William Elleson to Mrs Isabel Plumpton

217 William Elleson to Mrs Isabel Plumpton, [before June 1519]   (No. 5,
        p. 185)

Sister,^a I hartilie recommend me to you.¹ Edmond, your servant, shewed
me that ye ar aferred that the agrement that my lord of Durram hath
made with Beddell^b shold hurt your title in [. . .]^c Babthorp. ²Sister, be
ye nothing afeared herof, for ye shall haue as good remede now as ye
might haue had before, and as that if your cossin wear at full age; for
his nonage shall not hurt you.³ If any person com from the sherif to
take your cattell, obey ye it not,^d for no cattell shall be taken therby
but your husband cattell, and he hat none; and so may ye make the
bayly answer. And take good hede of your cattell and of keping your
place now whiles your husband is at London. And I pray God send
you good spede in your matter. Written this Monday

By your     William Elson^e

Endorsed: To his sister Isabel Plompton be this deliuered

     ^a Marginal note: Letter 5 by William Eleson to his sister Isabel Plompton.

     ^b Marginal note: Bedel.

     ^c rider deleted.

     ^d Marginal note: Obey no praecept.

     ^e Appended: Copied the 5 of June.

     ¹ The writer may have been Isabel Plumpton?s half-brother, 129.

     ² The manor of Babthorpe was held of the bishop of Durham. On 3 April 1506 the
Plumptons had been given seisin by the escheator, but by the time this letter was written
William Bedell, who had married Christina, widow of William Babthorpe (d.1504) and
mother of the present claimant, had occupied Osgodby in right of his wife, who held it
in dower, and Babthorpe in right of William Babthorpe, her son, then a minor, Introd.,
pp. 16?17; App. II, 63, 65, 66.

     ³ William Babthorpe, later Sir William (d.1555), App. III, 220.

LETTER CLXXIX.

To his sister Isbell Plompton ^a be thes delivered.

    Sister, I hartelie commend me to you. Edmond, your servant,
shewed me that ye are aferred that the agrement that my lord of
Durram^b hath make with Bedell ^c shold hurt you title in Bap-
thorp. Sister, be ye nothing afeard therof, for ye shal have as
good remede now as ye might have had before, and as that if your
Cossin wear at full age; for his non age shall not hury you.^d If
any presept com from the Sherrif to take your cattell, obey ye it
not, for no cattell should be taken therby but your husband cat-
tell, and he hath none; and so may ye make the bayly answer.
And take good hede of your cattell, and of keping your placee
now, whiles your husband is at London. And I Pray God send
you good spede in your matter. Written this Monday.

                                                                                             By yours,
                                                                                           WILL . ELSON.

    ^a It has been asserted in a preceding note, but upon insufficient grounds, that William
Eleson or Elson the writer of this letter, whom, William Plumpton calls his brother in
Letter GXLII. and who here addresses Mrs. Isabel plumpton as his sister, had
eventually married a daughter of Sir Robert Plumpton, the above modes of expression
being supposed to indicated that he was the brother-in-law of the parties. That there
was no such connection, when the Letters inserted at p. 134-5, and p. 13, were written,
is manifest from their address and subscription. Now of these letters, one is ascer-
tained to have been written 12Feb. 1498-9; the next is of later date; while the third
cannot have been sent before the month of October or November in the year 1502;
subsequently to which date, and to the date of William Plumpton's Letter viz. on the
12 Apr. 1504, he is named by Lady Plumpton, but not as "my son," a distinction to
which if the was entitled no mother-in-law would have omitted in a familiar letter of
the time, when affinity and relationship in a much more remote degree were so respect-
fully cherished. To explain the connection between the parties, we must therefore have
recourse to other evidence. In the Visitation of 1584 by Glover, Robert Bab-
thorpe, the fatehr of Mrs. Isabel Plumpton, is represented to ahve married a wife
named Katharine, and from a tricking of a coat of arms, sa. a chevron engrailed
or, a line is drawn appropriating it to her. Archer, as cited by Burton from
Smales, p. 124, corroboraes Glover, and adds that she was daughter of-------- --------
who died in 1461. (See Pedigree of babthorpe in Burton's Mon. Eboracense, p.
437, noteb.) The above coat Edmondson assigns to the family of Hagthorpe, a local
name derived from a vill in the same township as Babthorpe, viz. Brakenholme cum
Woodal, in the parish of Hemingbrough; and I find a Thomas hagthorpe de Braken-
holme, a witness t a deed o release from Alice Keighleston to Ralph Babthorpe, esq.
dated 10 Jan. 17 Hen. VI. 1438-9. (Towneley MSS. G. 24.) Robert Babthorpe
must necessarily have died before II May, 1496, when the representation of the Bab-
thorpes had vested in his daughter Isabell or Elizabeth as heir general, then in her
seventeenth year; * (see Letter XCIX, note b.) and upon comparing the date of his
daughter's birth with the age of Raplh his elder brother, who was found to the 22 years
old whne his father died, 6 Edw. IV. 1466, (Esc. de cod. anno.) it may be conjectured
that he was about thirty when he married. It is also certian from a comparison of dates
and circumstances, that William Eleson was many years the senior of Mrs. Isabel
Plumpton, for we find him in 1501 esteemed a lawyer of such approved counsel, as to
be considered the fittest persons to investigate the complicated evidence supporting the
title of Sir Robert Plumpton to the estates claimed by the heirs general. (See Letter
CXIX.) From these inferences I draw the conclusion, that Katharine, wife of Robert
Babthorpe, daughter of------------ Hagthorpe, had had a first husband, and that William
Eleson of Selby was the issue of such marriage and brother in half blood toMrs. Isabel
Plumpton. On a stone in the north aisle of the abbey church of Selby, near the font,
was inscribed, Hic jacet Joh. Elson, qui obiit 14... 1509, who, if the date be correct,
was probably another brother, and not father of William Elson as heretofore assumed
in the note to Letter CIII. Of other issue, mention will be made in a subsequent note.

