Name Nicholas Haute | Role Politician | |
Sir Nicholas Haute (20 September 1357–c.1415), of Wadden Hall (Wadenhall) in Elmsted or Waltham, Kent, was an English knight, landowner and politician.
Contents
Family background
"Hauts Place, in this parish (of Petham), was the fountain from whence that noble family which fell under that sirname originally streamed out, which afterwards dispersed itself in sub-divided rivulets over the face of this county," wrote Thomas Philipot. Edward Hasted (following Thomas Philipot) gives the account that one Ivo de Haut is mentioned in a Liber de Terris Templariorum (a book of survey of the estates of the Knights Templar, compiled in 1180), to have held his estate of Hauts Place in the Manor of Temple Waltham, at Waltham and Petham, from the Templars in the 27th year of King Henry II.
The de Haut pedigree taken by John Philipot, Rouge Dragon in 1619-1621 states the tradition that Vair ('Piers', according to Hovenden) Fitzhaut came to England with William the Conqueror and was the progenitor of the de Haut family in England. Hovenden refers also to a Sir Alan de Haut, and to Sir Bertram de Haut, claimed to be founder of the religious house of Austen Friars in Canterbury. Ellis finds a grant of lands to Christ Church, Canterbury dated 19 Henry III, with a seal inscribed 'Sigill' Rici' fil' Deringi de Haut'. The collegiate church of the Austen Friars was the usual place of burial for members of the family, and many of their tombs were observed there by Thomas Benolt (Clarenceux King of Arms) in the time of Henry VIII, including that of Sir Thomas de Haut in the midst of the choir, who had rebuilt the church and renovated the hospice.
Among the more reliable early evidence is mention of Sir Simon de Hauth, who witnessed a deed of Sir William de Auberville in the 29th year of Henry III. Philipot's visitation describes Simon as royal seneschal, The pedigree shows him as father of William de Haut, who as of Wadenhale demised land in Elmsted in 1284-85 (possibly the same who appears frequently in connection with the stewardship of Canterbury Cathedral Priory between 1261 and 1301, finally as "Dominus" William de Hawte, knight). William's two sons were Sir Henry de Haut (grandfather of Nicholas), who made a payment in respect of Wadden Hall in Waltham in the 20th year of Edward III, and his brother James de Haut. Sir Henry's three sons were Edmund (the father of Nicholas), William and John de Haut: William, John, and their uncle James were all living in the 17th year of Edward III. Sir Edmund de Haut founded a chapel dedicated to St Edmund at Wadenhall or Hautes Court.
Life
Nicholas Haute was the son of Sir Edmund de Haute and his wife, Benedicta Shelving, daughter and heir of John Shelvyng of Shelvingborne. John Shelving's Manor of Bourne, or Bourne Place, at Bishopsbourne, Kent, so passed to the Haute family and became known as Hautesbourne. His father having died before the death of his grandfather Sir Henry de Haute, Nicholas succeeded to his grandfather at the age of 19, in the 44th year of King Edward III (1370). His mother then remarried to the MP Thomas Uvedale.
His first wife was Alice Cawne, a widow, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cawne M.P. (d. 1374), by which marriage Cawne's property of Ightham Mote, near Sevenoaks, Kent, passed into the Haute family. In 1395 (the 18th year of Richard II), Nicholas was elected Member of Parliament for Kent and in 1396 served as Sheriff of Kent, which he kept at his manor and mansion of Wadenhall in Waltham. He was a tax collector for Kent from 1404. Sir Nicholas and Dame Alice had four sons. One, William Haute, became M.P. for Kent.
He married secondly Eleanor Flambard (d. 29 March 1422), daughter and heir of Edmund Flambard of Shepreth, Cambridgeshire, and widow of Walter Tyrrell, by whom she was the mother of Sir John Tyrrell, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Haute's brother Edmund also served as Sheriff of Kent, in 1408.
Death
The last record of his being alive is from 1415, when he was in the company of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the brother of Henry V of England, as they prepared to conquer France. By April 1417, his eldest son, the MP William Haute, had inherited the family's lands.