Unpublished IPMs: Robert Butvyleyn, knight, Northamptonshire, 1421
Posted by: mholford 9 years, 11 months ago
The ex officio Exchequer IPM into the Northamptonshire lands of sir Robert Butvyleyn, made in August 1421, was omitted from CIPM xxi. No other inquisition relating to this individual is known, so it will be inserted in our on-line edition of the calendar as xxi.887A, placing it approximately at the end of the 1421 IPMs in that volume.
Robert Butvyleyn was effectively the last of an ancient knightly family with estates in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Norfolk (the spelling of their name varied greatly - Botevilein, Buttevillain, Bouteville are typical variations). Founders of Pipewell abbey, their principal seat was Cottesbrooke, the Northamptonshire manor mentioned in the IPM below. Robert had succeeded his father, another Robert, in 1395 (CPR 1391–6, p. 639), and was succeeded by his own son William, mentioned in the IPM below. However William was reported in his own IPM to be an idiot (C 139/145/4) and after his death in c.1451 the family's lands were divided between two co-heiresses, Robert's nieces Elizabeth Hertshorne and Alice Kemp.
Bridges' Northamptonshire (i, 553) says that the Robert's 1417 transfer of the manor of Cottesbrooke to feoffees, mentioned in the IPM below, was made in preparation for his departure overseas, so it may be that, like several other subjects of IPMs published in this blog, he died in the wars in France. 22 March 1421, the date of his death, was also the date of the battle of Baugé, in which the English commander, the king's brother Thomas duke of Clarence, was killed along with a substantial number of knights.
ROBERT BUTVYLEYN, KNIGHT
887A [Writ not required.]
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. Inquisition ex officio [indented]. Watford. 7 August 1421. [Compeworth].
Jurors: Richard Smyth senior of Watford; Richard Smyth junior of the same; Richard Rokeby; John Russell; John Maget; John Smyth of Long Buckby; John Richard; Richard Gerard; John Glover; Thomas Walton; Richard Ocley; and Thomas Assheby of East or West Haddon.
He held no lands or tenements of the king in chief or of others in his demesne as of fee because on 26 June 1417, seised in his demesne as of fee of the manor of Cottesbrooke, by his charter he enfeoffed Thomas, then duke of Clarence, Richard Cotesbrook, clerk, and Thomas Weston, now deceased, and Walter Lucy, knight, Edmund Wynter, Thomas Chamber, esq., Robert Edward, clerk, and John Harald, who survive, to whom all the tenants of the manor attorned and submitted. Walter Lucy and Richard Cotesbrook have taken the issues of the manor ever since, but to whose use the jurors do not know.
The manor, annual value 10 marks, is held of Thomas Strange, esq., John Kneseworth, William Sewale, clerk, and Richard Edmund by knight service, quantity unknown.
He died on 22 March last. His son William is his next heir and was aged 19 years and more on 24 March last.
E149/125/7