoyed rather more prestige and local influence after the Lancastrian usurpation. He was probably the son of John Newport the elder, an Essex landowner, whose second marriage, to the widowed Isabel Hyde, brought him a substantial estate in that county and across the border in Hertfordshire. Since our Member had no title to his stepmother’s property his inheritance was apparently confined to the manor of Peyton in Munden, Essex, which lay near the village of Newport, whence his ancestors derived their name.
Newport’s connexions with the Court were further strengthened by his marriage to Margery, one of the three daughters of Sir John Lee, sometime steward of Edward III’s household. The couple were married by March 1394, when they received a papal indult for the plenary remission of sins at the hour of death. Margery’s brother, Sir Walter, a near neighbour of Newport’s, was himself a loyal and honoured servant of King Richard, and in June 1395 our Member joined with him in offering sureties of 200 marks to Thomas, duke of Gloucester (who was then claiming compensation for the escape of a prisoner). On Sir Walter’s death, soon afterwards, the Lee inheritance was partitioned between his sisters, each of whom received an impressive amount of property. Newport and his wife obtained seisin of the manors of Brent Pelham, Furneux Pelham and Waterford Hall, together with land in Stapleford and Bengeo in Hertfordshire; their share of Lee’s Essex estates comprised holdings in Salcott and Virley, as well as the manors of Barn Hall and More Hall in Tolleshunt Knights. Over the next few years, Newport was closely involved with his sister-in-law, Joan, and her husband, John Barley, in a series of conveyances probably intended to secure their title to the land thus allocated to them. Certain property was settled by them upon rival claimants whose title Sir Walter had previously recognized, but the rest seems to have passed into the hands of trustees.
Although employed as a j.p. and occasionally as a royal commissioner during Richard II’s reign, Newport began to play a far more active part in local government from 1400 onwards. Against his removal from the Essex bench in 1399 must be set his work in other administrative capacities and his election to the Parliament of 1401. Unlike his kinsman, Andrew Newport, who never recovered from the change of dynasty, he was not so directly committed to the survival of the court party, and had therefore less to lose when its policies failed. Indeed, the only mark of royal favour shown to him during Richard’s last years was a formal pardon, issued in June 1398, for which he had perhaps to pay.
Newport’s other friends and patrons included Agnes, Lady Bardolf (wife for many years of Sir Thomas Mortimer, whose forfeiture for treason in 1397 may well have prompted the MP to sue out his own royal pardon), who chose him as an executor, and Sir William Marney, whose will of August 1414 was committed to his supervision. His relations with St. John’s abbey, Colchester, were also close; and, although there is no reason to suppose that he was actively involved in the treasonous plots against Henry IV hatched there in 1404, his failure to appear on the commission set up to investigate the affair may possibly be seen as evidence of a certain sympathy towards the protagonists. His claim never to have received the royal letters patent appointing him to this commission assumes rather more significance in view of his position as both a demesne tenant and feoffee-to-uses of the dowager countess of Oxford (who organized the plot) and a former associate of John Sumpter (who played a leading part in it). As late as February 1415 Newport was approached by the abbot to arbitrate in a dispute between the abbey and the townspeople of Colchester, although by then his attachment to the house had ceased to carry any sinister political implications.
Rather less is known about Newport’s personal affairs, which are often hard to distinguish from his professional activities. From time to time he was the recipient of securities, often worth quite large sums, although some of these were probably held by him for other people. At least one transaction, by which a local farmer mortgaged his land in Pelham Furneux to Newport in 1405 in return for a loan of £100, denotes the possible range of his financial dealings.