Family and Education

s. of Sir Roland Sutton (d.1397) of Averham, prob. by Katherine, da. of Sir Henry Hasty. m. (1) bef. 1395, Margaret, poss. da. of Sir John Peyto* of Chesterton, Warws., 2da.; (2) c.1409, Margaret, da. of Sir Hugh Hussey* of Flintham, Notts., 3s. 3da.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Warws. May 1398.

Biography

Sutton remains remarkably obscure for a man who represented two shires in Parliament. His service on royal commissions was minimal; and many of the personal details of his life depend on evidence given at heralds’ visitations which is unreliable. It would appear that the family lands at Averham, Kirklington, Kelham, North Clifton and Keyworth, all in Nottinghamshire, did not fall to him until long after the death of his father Sir Roland in 1397, for the latter’s widow (who by 1412 was married to John, son of Robert, 4th Lord Willoughby) retained most of them as her jointure and dower. However, she did lease this life interest to Sutton and others for £27 6s.4d. a year, at the same time giving various guarantees to protect his title; and in 1412 he was assessed for the purposes of taxation on property in Nottinghamshire worth £20 annually. Before then he had acquired property in Warwickshire, including the manor of Ditchford ‘Frary’ and land at Stretton on Fosse, which he occupied along with his first wife (who may have been a member of the important local family of Peyto).1

During the early part of his career Sutton’s activities were centred on Warwickshire: he joined the prestigious guild of the Holy Trinity at Coventry; in 1398 he served as a juror at the assizes held at Warwick, finding in favour of John Catesby* in the protracted dispute over the manor of Ladbroke; and that same year he was described as ‘of Warwickshire’ when he provided securities that a local man would keep the peace. It was in this county, too, that he served on his only known royal commission—one, however, of only minor importance. By 1401 Sutton was being described as an ‘esquire’. His association with members of the Beauchamp affinity such as Catesby, Sir Alfred Trussell*, and Robert Hugford*, suggests that he, too, was one of Earl Richard of Warwick’s circle; and it was with Trussell that he was returned for Warwickshire to the Gloucester Parliament of 1407. His place of residence was given as Wolfhampcote (a Peyto manor) when, in the following year, he released to Catesby’s son, John Catesby^†, certain lands at Ladbroke, but he was subsequently called ‘of Flecknoe’ when associated with Roger Smart* as a surety at the local assizes. After acquiring the lease of his paternal inheritance and contracting his second marriage, which linked him to the prominent Nottinghamshire family of Hussey, he apparently lived mainly in that county; and it was the elections for Nottinghamshire which he attended in 1411, 1413 (May) and 1414 (Nov.). It may well have been largely to the influence of his wife’s kinsmen that he owed his return to the Leicester Parliament.2

Following Sutton’s death, in 1416, his property in Warwickshire was divided between two of his daughters (presumably his issue by his first wife): Eleanor (d.1441), who married Geoffrey Allesley of Little Lawford, and Margaret, who married first, in about 1422, Edmund, son of Hugh Dalby, and then Simon Mallory. By his second wife, Margaret Hussey (who afterwards married Thomas Curson), he left issue Richard (d.1468) (the eventual heir to the Nottinghamshire lands), Hugh and William, as well as three other daughters, all of whom were under age at the time of his death but nevertheless apparently received handsome bequests in his will.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 141, 362, 399; R. Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, iii. 108-10; W. Dugdale, Warws. 598; CIPM, xiv. 285; VCH Warws. v. 155-6; CCR, 1413-19, p. 367; E179/159/48. The pedigrees given in Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 142, and Vis. Warws. (ibid. xii), differ in several respects.
• 2. Reg. Holy Trinity Guild, Coventry (Dugdale Soc. xiii), 13; Coventry Statute Merchant Roll (ibid. xvii), 36; Med. Legal Recs. ed. Hunnisett and Post, 325; CCR, 1396-9, p. 410; 1402-5, pp. 473-5; CAD, v. A10458; JUST 1/1514 m. 7d; C219/10/6, 11/2, 4; Test. Ebor. i. 352-3.
• 3. Trans. Birmingham Arch. Soc. xlix. 40-41; Dugdale, 99, 598; C1/6/110, 16/294, 633. The will has not survived.