On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 5:49:28 PM UTC-5, sswa...@butler.edu wrote:

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 4:56:56 PM UTC-5, wjhonson wrote:

On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 10:33:14 AM UTC-8, sswa...@butler.edu wrote:

On Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 10:03:56 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:

A quick look at the two Chancery cases indicates that the given name of both of Alice (Elinbridge?) Wetenhale's sister Joan's husbands was John, that Joan's marriage to John Syff(e) preceded her marriage to John Cave, and that she was again a

widow at the time of the second suit.

Here are the links to the Chancery case images in case someone is interested in reading the names of all of the people mentioned:
C 1/25/149 http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/ChP/C1no25/IMG_0222.htm
C 1/29/225 http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/ChP/C1no29/C1no29nos%201-300/IMG_0307.htm and the following three images

Both John Syff and John Cave were burgesses of a town in Norfolk now called King's Lynn, but known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn (Lenne).

John Syff was living 20 Sep 1440 http://nrocatalogue.norfolk.gov.uk/index.php/conveyance-by-robert-bristoll-henry-thoresby-john-pigot-john-syff-burgesses-of-lynn-to-edmund-spryngwelle-burgess-of-lynn-of-messuage-in-gresmarket-extending-to-common-fleet,

John Syff was living 10 January, 20 Henry VI (1441/42) https://www.british-history.ac.uk/hist-mss-comm/vol11/pt3/pp151-185 "The borough of Kings Lynn: Books" pages 151-185, The Manuscripts of the Corporations of Southampton and Kings Lynn Eleventh Report, Appendix: Part III (1887).

John Cave was dead by 4 September 34 Henry VI (1455) https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/hen6/vol6/pp130-137 Close Rolls, Henry VI
On Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 4:03:44 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:

In looking again at the will of Alice (Elinbridge?) Wetenhale, I think the surname of her sister Joan was Cave.
My updated notes are here, https://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/pn/p29622.htm.

Perhaps Joan Cave was the person of that name in this record: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7442988 Reference: C 1/29/225
Short title: Cave v Dunton.
Plaintiffs: Joan Cave, widow, of London, some time of Lynn, late the wife of John Syff.
Defendants: William Dunton, gent, of Hadley, feoffee.
Subject: Tenement called `The Chequer' (Chekyr) in Lynn, enfeoffed by the said John.
Norfolk.
4 documents
Date: 1460-1465

If so, then also this record: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7441549 Reference: C 1/25/149
Short title: Syffe v Crosse.
Plaintiffs: Joan, late the wife of John Syffe, of Bishop's Lynn. Defendants: Hugh Crosse, feoffee.
Subject:Tenement `in a soill called the Cheker' in Lynn. Norfolk. Date: 1455-1460

There are additional property records pertaining to John Syff(e) of Bishop's Lynn.

The will of Richard Groveherst of Tonbridge, Kent, dated 16 February 1456/7, codicil also dated 16 February 1456/7, proved 12 May 1457 PCC [PROB 11/4/136], precludes the possibility that William Hexstall and his brothers were children, as Philipott

and Hasted write, of Richard Hexstall and Anne Grovehurst.

Richard Groveherst's will names his deceased wife Joan, present wife Alice (for whom elaborate provisions are made), and four daughters:
Joan wife of Henry Hexstall
Alice wife of John Honington
Agnes; not yet married; [who would marry John Petit]
Elizabeth; not yet married; [who would marry Ralph Tickhill]

The will leaves the manor of Grovehurst to his daughter Joan wife of Henry Hextall and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten. This shows that the manor of Grovehurst did not come to William Hexstall by descent from his father. Since Joan

apparently died without surviving heirs of her body, she and her husband Henry Hexstall must have conveyed the manor to Henry’s brother William Hexstall before Joan herself died. The will precludes the existence of the Richard Hexstall said to be
William’s father and makes it well nigh a certainty that William Hexstall’s parents are to be found in Staffordshire.

Could you explain why you say that Joan apparently died without heirs ? Why isn't William Hexstall her son?

