Isabel Wyot

Events 

Date of Birth: unknown.

Place of Birth: unknown.

Date of Death: unknown.

Place of Death: unknown.

Relationships

Father: John Wyot.

Mother: Alice.

See the Commentary section below.

Spouse: John Knyffe.

Wyatt (p. 76) notes that Isabel, the wife of John Knyffe, was the heir to her brother, Richard Wyot, the M.P., in 1431. I haven’t checked the Register of Henry Chichele yet, to verify this. The Knyffe-Wyot relationship is noted in many later pedigrees and pieces of heraldic glass.

Children: 

(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project.)

Thomas Knyffe married Margery Thorne.

Joan Knyffe (died 1455) married (1) Thomas atte Water; married (2) Simon Ralegh of Nettlecombe, Somerset. Joan’s heir was her great-niece Alice Knyffe. 

Evidence

from Feet of Fines (abstracted at Some Notes on Medieval Genealogy):

CP 25/1/20/100, number 20.    Plea of Covenant 

Westminster, Buckinghamshire. 13 October 1371.

Richard Pope and Agnes, his wife, querents, and Thomas Wyot' and Joan, his wife, deforciants.

2 acres of land in Langele Mareys.

Thomas and Joan have acknowledged the land to be the right of Richard, and have remised and quitclaimed it from themselves and the heirs of Joan to Richard and Agnes and the heirs of Richard for ever.

Richard and Agnes have given them 20 shillings of silver.

CP 25/1/20/100, number 23.     Plea of Covenant

Westminster, Buckinghamshire. 13 October 1371

William Forde, clerk, John Wyot and William, the vicar of the church of Werardesby, querents, by John Rous, put in the place of William Forde, and Thomas Wyot and Joan, his wife, deforciants.

1 messuage, 50 acres of land, 8 acres of meadow and 2 acres of wood in Horton' and Langele Mareys.

Thomas and Joan have acknowledged the tenements to be the right of William the vicar, as those which the same William, William Forde and John have of their gift, and have remised and quitclaimed them from themselves and the heirs of Joan to William, John and William and the heirs of William the vicar for ever.

William, John and William have given them 100 marks of silver.

A brass monument in the church at Langley Marish:

Brasses: In chancel—S. of communion table, (1) to William Wyot (undated) and John Wyot, 1410, Latin inscription and indents of two shields

Commentary

Woodger (HoP) suggests that Isabel’s brother Richard “was quite likely” the son of Thomas Wyot, since Richard asked to be buried next to his father in Langley Marish and Thomas is recorded in 1371 to have held land there and in Horton. 

But Wyatt’s (p. 74) suggestion that Richard’s father was John Wyot seems to have better supporting evidence: 

1. There is a monument in the chancel of the the church at Langley Marish to John Wyot dated 1410 and a William Wyot (undated), and Wyatt states (p. 76) that there is a nearby brass tablet for Richard, which agrees which Richard’s request (although I can’t find a description of the chancel online which includes Richard’s brass except for Wyatt’s). It seems plausible that the John and William Wyot buried in Langley Marish were the John and William in the second fine above. 

2. The second fine above shows that John Wyot was at least involved in the 1371 sale of the land in Horton and Langley Marish.

3. As Woodger notes, John Wyot possessed land at Stanwell, Middlesex which later was held by Isabel’s brother Richard Wyot.

4. The Visitations make Isabel the heir of John Wyot, not Thomas Wyot. 

5. John seems to disappear from records after 1388, when he is recorded as a tax collector for Buckinghamshire. Richard Wyot appears at about the same time.

This last point makes one wonder whether the burial is in fact of the same John, since it is dated 1410 and not sometime in the 1390s. Wyatt states that John seems to have spent his last years as a secular cleric at Horton Rectory, but I am not sure if this can account for point (e) above.

Since writing the above, I have consulted Moreton’s entry for Richard Wyot in the most recent History of Parliament volume (2020), which corrects the previous biography of Richard and states that his father was John Wyot of Colnbrook. He cites a lawsuit in the common pleas in the early 1400s:  “He brought the suit as John’s executor, claiming in pleadings of Trinity term 1404 that the defendant, William Pountfreyt, a clerk of the common pleas, owed £40 to his late father’s estate, by reason of a bond given to John Wyot in July 1389.”

References

Clark, Linda. “Richard Bulstrode (d. 1502)” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1422-1461 (Linda Clark ed.) (University of Cambridge Press, 2020). 

A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3, ed. William Page (London, 1925).

An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Buckinghamshire, Volume 1, South (London, 1912).

Moreton, Charles. “Richard Wyot (d. 1431)” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1422-1461 (Linda Clark ed.) (University of Cambridge Press, 2020). 

Wyatt, Stanley Charles. Cheneys and Wyatts. (1959). 

Woodger, L.S. “Wyot, Richard (d. 1431), of Wyrardisbury, Bucks. and Westminster and Stanwell, Mdx” in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993