    ^b The manor of Babthorpe was held of the Bishop of Durham.

    ^c Christiana, the widow of William babthorpe of Osgodby, remarried William
Bedell, esq. and survived to 8 April, 31 Hen. VIII. 1540, as appears from the register
of Sepulchral Inscriptions existing temp. Hen. VIII. in the church of the Grey
Friars, London. "Christians Bedell, uxor Willelmi Bedell, armigeri, et filia Henrici
Suttell de Stockfaston, de com. Leicestrie, armigeri. Ob. 8 Apr. 1540." (See Coll.
Top. et Geneal. vol. V.p. 289.)

    ^d Wiiilam Babthorpe, son so William babthorpe of Osgodby and of Christian
Sotehill or Suttell, (erroneously described as a daughter of Mr. John Soothill in
the pedigree of Babthorpe in Burton,) was yet a minor, 29 Apr. 2 Hen. VIII.
1510, when Thomas Babthorpe, clerk, provost of the Collegiate Chruch of Heming-
brough bound himself in the penal sum of ?100 to William Plumpton, the
obligation to be void "if the said Thomas Babthorp and William Bedell, during
the nonage of William Babthorp, should keep the award of Thomas Darcy,
Lord Darcy, and Sir marmaduke Constable, knight, (late) Sherif of Yorkshire,
arbitrators indifferently chosen by the parties of and upon the right and title of the
manor of Babthorpe and the lands and tenements in Brackholme and Hemingbrough,
which the said William claimeth in the right of Isabel his wife, and of the lands in
Watterston, in the county ofLincoln, which the said Thomas claimeth in right of the
foresaid William Babthorpe, now being under age, the award to be given before the
feast of St. Michael the Archangel next ensuing." (Chartul. No. 835.)

    ^e William Crouch the Escheator in the county of York, testifies by deed that on
Friday, 3 Apr. 21 Hen, VII. 1506, he had given quiet seisin and possession of the
manor called Babthorp, with its appurtenaces, in the county of York, and of the
manors or vills called Brakenhome, Estofte, Selby, and Hunigsley, in the same, to
William Plumpton, esq. in right of Isabella his wife, cousin and heir of Iabella Has-
tings, late wife of Sir John Hastings, kt. according to the precept ina writ dated 13
Feb. last past to him directed. (Chartul. No. 828.) But before the date of this
letter the opposite party had, it seems, regained possession, and the manor was now in
the occupation of William Bedell on right of his wife as her dower. The place,
therefore, here alluded to must have been Waterton, in the Isle of Axholme, to
which a counter claim had been set up in the title of the heir male.

    * By the contract of marriage, 11 May, 11 Hen VII. it was covenanted that Sir
Robert Plumpton should convey to feoffees, Nicholas Mydleton Richard Grene,
Robert Haldynby, esq and Richard Plumpton, clerk, lands to the value of 20 marks
yearly, tot he intent that the said feoffees should make estate thereof to William
Plumpton and Isabell his wife, within six weeks next after the said Isabell cometh
to the age of seventeen years. This covenant was carried into effect 14 Sept. 1496,
and the lands charged were the manor or vills of Hassop and Rouland, in the county
of Derby. (Chartul. No. 783.)