John Ipstones (died 1394) was an English soldier, politician and landowner. He fought in the Hundred Years War and in John of Gaunt's expedition to win the Crown of Castile. He represented Staffordshire twice in the House of Commons of England, including the Merciless Parliament of 1388, in which he supported the measures of the Lords Appellant. A member of a notoriously quarrelsome and violent landed gentry family, he pursued numerous property and personal disputes, one of which led to his murder while in London, serving as a Member of Parliament.
Background John Ipstones was the eldest son of Sir John Ipstones of Blymhill, Staffordshire, son of John de Ipstones or Ipstanes, and Elizabeth Beck, of Hopton, Shropshire, and Tean, Staffordshire.Roskell et al. Members. IPSTONES, Sir John (d.1394), of, Blymhill, Staffs. – Author: C.R.
The Ipstones family were prominent in the affairs of Staffordshire, and had held Blymhill in Cuttlestone Hundred for some time.Feudal Aids, vol. 5, p. 16. However, they had a long history of feuding with their neighbours. John de Ipstones, the MP's grandfather, had a particularly violent reputation and had initiated many of the quarrels which still raged in the last decades of the 14th century. In 1316 he and the abbot of Lilleshall Abbey were in trouble for mobilising a large armed force to prevent the arrest of Vivian de Staundon, known to have stolen a large sum of money belonging to the king, Edward II.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 10, p. 20. In 1324 he was involved in a furious dispute with the Brumpton or Brompton family. This initially centred on the church of St Editha at Church Eaton, where John Ipstones, together with a group of his friends and relatives, expelled the incumbent, Thomas de Brumpton, by force and installed his own brother, William, garrisoning the church itself and attacking the manor house, which was the home of Mary de Brumpton.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 4, part 2, p. 28-9. In 1325 the Ipstones family mounted an armed demonstration at Stafford during a county muster, with the result that a pitched battle between the Ipstones and Brumpton forces took place in the town, "to the great terror of the King's subjects, and against the King's peace." Mass arrests followed and in the ensuing trials most of the accused admitted arming in support of their family cause, although the Brumpton side generally denied terrorising the innocent, implying their actions had been in self-defence.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 4, part 2, p. 30. In 1327 the cycle of feuding began again with a robbery committed by John, William and Philip Ipstones against Thomas de Brumpton.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 8. In the same court session Isabel of Pitchford accused them and their group of murdering her husband, Richard. The Sheriff of Staffordshire, Sir John de Hynkele, claimed that four of the group were too ill for him to produce them in court but he was fined 13s. 4d. for his "frivolous and insufficient" excuse.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 9. Although later apprehended and confined to the Marshalsea, all but one were released because Isabel did not appear in court against them and the county coroners later claimed they could not find the indictments.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 11. However, in 1329 a fracas on the way home led to the deaths of Philip Prior, the remaining accused, and William de Ipstones, and a near-fatal injury to John.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 16. At this point the robbery charge too was abandoned because the indictments could not be found. Early in 1330 John de Ipstones pleaded benefit of clergy when accused of murdering Thomas de Stafford.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 23-4. At a court appearance later in the year, when he was found not guilty, it transpired the case had been delayed because John had, in the interim, assaulted an Oxford University student.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 25-6. This pattern of mayhem, intimidation and virtual impunity seems to have been repeated across the generations.
The next John Ipstones seems to have maintained the feud with the Brumptons, perhaps at a lower level of violence. However, he initiated a new feud which was to continue in his son's lifetime by killing Adam Peshale of Horsley, near Eccleshall. Peshale seems to have been a notorious criminal and, after various preliminary inquiries, early in 1346 the king had commissioned the distinguished Staffordshire justice William de Shareshull and Robert de Ferrers, an important local magnate, to investigate him and bring him to justice.Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1345–1348, p. 35. It seems that Ipstones headed a posse that apprehended Peshale and, since he was said to be resisting arrest, summarily beheaded him. On 27 May the king pre-empted any legal proceedings against the deputies by granting an indemnity to all those involved in what was probably a judicial murder.Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1345–1348, p. 123. It was not so quickly forgiven by the dead man's family.
Injury and redress
Ipstones, like his forebears, was apt to resort to violence in pursuit of his ends, and his career coincided with a period of considerable, though often exaggerated,Roskell et al. Constituencies. Staffordshire – Author: C. R. disorder in Staffordshire. In 1371 his neighbour, Thomas Brumpton, sued Ipstones and five of his associates for an assault at Penkridge: they did not turn up for the case and the judge ordered their arrest.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 13, p. 87. Six years later Brumpton and the executors of his father's will sued Ipstones for a debt of eight marks and again he absented himself from court.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 13, p. 142. However, this frustrating lack of compliance was not uncommon: when Ipstones brought an action for trespass against John Weston of Cresswell in 1373 the defendant did not appear and the Sheriff was ordered to produce him at a subsequent hearing.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 14, p. 132. Evidently the times were turbulent and it was often difficult to enforce the law but landowners were still mainly using it to pursue disputes. However, Ipstones and his peers seem to have become increasingly inured to violence during the reign of Richard II, when the balance of power constantly shifted.
