DE VIC (DEVEYKE), John (by 1533-70/81), of Jersey and Guernsey.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1533, s. of Thomas de Vic of Guernsey by Mary da. and h. of Nicholas de la Mare, Seigneur of Surville, Jersey. m. settlement temp. Mary Elizabeth da. of Thomas Fasshyn of Southampton Hants, 2s. 3da. suc. fa. 1557.2

Offices Held

Sec. to William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester by 1555.3

Biography

John de Vic’s father was a jurat of Guernsey from 1520 until shortly before his death in 1557. For three generations the families of de Vic and Fasshyn intermarried and John de Vic’s marriage to his first cousin was foreshadowed in her father’s will by the provision that he should be given a wedding breakfast, a year’s free board, a sum of £100 and an annuity of 5 marks until £20 had been paid. Through his mother de Vic inherited the seignory of Surville and a large estate at St. Sampson’s.4

De Vic clearly owed his seat in the third Marian Parliament to the lord treasurer, William Paulet, Marquess of Winchester. The time of his entry into Paulet’s service has not been established, but when in March 1555—within two months of the close of that Parliament—Winchester asked the city of London to admit him to the freedom he called de Vic his secretary. A few months before the Parliament was summoned, Winchester’s son Chidiock Paulet had become captain of Portsmouth and it was his nominee Edmund Cockerell who was to share the town’s representation with de Vic.5

De Vic engaged in a number of land transactions both for himself and for Winchester. In December 1552 he had a 21-year lease from the crown of lands in Somerset and four years later another of two acres at Weybridge, Surrey, when his ex fellow-Member Cockerell was his mainpernor. In November 1563 he and William Ildersham paid £1,014 for Knoll manor, Dorset, Horsepoll Grange, Leicestershire, and properties in Hampshire and Yorkshire. It was as attorney for Winchester that in June 1566, with Humphrey Shelton, he took possession of lands in Chelsea, Middlesex.6

De Vic was still in Winchester’s service in 1570 when the treasurer intervened with the searcher of Southampton over the seizure of six pairs of hose brought in from Guernsey by de Vic on his master’s account; he doubtless remained in it until Winchester’s death in March 1571, but of what befell him thereafter all that has been discovered is that he was dead by 1581. His widow married Henry Lumley.7

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
  • 2. Presumed to be of age at election. La Société Guernesiaise, vi. 287; PCC 17 Noodes.
  • 3. City of London RO, Guildhall, rep. 13(1), f. 269v.
  • 4. La Société Guernesiaise, vi. 287; PCC 17 Noodes; C1/1214/22.
  • 5. City of London RO, rep. 13(1), f. 269v.
  • 6. CPR, 1553, p. 379; 1554-5, p. 173; 1555-7, p. 114; 1560-3, p. 481; 1563-6, p. 423.
  • 7. Lansd. 12, f. 62; La Société Guernesiaise, vi. 287.