The New Murrey and Blue blog

In the course of seeking information about a certain Sir Ralph Paynell of 14^th-century Lincolnshire, of whom more in a later article, I happened upon an astonishing story about other members of the Paynell family, this time in the 15^th century. It was related to the Tudor antiquary, John Leland in his 1530s Itinerary (see links at foot of this post), and it’s hard to know  where fact ends and fiction begins, but Leland’s source was a Paynell descendant, so I suppose there must be something in it.

Because a younger son in the matter was Geoffrey Paynell, “….MP for Rutland in the Parliament of March 1416 and for Lincolnshire in 1432….” the tale is related at length in these History of Parliament links (https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2019/03/14/mp-of-the-month-geoffrey-paynell-accusations-of-incest-and-the-fall-of-the-house-of-paynell/ and https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/paynell-geoffrey-1437). Geoffrey had for some time been in the service of Joan of Navarre, queen of Henry IV, although that has nothing to do with the story, it simply paints a picture of him.

By the time of Henry V there was an almighty quarrel between Geoffrey’s father and eldest brother, both named John and both, according to Leland, “great lechers”. John Jr died before his father, but had “begot abhominably a doughter of his owne daughter”. The ill-used daughter fled “for shame”, married and had other children. John Sr immediately began to sell off the family lands, presumably to prevent his granddaughter’s line from inheriting them.

But John Sr had two other sons, Geoffrey and a cleric, William, who weren’t particularly pleased to see the family property being sold from under them. After all, the granddaughter was conceived incestuously, so they must have considered themselves to be first and second in line respectively. Perhaps they also had strong male views on descent through female lines.

Then at the age of 70 John Sr was married again, to one Christine Ashby. You can imagine that this went down like a lead balloon with Geoffrey and William. It was Geoffrey who took action to get rid of this second marriage. “….He attempted to bring about a divorce [annulment] by accusing Christine of a prior sexual affair with his clerical brother, Master William Paynell….” What William thought of this development I don’t know, but Geoffrey’s move didn’t work and Christine’s protestations of innocence were accepted.

But what a mess! What a dysfunctional family.

The above link and the Leland links below tell all this in great detail, and you can read what happened next. Of how the Duke of Bedford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Lancaster,_Duke_of_Bedford) became involved, and how Geoffrey somehow managed to at least gain title to Boothby Pagnell in Lincolnshire. (https://explorelincolnshire.co.uk/boothby-pagnell/houses-and-halls/boothby-pagnell-manor-house-36642.html)

LELAND: To see the original Leland online, go here: https://archive.org/details/itineraryofjohnl01lelauoft). The specific pages about the Paynell family are 23-25 and 26. They begin here https://archive.org/details/itineraryofjohnl01lelauoft/page/22/mode/2up, bottom right of page 23.