II. THE DESCENT OF THE SUB-MANOR
THOUGH, as has been shown, Laxton has been a manor held in chief of the King by knights' service since the days of the Conquest, a sub-manor was created within it at an early date, held, not direct from the Crown, but from the lord of the main manor. In the twelfth century a de Caux made a grant of land to one Richard, of Laxton or Lexington, in return for certain services. This grant was added to by his successors, the de Birkins and de Everinghams, and in 1232 these grants were all set out clearly in a Royal Charter, which confirmed them to Richard de Lexington's son, Robert, and his heirs. This charter is very interesting, as the lands are described in great detail, and some of them can be identified to-day, as their names, such as Eastkirk, Southlound, Crouchwell, &c, still remain.
Richard de Lexington had a very remarkable family, and his sub-manor at Laxton passed, in turn, to three of his sons, each famous in his own sphere. The eldest, Robert de Lexington, was a prebendary of Southwell and a judge under King Henry III. In 1240 he was the Chief Justice Itinerant for the northern division of England. The second brother, John, was a clerk in the Chancery and also a judge. He was Keeper of the Great Seal during vacancies in the Office of Chancellor, and he was sent on several missions abroad by the King: in 1241 to the Emperor Frederick II, and in 1250 to arrange a truce with France. In 1255 he was Chief Justice of the Forests north of the Trent, and tried, at Lincoln, the Jewish murderers of the boy, Hugh of Lincoln. He founded a chantry in the church at Laxton, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr.
The third brother, Henry, was first Dean and then Bishop of Lincoln, being consecrated in 1253. At that date the diocese of Lincoln extended to the Thames, and he had a dispute with the scholars of Oxford as to his jurisdiction within the University. The Angel Choir in Lincoln Cathedral was built during his episcopacy. He died in 1258.
There were two other brothers, Stephen, who was Abbot of Clairvaux, and Peter, also a cleric, but they died before the Bishop, and as none of the brothers had any children, their inheritance passed to their nephews, William Sutton and Robert de Markham, the children of their two sisters. The Lexingtons had large estates, and the Laxton portion of them came to Robert de Markham. From William Sutton was descended Robert Sutton, created Baron Lexington of Averham, by Charles I, but this branch of the Lexington family had no connexion with Laxton.
Robert de Markham died in 1289, leaving no son. His three daughters were Cecilia, wife of Thomas de Bekering, Bertha, wife of William de Longvilliers, and Agnes, wife of William de Santa Cruce. Agnes, left a widow, retired into a convent; the other sisters divided the sub-manor of Laxton between them, and the descent of their inheritance can be traced to the present day. It was known as 'Bekerings Manor' for several centuries, but they almost certainly did not live in Laxton, having other estates elsewhere in Nottinghamshire.
Cecilia de Bekering's descendants held her half of the sub-manor till 1425. They were men of importance in the county, knights of the shire, and active in local government. In 1346 Thomas de Bekering was Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and was ordered by the King to provide victuals 'for the sustenance of our faithful men about to depart with us in our first passage to parts beyond the seas'. This must have been for Edward III's campaign in France in which the Battle of Crecy was fought. Thomas de Bekering provided '375 quarters of corn, 100 barrels of flour, 100 bacons, 60 carcasses of mutton, 10 carcasses of oxen, 134 quarters of oats, and 27 quarters of beans and peas'.
In 1425 the Laxton property passed to Thomas de Bekering's daughter Alice, who had married Sir Thomas Rempston, of Bingham, Notts. Sir Thomas was a soldier, who went to France in 1415, under Henry V, and was at the siege of Harfleur and the Battle of Agincourt. He was with Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of the Herrings in 1429, and was taken prisoner by the French under Joan of Arc, but a large ransom was arranged for him by the English Parliament. After the defeat of the English and the end of the Hundred Years War, Sir Thomas returned to England, where he supported the Yorkist cause at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, and died in 1458.
Once more the property passed in the female line, Sir Thomas Rempston leaving three daughters, Elizabeth, wife of John Cheyne, Isabel, wife of Sir Brian Stapledon, and Margaret, wife of Richard Bingham. Elizabeth Cheyne had the Laxton part of Sir Thomas's property, and in 1515 it passed to her granddaughter, another Elizabeth Cheyne, who married the son of Lord Vaux of Harrowden. Some time in the sixteenth century Lord Vaux sold the Laxton property to Sir Thomas Broughton, who had married Mary Roos, sister of Peter Roos, the lord of the chief manor. When his son, Gilbert Roos, sold the manor to the Marquis of Buckingham, he reserved about 100 acres for his cousin Mr. Peter Broughton. These lands remained with the Broughton family until the eighteenth century, when they were bought by the Earl of Scarborough, of Rufford. In 1867 Earl Manvers acquired the property, in exchange for land in the parish of Eakring.
Returning now to Bertha de Longvilliers, the other daughter of Robert de Markham, she inherited, in 1289, the other half of the sub-manor of Laxton, and it remained in this family for three generations. The Longvilliers were also a prominent Nottinghamshire family, resident, possibly, at Tuxford, as both Sir John and Sir Thomas de Longvilliers founded chantries there in the fourteenth century. In 1361 their Laxton property passed to an heiress, Agnes de Longvilliers, who married Reginald de Everingham, but as they had no children, this land passed to her next of kin, John Stanhope, grandson of her aunt. The Stanhopes were a family very prominent in Nottinghamshire, with large estates, and the Laxton property remained with them through the fifteenth century, until in 1541 Sanchia Stanhope sold it to Mr. Augustine Hynde, or Hinde.
Augustine Hynde was a liveryman of the Clothworkers' Company and an Alderman of the City of London. He was Sheriff in 1550, and Lord Mayor Elect of London at the time of his death in 1554. Mr. Hynde was a representative of a new class that was acquiring land in England at that time, the City merchant who had made money in industry and wanted an investment for it. He left his Laxton property to his second son, also Augustine, and he and his descendants probably lived there, or at the hamlet of Moorhouse, until the eighteenth century. The third Augustine Hinde sold five farms (about 300 acres) to Sir William Courten in 1630, and these were included by him in the sale of the rest of Laxton to the Earl of Kingston. The remainder of the Hinde property was acquired, at various times, by the Denison family, of Ossington, who still hold it.