Sir John Pelham

Sir John Pelham, only son, appointed, by John of Gaunt, constable of Pevensey-castle for life, by patent, 17th Richard II. knight of the Bath, at the coronation of Henry IV. 13th Oct. 1399; made sword-bearer before the king for life, by patent, 24th Oct. and had the constableship of Pevensey-castle to him and his heirs, male, by patent, 12th Feb. 1st Henry IV.; sheriff of Sussex, 2d Henry IV.; chief butler of the port of Chichester, 9th Henry IV; privy counsellor and ambassador in France, 1st Henry V. ob. 1429.

Married

1. Margaret de Grey,   d. Bef 29 Oct 1390 
2. Joan Escures,   d. Yes, date unknown 

notes

• OFFICE: Constable of Pevensey Castle, 1393.
• OFFICE: [M.P.] Member of Parliament for Sussex, 1399, 1400, 1403, 1404, 1405/6, 1407, 1427.
• OFFICE: Sheriff of Sussex, 1401.
• OFFICE: Treasurer of England, 1411/2.
• HONORS: Knight Bachelor, 1399.
• PROBATE: Will dated 8 Feb 1425/6.

_________
Sir John de Pelham (died 1429) was an English parliamentarian who served as Treasurer of England.
Biography
Early life
John de Pelham was the son of Sir John Pelham, a Sussex knight who fought in the wars of Edward III in France, and of his wife Joan Herbert of Winchelsea. He was in the service of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and afterwards of his son, Henry, Earl of Derby, subsequently Henry IV. On 7 December 1393 he was appointed by John of Gaunt constable of Pevensey Castle for life. He was possibly one of the scanty band that landed with Henry at Ravenspur in 1399, and was certainly with him at Pontefract soon after his landing. Meanwhile his wife Joan Pelham sustained something like a siege from Richard's partisans in Pevensey Castle. An interesting letter, written in Middle English and dated 25 July 1399, from Joan to John is printed in Collins's Peerage.[1] Hallam, who reprints it in modern spelling, describes it as "one of the earliest instances of female penmanship" .[2][a]
Parliament
Pelham was knighted at Henry's coronation on 13 October 1399, and is therefore reckoned among the original Knights of the Bath. On 24 October he received the honour of bearing the royal sword before the King. He conducted the deposed Richard II from Leeds Castle in Kent to the Tower.[3] Henry IV granted to Pelham and his heirs male on 12 February 1400 the Constableship of Pevensey and the Honour of Laigle, of which Pevensey was the chief place. This involved a paramount position over the whole Rape of Pevensey. Pelham served as Knight of the Shire for Sussex in the first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth parliaments of Henry IV, as Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1401. In 1402 he served on a commission to repair the banks of Pevensey marsh, and to draw up a survey and statutes.[4] As Constable of Pevensey he was busied in defending the coast from threatened French invasions. In the Unlearned Parliament of October 1404 he was appointed, with Thomas, Lord Furnival, Treasurer of War to collect the special subsidies granted by the commons, and to apply the results strictly to the purpose for which it was granted.[5] The date of their appointment was 11 November, and their earliest recorded payment was on 18 November.[6] But the task was a thankless one. In the long session of the parliament of 1406 Pelham, who joined with Furnival in begging to be relieved of their duties, was discharged on 19 June by the King, at the request of the estates.[7] But Pelham petitioned for and obtained the appointment of auditors to the war accounts. From these he ultimately obtained his discharge. He was moreover one of the committee appointed to inspect the engrossing of the Roll of Parliament.[8]
High Office
On 5 February 1405 Pelham was made Keeper of the New Forest, and on 8 December of the same year Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster. In March 1405 Edward, Duke of York, was put under his charge at Pevensey, while in October of the same year Pelham conducted his prisoner to the King's presence, probably at Kenilworth.[9] The state of Pevensey was, however, hardly secure. In October Pelham complained to the Council that the keep had partly fallen down.[10] In February 1406 Pelham had the custody of Edmund, Earl of March, and his brother Roger, with an allowance of five hundred marks a year for their maintenance. In 1409 these prisoners were transferred from his custody to that of the Prince of Wales. In 1407 Pelham became chief butler of Chichester and of all the ports of Sussex. On 22 January 1412 he succeeded Lord Scrope of Masham as Treasurer. This shows that Pelham acted politically along with Archbishop Arundel, who had just been reappointed Chancellor. On 11 July 1412 he was appointed with others to muster the troops going with the Duke of Clarence to Aquitaine.[11] On 12 November 1412 he was rewarded with fresh grants, including the Rape of Hastings, with all the franchises exercised by the Dukes of Brittany and Lancaster, its former lords. He was nominated an executor of Henry IV's will.[12]
After Henry V's accession Pelham was deprived of the Treasury on 21 March, and replaced by the Earl of Arundel. He was still, however, much employed. He was put on a commission appointed on 31 May 1414 to negotiate for an alliance with France, or to revive Henry's claims to the French throne.[13] Pelham is sometimes said to have accompanied Henry V on his Norman expedition in 1417, but it was really his son, John, who did this.[14] In 1414 for a short time he was made guardian of the captive James of Scotland at Pevensey.[15] In February 1415 he received a grant of 700l. for James's custody and maintenance.[16] Many years after, in 1423, he was on the commission appointed to negotiate for King James's release.[17] He was named executor to Thomas, Duke of Clarence.[18] In 1422 Sir John Mortimer was committed to his custody at Pevensey.[19] He was in custody of the queen-dowager Joan of Navarre, who expiated her crime of necromancy by a long imprisonment at Pevensey. He was on a commission to borrow money for the King in Sussex and Kent. He was also an executor of the will of Henry V. Under Henry VI he again sat in Parliament in 1422 and 1427, and in 1423 negotiated for a peace with Scotland and the release of King James.
Death
Pelham drew up his last will on 8 February 1429, and died four days later. He ordered that his body should be buried in the Cistercian abbey of Robertsbridge. He gave the land for the rebuilding of the Austin priory of Holy Trinity at Hastings, which had to be now removed from its former site within the town, which had been swept away by the sea, to be rebuilt at Warbleton, ten miles away. He was therefore regarded as the founder of the "New Priory of Holy Trinity beside Hastings".[20]
Marriage and issue
Pelham married Joan, daughter of Sir John Escures, and had by her a son named John, his successor, and two daughters, Agnes and Joan, who respectively married John Colbrond of Boreham, and Sir John St. Clair. A valuation of his estates made in 1403 is printed by Collins and translated by Lower. The rental amounted to the large sum of 870l. 5s. 3d. Besides his wife's letter already mentioned, four familiar letters to him in English are printed by Collins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pelham_(English_parliamentarian)
__________
Joan HERBERT
Born: ABT 1342, Netherfield, Sussex, England
Father: Vincent HERBERT
Mother: Joan SALERNE
Married: John De PELHAM
Children:
1. John De PELHAM (Sir)
http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/FINCH.htm#Joan%20HERBERT1
_______

