Catalogue description WILLOUGHBY CHARTERS

The two Lincolnshire charters below are linked by the name of William Willoughby, whose identity is not certain. Richard Welles was Lord Willoughby in right of his wife Joan, daughter and heir of Robert Lord Willoughby (d. 1452); in 1467 he also regained the title of Lord Welles held by his father Lionel (exec. 1461). In the charter of 1456 Richard refers to William as his brother: if William was a bastard son of Robert Lord Willoughby he was Richard's brother-in-law. Richard was additionally connected with the Willoughbys by the marriage of his sister Cecilia to Sir Robert Willoughby (d. 1465), the son of Joan's uncle Sir Thomas. William Willoughby, usually referred to as of Boston, seems to have been somewhat violent and lawless. In Nov. 1456 Richard Welles and his father bound themselves in £500 as surety that William would appear in Chancery to answer charges and 'meantime shall do or procure no harm to any of the people'[CCR 1454-61, 173. On the same date William bound himself in £1,000, to be levied in Lincolnshire.] and William was excepted from a bond of good behaviour towards the friends and tenants of Ralph Lord Cromwell[CCR 1454-61, 197-8.] (d. 1455), from whom he had an annuity of 10 marks.[CCR. 1461-8, 299.] The likelihood that William Willoughby of the charter of 1456 was the same as William Willoughby of the charter of 1451 is further supported by the fact that Ralph Lord Cromwell's niece and coheir Maud Stanhope was Joan Welles's stepmother, as Robert Lord Willoughby's second wife.[GEC iii. 553.]

William Willoughby of Boston[CPR 1461-7, 295.] was probably the William Willoughby who was the first husband of Joan Strangeways, daughter of Katherine duchess of Norfolk.[Above, BCM/D Administrative history.] Joan Strangeways and her husband were closely connected with Sir John Willoughby,[CCR 1461-8, 207-8, 227-8.] who was probably the father of Robert, created Lord Willoughby de Broke, and grandson of Thomas Willoughby (d. 1417), the uncle of Robert Lord Willoughby (d. 1452), Richard Welles's father-in-law.[Cf. GEC xii (2), 672.]

The lands in Kirton-in-Holland, Boston, Algarkirk and Sutterton (Lincs.) which Ralph Lord Cromwell and his feoffees acquired in 1451 were probably intended for Ralph's foundation of Tattershall College (Lincs.); in Nov. 1465 William Willoughby quitclaimed to the college the rent of 10 marks from lands in Kirton-in-Holland which he had been granted by Cromwell.[CCR 1461-8, 299.]