Robert Lainham (1360)

Born 1360 in England

Descendants

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Biography

Robert Lenham and his wife Alice/Alison were married before 1401.^[1]

13. William Gardyner, chaplain, and John Woderove, chaplain, and Robert Lenhame, and Alice, his wife. Premises in West Braynford, Hanwell, and Thistelworth. Part of the premises held by Sir Hugh Wolf, knight, and Joan, his wife, as dower of the said Joan. (Remainders). Anno 3.

The visitation of Essex, under Smith (Smyth etc, the family Robert's daughter married into) name their arms as quarterly argent and sable, in first quarter a fleur-de-lis gules, and fourth quarter an ermine spot.

Copinger's book about the Smith family who married Robert's daughter has been highly criticized for example by the great genealogist J.H. Round, but he did not reject everything he said. He seemed content to provisionally accept the following bits:

• That this Robert was given a letter of protection in 1380 from King Richard II, made out to "Robert de Lenham of Rivenhall in our County of Essex to proceed in our service to parts beyond sea, in the retinue of Ralph, Lord de Basset".
• That Robert was apparently the son of another Robert who was the son of an Edmund de Lenham, who possessed the manor of Lenham in 1324. In 1324 or 1325, this Edmund and his wife Alice, also held one messuage and 26 acres of land with appurtenances in Rivenhall, of Robert de Scales. Presumably this small property corresponds to the modern Lanham Wood, Lanham Manor Farm, and Lanham Green.

Milicent's mother was said to be Alice or Alison Hende, daughter of John Hende, Sheriff of London in 1381 and Lord mayor of London in 1391 and 1404. This mayor died 1 August 1418 and was buried at Bradwell by Coggeshall, very close to Rivenhall. Copinger is not the one who added these details this time. And indeed as Round notes, the Smiths did later make a claim on Hende's estates.

While Copinger is criticised by Round for saying Alice was an heiress when the records show she was not, she does appear to have been a daughter of John Hende. John Hende had no less than two sons both named John, at least one of whom was a Sherriff of Essex, and these were his heirs. However, when these brothers ran out of heirs, the Smiths really did make a claim, at least in Bradwell. This happened long before the time when Round thinks the false pedigrees of the Smith family started being made, and indeed it would not have been possible, because the falsified parts of the pedigree would have referred to people in living in memory. Their claim was apparently simply on the basis that they descended from Alice, who was a daughter of John Hende the alderman. Round says himself:

...it is certain that Sir John Hende, alderman and cloth worker of London, who was lord mayor in 1391 and died in 1418, was succeeded in his estates, mainly in Essex, by his two sons (both named John), who were successively sheriffs of the county, and that the elder of them left an only child Joan, who inherited the whole. None of the estates ever came to the Smith family although they seem in later days, on the extinction of Sir John Hende's direct heirs, to have advanced a claim to them—which was not successful.

The details of the claims of the Smiths to be heirs of the Hendes do still seem to deserve investigation. Round seems not to have looked deeply into it, and apparently he was not aware of the potential relevance of Bradwell.

That there was a link to the later Smyths seems clear. Later we see in documents such as C 1/1513/84 that cases involving Thomas Smyth concerned the manor of Bradwell by Coggeshall, also involved "messuages, land and rent in Bradwell, Pattiswick, Stisted, Rivenhall, Cressing (Kyrsyng) and Coggeshall whence complainant was commanded to avoid by Henry [Bourchier], earl of Essex." Although that one is undated, it seems linked with C 1/356/89, which is from the early 1500s and involves Thomas Smyth versus Bassett regarding the manor of Bradwell. E 314/68/5 is also un-dated but about this same dispute and specifically concerns the "descent" of that manor. It says that Thomas Smyth and the Bassett heirs agreed that John Hende and Elizabeth his wife had three children, John, John and Alice, and that Alice's daughter was Millicent, and Millicent's son Thomas, and then there was a son Thomas, who was in dispute with the Bassetts.

Round apparently does not check back this far, but around 1380, a John Smith was in fact clearly already involved in land deals in the same area around Cressing where this family were found later. In fact, a few years earlier in the 1377 poll tax, Johannes Smyth was in the tax collection team for Cressing, while Robertus Laynham was in Rivenhall.

It looks a bit like the Smiths might not be as "new" (in terms of land ownership in the area) as Round thinks, and may have been holding other properties which they then lost. The claims of a connection to the Hendes might not originally have been so simple and should be checked. Possibly the Hende information found in the 1558 visitation is related to these disputes, but it makes Alice, the supposed wife of Robert Lenham, a daughter of John Hende's son.

John Hende's first wife was Katherine, the widow of Thomas Baynard (maiden name unknown); and his second wife Elizabeth Norbury, was a daughter of Sir John Norbury, another wealthy London merchant who leant money, like John Hende, to Henry IV and other kings.

At least one modern researcher thinks Alice the wife of Robert Laynham was a daughter of the first wife Katherine. See http://www.thericardian.online/downloads/Ricardian/14/06.pdf

Sources

1. ↑ "London and Middlesex Fines: Henry IV," in A Calendar To the Feet of Fines For London and Middlesex: Volume 1, Richard I - Richard III, ed. W J Hardy and W Page (London: Hardy & Page, 1892), 169-177. British History Online, accessed February 4, 2024, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/feet-of-fines-london-middx/vol1/pp169-177.