1348 Edmund de Appleby and Agnes his wife made an agreement with Alured de Sulney concerning Agnes' share of the manor of Newton Sulney. [1]
Indenture between Edmund de Appleby and Agnes his wife, and Theobald Trussell, knight, testifying to the agreement between Aluerey de Sulny and Edmund and Agnes that, if Lady Elizabeth, wife of Aluerey dies without issue and he marries another woman and has issue, he and his heirs will help Edmund and Agnes with 10 marks of land and rents, provided the heirs of Agnes make no claim on the manor of Newton Sulny, to which end Theobald grants £10 annual rent from lands and tenements in Egynton, Friday after the Feast of St Michael the Archangel 22 Edw III [3 Oct 1348]
Research Notes:
1342 Sir Alured de Solney purchased the manor of South Normanton and Pinxton from William le Wyne. [2]
1364 Sir Alured de Solney came to the rescue of Bishop Stretton at Repton. [3] [4] [5]:
In the year 1364 Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield (1360—1386), was holding a visitation at Repton in the Chapter House of the Priory. For some reason or other, not known, the villagers, armed with bows and arrows, swords and cudgels, with much tumult, made an assault on the Priory gate-house. The Bishop sent for Sir Alured de Solney, and Sir Robert Francis, Lords of the Manors of Newton Solney and Foremark, who came, and quickly quelled this early "town and gown" row, without any actual breach of the peace. The monument in the crypt of Repton Church, where it was placed during the "restoration" of 1792, is supposed to be an effigy of Sir Robert Frances. "The Bishop proceeded on his journey, and, on reaching Alfreton, issued a sentence of interdict on the town and Parish Church of Repton, with a command to the clergy, in the neighbouring churches, to publish the same under pain of greater excommunication." See Lichfield Diocesan Registers.
1369 On April 15, an appointment was made to "to choose, inspect and array 200 archers in the county ... selecting them from the better, more suitable and stronger archers of that county, and bring them, suitably equipped with bows, arrows and other arms according to their status, to the port of Southampton by Monday the morrow of the octave of Trinity next, ready and prepared to set out to Aquitaine in the king's service" For Derbyshire and Staffordshire: "Philip de Grendon, Nicholas de Langford, Alfred de Solney and Edmund de Appleby, kt, to choose, etc 200 archers in Derbyshire and Staffordshire." [6]
Daughter Alice de Solney married three times: Sir Robert Pipe, Sir Thomas Stafford, and Sir William Spernore. [7]
Rosie states,
Nicholas Longford III was born around 1351 and was married by 1373 [41] - though probably well before then [42] - to Margery, daughter of Sir Alfred Sulney (d.c.1380) another of Gaunt's retainers, sister and coheir with Alice (d.1423), of Sir John Sulney, who died in 1390. Alice was successively wife of Sir Thomas Stafford, Sir Robert Pype, William Spernore and John Mulsoe, but her only issue, Thomas Stafford, died in 1425, leaving a son and sole heir who died in boyhood. Alice appears to have sold most of her half share of the Sulney inheritance in 1421, with Pinxton and Normanton ending up in the possession of the Babingtons of Chilwell [43]. The Sulney family originated from Soligny, Normandy - hence the derivation of the name - and had established a cadet line in Newton Solney, and Broughton, Derbyshire in 1205 [44]. Owing to conflicting pedigrees it is often assumed that Margery was a member of the Appleby family. This confusion was caused by the fact that Sir Alfred Sulney (d.1346) had four daughters by Margaret, daughter of Sir John Trussell of Kibblestone – Ermentrude, wife of Sir Ralph Lathbury, Agnes wife of Sir Edmund Appleby, and two other daughters who were nuns [45]. The married daughters each received a moiety of Newton Solney as their inheritance. After the death of their father, Agnes and her husband agreed to quitclaim their interest in Newton Solney, in exchange for the manors of Bilby and Ranby in Nottinghamshire with their cousin Sir Alfred Sulney, and in the following year this was formalised by a final concord [46]. By a collusive assize of novel disseisin in 1380, Ermentrude Lathbury and her second husband, John Foucher, and Sir John Sulney "agreed between them to have manor of Newton Sulny valued and divided by 'four good and wise men', moiety assigned to Foucher and his wife to be granted by them to Sulney for their lives" [47], effecting a recovery of title in Newton Solney to Sulney possession [48]. However, after Sir Alfred's son, John, died in 1390 without issue, the Appleby family reneged on their agreement and claimed title in the manor. This was still being disputed in 1447 [49], leading to the assumption by later historians that to have a claim Agnes Appleby must have been a sister of John, and that Margaret was a daughter of Agnes.
[1] The National Archives of the United Kingdom Catalog, D5236/10/5, Derbyshire Record Office, Every of Egginton Inherited papers, Family settlements, wills and inquisitions post mortem, [UKNationalArchives].
[2] History, Topography, and Directory of Derbyshire (), 683, [GoogleBooks].
[3] J. Charles Cox, Memorials of Old Derbyshire (London: Bemrose & Sons, 1907), 122, [HathiTrust].
[4] Frederick Charles Hipkins, Repton and Its Neighbourhood: A Descriptive Guide of the Archæology, &c., [GoogleBooks].
[5] Frederick Charles Hipkins, Repton and Its Neighbourhood: A Descriptive Guide of the Archæology, &c., [GoogleBooks].
[6] The Gascon Rolls Project (1317-1468), [Gascon].
[7] Frederick Charles Hipkins, Repton and Its Neighbourhood: A Descriptive Guide of the Archæology, &c., [GoogleBooks].