John Walkefare

  Information about this person:

• Background Information. ¹²²³
By 1302, perhaps from c. 1286, the Rochester fee was held by John Walkefare. [Cal. Chart. R. 1257-1300, 256; Cal. Inq. Misc. ii, p. 18; Cal. Pat. 1307-13, 369; Rot. Parl. i. 318] John was succeeded c. 1310 by his son Robert Walkefare, kt. by 1314 [cf. Cal. Close, 1313-18, 98] and lord by marriage of Great Ryburgh (Norf.). A vigorous supporter of Edward II's opponents, [Knights of Edw. I, v (Harl. Soc. lxxxiv), 130-1; cf. Cal. Pat. 1313-17, 21; 1321-4, 18; 1330-4, 172; Cal. Close, 1318-23, 469] Sir Robert was imprisoned from 1322; [Cal. Close, 1318-23, 425, 580; Cal. Chanc. Warr. 1244-1326, 563; Cal. Pat. 1327-30, 42] the king granted his forfeited Isleham land, c. 65 a., in 1326 to Roger de Wateville. [Cal. Pat. 1321-4, 81; 1324-7, 133, 243] Sir Robert recovered that manor when Edward fell in 1326, [Cal. Pat. 1327-30, 86, 544; cf. Reg. Hamonis Hethe (Cant. & York Soc.), ii. 496; B.L. Eg. MS. 3047, f. 199v.] and was granted free warren over his Isleham demesne in 1332. [Cal. Chart. R. 1327-41, 272] In 1328 he had secured a lease of Great Isleham manor from Florence de la Mare during her life. [B.L. Harl. Ch. 50 D. 51; cf. Cal. Pat. 1324-7, 347] He died late in 1333. His heir, his eldest son John, just of age, [Cal. Fine R. 1327-37, 379, 418; Cal. Inq. p.m. vii, p. 389] died in 1345, holding two thirds of the Rochester manor. His mother Margaret had the rest, besides 60 a. held of other fees there, jointly with John's wife Eupheme (née Comyn). Eupheme, who apparently survived their son John (b. c. 1336), retained Isleham until her death in 1361. The probable heir, her husband's next brother Sir Richard Walkefare, allowed his younger brother Thomas, kt. by 1350, to succeed to the Isleham manor by 1363. Sir Thomas Walkefare, who served the Black Prince in Aquitaine, [Chandos Herald, Life of Black Prince, ed. M.K. Pope, pp. 132, 256; cf. Black Prince's Reg. pt. iv, 308] was hanged by the French in 1370. [Hist. Gén. de Languedoc, ed. C. Devic & J. Vaissete etc., ix (2), 821.] Sir Richard had died earlier that year. His daughter and heir Eleanor and her husband, Sir John le Strange of Hunstanton (Norf.), released the Walkefares' Norfolk lands in 1384 to Joan, widow of Sir Thomas Felton K.G. (d. 1381), with whom Joan may have occupied them since 1370.

~A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, Volume X, pp. 427-437