A Daughter's Love by John Guy

Author:John Guy [Guy, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21. THE PRESS OF SUITORS

WILLIAM ROPER WASN'T THE only member of the family to sit in Parliament while his father-in-law was Lord Chancellor. When Thomas took his place in the House of Lords, his father Judge John sat nearby with other senior members of the judiciary to advise on legal points. And besides finding Roper a seat, the Duke of Norfolk nominated William Daunce and Giles Heron as representatives for Thetford in Norfolk, Giles Alington was returned for Cambridgeshire, and John Rastell for Dunheved in Cornwall. Only young John, betrothed to Anne Cresacre, wasn't elected, having a year to wait before he was twenty-one and old enough to put his name forward.

While the Commons were busy attacking the Church, Roper lost no time in pursuing his own advantage. Five long years after he'd first begun to contest his father's will, he had still not secured probate. The Roper family feud, meanwhile, was notorious, with accusations of perjury, violent quarrels and provocation hurled by both sides. Under cover of the Commons' grievances about abuses of probate jurisdiction, William introduced a private member's bill to rewrite his father's will to suit himself and obtain probate by a special Act of Parliament. His trump card was that his father had bequeathed the bulk of his landholding to his younger sons, flying in the face of the legal doctrine of primogeniture by which land was inherited by a man's eldest son. To most members of Parliament, primogeniture was a sacred trust and, whenever they had the opportunity, they would vote for legislation to prevent the splitting of inheritances.

Partly, then, to end 'great trouble, strife and variance' between the Ropers, but mainly to bolster primogeniture, Parliament set John Roper's will aside in favour of a settlement giving William a much larger share of his father's estate than either of his brothers. And by promising to pay his father's debts and settle all his bequests promptly, William was granted immediate possession of his lands. He emerged victorious, scooping the lion's share of the freehold lands, including the most desirable properties at Well Hall near Eltham and in the parish of St Dunstan's, Canterbury, which the will had assigned to others. His mother, Jane, was the biggest loser, stripped of a life interest in a large proportion of her late husband's lands and given little more than her jointure. Christopher, her youngest son, fared almost as badly, losing the manor of Well Hall and being forced to accept Linstead, a smaller manor near Sittingbourne. A young law student at Gray's Inn where his maternal grandfather, Chief Justice Fyneux, had been a bencher, Christopher nursed a grudge against his eldest brother and in-laws for the rest of his life.

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