First, William Hexstall was Joan Grovehurst’s husband’s brother and likely older than she was herself.

Second, Richard Grovehurst’s will specified that if Joan died without heirs of her body lawfully begotten, the manor of Grovehurst would pass to her sisters Agnes and Elizabeth. If the manor of Grovehurst had descended according to the terms of the

will, it would have passed first to Joan’s child, and, failing children, to her sisters. It did not, which indicates that Joan and Henry conveyed the manor before she died to Henry’s brother William. Close as the Hexstall brothers were, it seems
highly unlikely that Joan would have deflected the manor from her own child. She might have had less regard for the interest of her sisters.

Third, Joan was dead 20 January 1480 [1479/80? 1480/1?]. Her husband Henry Hexstall married next, before he died, Margery who survived him by some decades. Henry Hexstall’s will dated 11 August 1492, proven 6 February 1492/3 PCC names no children, so

presumably he himself died without issue. Possibly he had children by either wife; if so, they were all dead by 1492/3. At no point does any record indicate that Joan herself had children.
When I posted a survey of evidence and reflection about the Hexstall family of Staffordshire and Kent at the beginning of the year, I had not been able to view Linda Clark’s six-volume History of Commons 1422-1461. I have now been able to see it –
thanks Oberlin College Library – and its biographies resolve some Hexstall problems, others not. The biographies carry the initials of their authors.

1.

The biography of William Hextall (authors M.P.D. and S.J.P.) identifies his mother as Isabel widow of Hugh Stanford, lawyer and MP [Staffordshire Record Office D593/2/22/49]. The document is a quitclaim dated 13 June 31 Henry VI [1453] from William
Hextall to Robert Stavysmore and his wife Elizabeth of Walsall of a plot of land in Walsall called Dyvidaysplace. The crucial phrase is “William Hextall esquire son of Isabel late wife of Hugh Stanford late of Hextall” [Willelmus Hextall armiger
filius Isabelle nuper uxoris Hugonis Stanford nuper de Hextall].

At last two further documents also name Isabel widow of Hugh Stanford:

Staffordshire Record Office D593/2/22/40 is an earlier indenture dated the feast of Saint Chad the Bishop 31 Henry VI [2 March 1452/3] from Roger Stavesmore of Walsall to “Isabel who was wife of Hugh Stanford of Hexstall lately deceased” [Isabelle
que fuit uxor Hugonis Stanford de Hexstall nup[er] defuncti] conveying a croft called Stonyparvok lying in Walsall, namely in le Woodende.

Staffordshire Record Office D593/2/22/2 is the indenture dated the feast of Saint Chad the Bishop 31 Henry VI [2 March 1452/3] from Isabel late wife of Hugh Stanford of Hexstall in true widowhood and by lawful authority [Isabella que fuit uxor Hugonis
Stanford de Hexstall in pura viduetate mea et legitima potestate] to Roger Stavesmore and his wife Elizabeth of Walsall conveying to them the aforesaid plot of land in Walsall called Dyvidaysplace.

Biographies of Hugh Stanford appear in both House of Commons 1422-1461 and the earlier House of Commons 1386-1421, describing him as of Hextall in Staffordshire and Wheathill in Shropshire, but casting no further light on the identity of Isabel.

While the HOC biography of William Hexstall states that the identity of his father is unknown, I think that the identification of his mother does lead, if by slender evidence, to the identification of his father, Hugh Hextall, first husband of Isabel,
and lord of the manor of both Hextall and Milwich early in the reign of Henry VI.

Frederic William Willmore, A History of Walsall and Its Neighbourhood (London, 1887): 143
[https://archive.org/details/ahistorywalsall00willgoog] reports on two monuments in Walsall church, one to William Hextall and his two wives Margaret and Joan, clearly William Hextall above, and another monument (which Willmore mentions first) to Hugh
Hextall [Hextale] and his wife Isabel which bore the two coats-of-arms 1) Quarterly, 1 and 4 Gules, a bend Arg; 2 and 3 Sable, a fleur de leuce Arg. 2) The same, impaling Sable, a chevron engrailed, between three owls Arg. Presumably the impaled arms
belonged to Hugh’s wife Isabel and appear to be the arms of the Hewett family.