• County genealogies: Pedigrees of the families in the county of Sussex By William Berry Pg.313 CHART

         |

Thomas Pelham

         |

Thomas Pelham

         |

John Pelham

         |

John Pelham, Sir Knight = Joan, dau. of Vincent Herberts alias Finch

          |

John Pelham, Sir Knight = Joan, dau. of Sir John Escures, Knight

Only Son

          |                                                        

Children of John Pelman & Joan Escures: 1. John Pelham, Sir Knight m. Joan de Courcy, 2. Agnes, 1st da. m. John Colbrond, Joan, 2nd da. m. John Seyneclere

Child of John Pelham & Joan de Courcy: John Pelham 1st son m. Alice Lewknor, William 2nd son, Thomas 3rd son.

---------------------------------------------------------------

These documents are held at Berkeley Castle Muniments

Administrative history:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=2189-bcm_4&...

"Joyce Burnell's inheritance from her cousin Hugh la Zouche consisted of the manors of Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Leics.), Swavesey and Fulbourn (Cambs.) and Nutbourne, in Pulborough, and River, in Tillington (Sussex). Joyce died on 1 Jan. 1407; on 27 Jan. Hugh la Zouche's feoffees quitclaimed to Hugh Burnell all the Zouche lands, including the two Sussex manors held for life by Hugh la Zouche's widow Joan (d. 1439), and in 1412 a potential Zouche heir, Robert de la Zouche, quitclaimed the five manors to Burnell.[In 1391 the manors of River (Treve) and Nutbourne, or a rent of 100 marks from the other three manors, had been settled on Joan. She married secondly Sir John Pelham (d. 1429) and died in 1439.]"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18823

Roger la Zouche died in 1238 and his son and heir Alan, (fn. 9) lord in the 1260s, (fn. 10) in 1270. In the 1270s that manor was held under Alan's son and heir Roger (d. 1285) (fn. 11) by his younger brother Alan. (fn. 12) Roger's son Alan, (fn. 13) in possession by 1299, (fn. 14) who died in 1314, settled its reversion on his second cousin William Mortimer, (fn. 15) later lord la Zouche, (fn. 16) a lord at Fulbourn in 1316. (fn. 17) He died in 1337 and his son and heir Alan la Zouche, (fn. 18) who was granted free warren at Fulbourn in 1344, in 1346. (fn. 19) Alan's widow Eleanor, shortly remarried to Sir Nicholas d'Amory, held his Fulbourn manors as part of her jointure until she died in 1360, whereupon Alan's son Hugh bought out Amory's interest. (fn. 20) That Hugh, lord la Zouche (d. s.p. 1399), settled the reversion of his lands on his aunt Joyce's granddaughter Joyce and her husband Hugh Burnell, lord Burnell. Zouche's widow Joan retained a life interest in Fulbourn Zouches, (fn. 21) which her second husband Sir John Pelham enjoyed in 1412.

From: 'Fulbourn: Manors and other estates', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10: Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (north-eastern Cambridgeshire) (2002), pp. 136-143. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18823 Date accessed: 29 September 2010.

--------------------------------------------------

A biographical peerage of the empire of Great Britain: in which ..., Volume 1 By Sir Egerton Brydges Pg.364

http://books.google.com/books?id=svJsAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA364&lpg=PA364&dq...

----------------------------------------------