Sir John Champneys

Sir John was an archetypal member of the new Gentry that emerged under Henry VIII. A wealthy leather merchant and four times Master of the Skinners Company, he became Lord Mayor of London in 1534 and was knighted by the King, a custom instituted twelve years previously and continued ever since. This was a time when large numbers of so-called 'new men' were entering the Gentry, buying land and building houses; especially in counties immediately surrounding London. Many were royal officials taking advantage of the flood of ecclesiastical lands coming onto the market following the dissolution of the monasteries and continuing thereafter as the crown forced a series of disadvantageous land deals on the church. It was by just such an arrangement that on 30 November, 1537 Henry VIII obliged Thomas Cramner, the Archbishop of Canterbury to exchange the Manor of Bexley together with other lands, tithes and advowsons for less desirable monastic properties, thus making himself Sir John's immediate feudal overlord. Whether there was any deeper significance in the coincidental change of both landlord and tenant we cannot tell; yet it points to the idea that Sir John was, if not close to Henry, at least the King's man. These King's men were an increasingly important power in the land.