Sampson Erdeswicke specifically identifies Hugh as William’s father:

A Survey of Staffordshire containing The Antiquities of that County, with a Description of Besston-Castle in Cheshire. By Sampson Erdeswicke, Esq; Publish’d from Sir William Dugdale’s Transcript of the Author’s Original Copy. To which are added,
Some Observations upon the Possessors of Monastery-Lands in Staffordshire. By Sir Simon Degge, Knt. London: Printed for E. Carull, at the Dial and Bible against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-street, M.DCC.XVII

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Survey_of_Staffordshire/pXdbAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=hextall

[page 40 speaking of Milwich]: I think his [Philip Nugent’s] part was divided betwixt Philip’s two Daughters; whereof the one was Married to Grindon, who had issue Sir Robert Grindon Kt. and the other, as I take it, was Married to Jordanus de Hextall,
who had issue Henry de Hextall, and Henry, in whose Line it continued ‘till Henry 6. and then one Hugo de Hextall had issue William, which William Married Margaret Daughter and Heir of William Bromley, by whom he had Humphrey, who died without Issue.

[pages 56-57 speaking of Hextall]: In Seighford is a Hamblet called Heckstall, whereof was Owner about Richard first’s time, one William de Heckstall, who had issue Jordaine, who had issue Henry; and about Henry 6th time, Hugh Hextall was Owner thereof,
who had issue William, who had issue Margaret, Married to Richard Petid, or Pagett.

Another document, which I have not seen, National Archives E 40/9138, is a release dated 9 December 1460 by William Hextall, esquire, cousin and next heir of Isabel de Hopton late of Ludlowe, to Thomas Gryme of Seete, of his right in a tenement, etc.
described, in Ludlowe. Shropshire. If the connection between William and Isabel de Hopton can be ascertained, it would tell us more about either his father’s or his mother’s family.

2.

Possibly the most important question still up in the air last year was whether William’s first wife Margaret Bromley or second wife Joan, widow first of Nicholas James, widow second of Roger Elmbrigge, were the mother of William’s daughter Margaret
who married first William Whetenhale and second Henry Ferrers. It seemed from present evidence that Joan was likelier her mother, but, to me at least, the evidence was not yet conclusive, because 1) there was a gap between 1434, when first wife Margaret
last appears as William’s wife in the records, and 1446 when second wife Joan appears as William wife in the records, 2) William’s 1446 will-that-was-not-a-will looks very like a marriage settlement, and 3) daughter Margaret was married to William
Whetenhale by 14 June 1454, eight years after Joan’s appearance as William’s wife.

The authors of the biography of John Ellingbridge in House of Commons 1422-1462 (M.P.D. and L.S.C.) settle amongst all the wide-ranging variants of the surname as Ellingbridge. (I had chosen Elmbrigge but will now use Ellingbridge.) The biography does
not fill in the gap above but does add helpful information or at least a different perspective.

If I wondered whether Joan, widow of Nicholas James, married Roger Ellingbridge the elder or his son Roger Ellingbridge the younger, the biographers here opt for the father without even considering the possibility that her husband might have been the son.
But then I considered that the memorial brass in Beddington, Surrey, of the man who died 23 November 1437, belonged to the son, whereas they assume it belonged to the father. They may well be correct. It certainly seems likely to me that the Roger
Ellingbridge named in the various Staffordshire land transactions with the broader Hexstall kindred was the father. In any case, whether married to father or son, Joan was apparently free to marry a third time in 1437. Since she was inclined to marry
again, it seems unlikely that she would wait nine years till 1446 to find a prospective husband and that may suggest that she married William Hexstall shortly thereafter. That said, it can only be said of William Hexstall that he was free to remarry
sometime between spring 1434 and spring 1446. No evidence survives of his spouse during those crucial years, though I keep hoping that a newly indexed court record or other record will close or eliminate that gap and definitively identify Margaret’s
mother.

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