YON, John, of New Romney, Kent.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Jan. 1397

Family and Education

m. bef. Jan. 1393, Joan.

Offices Held

Jurat, New Romney 25 Mar. 1396-8, 1400-1, 1404-5.1

Biography

Yon paid maltolts in Dene ward, Romney, from 1387 to 1405. In 1393 he and his wife (who was then seriously ill) conveyed to Brice Scherte* all their property within the liberty of Romney, most likely to hold in trust. Subsequently Yon acquired a mill in the town, as well as three messuages and rents in St. Nicholas’s parish, and in 1398 he joined with Scherte in the acquisition of pasture near ‘Le havene southwest’. Elsewhere in Romney Marsh, he owned 15 acres at Hope All Saints.2

In 1388 the inability through sickness of Edward Middleton, the bailiff of Romney, to hear a suit for debt brought against Yon by Stephen Holyngbroke ( William Holyngbroke’s* brother), furnished an excellent pretext for the jurats to fine the bailiff on the ground that he had failed to do his duty. The suit thus provoked the serious dispute with Romney’s lord, Archbishop Courtenay, which led to the town being placed under interdict and the ringleaders of the rebellion excommunicated. It was doubtless a connected matter which took Yon at the head of a delegation to consult Stephen Bettenham, the town’s counsel, over certain points affecting its franchise in 1396-7. In 1398 he went to Dover seeking to excuse the Cinque Ports from contributing to the fines imposed by Richard II on the communities of Kent and Sussex for support offered to the Lords Appellant of 1387-8. In April that year Andrew Colyn* had named Yon as a feoffee to execute his will with regard to the disposition of his lands. He himself made a conveyance in April 1402 by which he put Gregory Ballard, steward of Archbishop Arundel’s estates, and others, in possession of an annual rent of 13s.4d. from a tenement in Romney.3 He is not recorded after 1405.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: A. P.M. Wright

Notes

  • 1. C47/64/10/304; Romney assmt. bk. 2, ff. 46, 61; Kent AO, NR/JBr/4, nos. 3, 6.
  • 2. Assmt. bk. 2, ff. 13-62; CP25(1) 110/247/988; NR/JBr/4, no. 11, 5, no. 11, 8, no. 9.
  • 3. Lambeth Pal. Lib. Reg. Courtenay, f. 285; assmt. bk. 2, ff. 22, 41, 47; NR/JBr/8, no. 42.