Landowner
The patrimony
John Ipstones inherited estates at Blymhill, Ipstones and Cresswell, Staffordshire on his father's death. This seems to have been about 1364, as the younger man is referred to in terms that suggest he had already inherited in a King's Bench action at Stafford in the Easter term of that year.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 13, p. 43. He also held land in Corvedale, Shropshire, including the capital manor of Munslow,Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 11, p. 115. which he must have acquired through his mother, as her brother Nicholas de Beck was recorded as a tenant there in 1346.Feudal Aids, vol. 4, p. 245.
Corbet property disputes
Around 1374 Ipstones married Elizabeth Corbet, who was probably 16 or 17 years of age at the time.Corbet, p.237 She was the daughter of Thomas Corbet, who was heir to the very large estates of Sir Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet and Wattlesborough. However, Thomas had died long before his parents. Around 1363 they had initiated a series of property transactions, using the device of fine of lands, with the aim of keeping most of the estates in tail, to exclude Elizabeth and other female heirs, to the advantage principally of their surviving sons, Sir Fulk and Sir Roger.Corbet, p.241 The devices they used were poorly drafted and self-contradictory, and were to lead to years of litigation and decades of bitterness among the Corbet family.
Ipstones and Elizabeth were the first to challenge this settlement, almost immediately after their marriage The action was initiated at the King's Bench in Leicester in Easter term of 1374,Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 13, p. 105. a year before Sir Robert died. The target of their action in the Court of Common Pleas was the Leicestershire manor of Braunstone. The manor was an example of the subinfeudation monarchs were desperate to end: the Corbets held it under the Harcourts, who held it of the Burdet family, who held it of the Ferrers family of Groby, the tenants-in-chief. Elizabeth's aunt, Margaret Corbet, had married the Warwickshire landowner Sir Thomas Erdington of ErdingtonRoskell et al. Members: ERDINGTON, Thomas (c.1371–1434), of Erdington, Warws.; Barrow upon Soar, Leics. and Corfe Mullen, Dorset. – Author: L. S. Woodger and they had taken over Braunstone as early as 1364. Nevertheless, their response to the action by Ipstones and Elizabeth Corbet was that they held nothing in the manor. The suit went against a second strand in the Corbets' dynastic policy: that of contracting double marriage alliances wherever possible. Sir Robert had married two of his daughters into the Harleys of Willey, ShropshireCorbet, pedigree facing p. 368. and a son and daughter into the Erdingtons. Sir Roger, who was the third and final heir, was deeply invested in his sister's marriage, not least because he was married to his own sister-in-law, Margaret Erdington.Roskell et al. Members. CORBET, Sir Roger (d.1395), of Moreton Corbet, Salop. – Author: L. S. Woodger Hence the case was protracted and strongly contested by the Corbets and Erdingtons, although the inquisition following Sir Robert's death in 1375 had recognised that Elizabeth, now over 18, was his heir in blood.Inquisitions Post Mortem, volume 14, Edward III, File 243, no. 110. In 1382 Thomas and Margaret Erdington were still prevaricating and prolonging matters by failing to turn up for court hearings.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 15, p. 42. Ultimately the manor was to pass to the son of Margaret and Thomas, the younger Thomas Erdington, and the Erdingtons were to remain tenants there until the last of their line died, sine prole, in 1467.
An order to the escheator of Shropshire on 13 July 1382 shows that Ipstones had initiated further proceedings after the death of Lady Elizabeth Corbet, Sir Robert's widow, to secure her jointure properties.Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 9, p. 309. This included the manor of Bessford and smaller estates at Shawbury in Shropshire and the manor of Bausley in Montgomeryshire,Corbet, p. 239. which Sir Robert's inquisition had recognised as jointly held by him and his wife and due to pass to the heirs of their bodies. It is certain this action was successful, as these properties were handed over to Elizabeth after Ipstones was killed in 1394.Calendar of Close Rolls, 1392–1396, p. 208.
Further claims Ipstones was to make strenuous efforts to gain further land at Tean and Hopton, which he claimed by right of his mother. However, there was another claimant: Maud Swynnerton, a cousin who was still a child. Initially, in 1381, Ipstones simply seized the manors with the help of Richard Thornbury and John Wollaston.Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 13, p. 169. However, this dispute, was to be even more bitter and protracted.
Political and military career
War service and political advancement