John Monins

John of Swanton became lieutenant of Dover castle, he married twice first to Margaret Aldey of Checker in Ash and secondly to Jane Cranmer, sister of the Archbishop.

"JOHN Monins, Lieutenant of Dover Castle, died in 1554, seised inter alia of the manor of Charlton near Dover. He was not a Knight, although he is so styled in many Cranmer pedigrees, for he calls himself Gent, in his Will, which was proved at Canterbury on 21st Jan. 1554-55. It thence appears that his wife's name was Jane, and that he left issue two sons and at least three daughters. But the authorities are by no means agreed that his wife was a Cranmer, or that the mother of his children was named Jane, and the great pedigree of Monins in the College of Arms (attested in 1779 by Ralph Bigland and Isaac Heard, Norroy) states that the mother of his son and heir, Thomas Monins of Barton in Canterbury, was Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas Alde Esq. of Ash in Kent."

Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley ..., Volume 2

By Robert Edmond Chester Waters

The will of John Monins, which was proved 21 Jan. 1554 at Canterbury, reads in a published abstract:

John Monyngs, Gent., Lieutenant of the Castle of Dover. Jane my wife. Bathell, wife of William Hanyngton. Pernell Stockwith, my daughter. Edmund Stockwith, my daughter’s husband. Jane and Katherine, my daughters. Thomas Culpepper, my servant. My sister Warren. John Monyngs, my godson. My farm of Curdeswoode. To Thomas, my son, my tenements and lands in Elham, and my tenements and lands at Eastbridge, in Romney Marsh, in tail mail, [with] remainder to my son William, and then to my daughters successively, in like tail. My barn and land in Deal, Sholden, and Mongeham, in like manner, and likewise my parsonage of Charlton. To William, my son, all my right, part, and purport [recte purpart], in the manor of Chequer, in Ashe, and all my lands in that parish, in tail male, with remainder to my son Thomas. To my said son William my lease of the parsonage of Sholdern. To my son Thomas my lease of the farm called Barton, with the pastures and landsbelonging thereto, and of and in all the gavelkind land in the occupation of Thomas Colley, of Dover; and likewise of and in my lease of the Downes called Warden Downes. To Richard, my base son, my term of years in my parsonage of the Leden [i.e. Lydden?], and the glebe lands belonging [thereto]. Christopher Engeham, an infant, to whom I am guardian. My cousin, Mr. Richard Monyngs. My cousin, George Monyngs. My cousin, Thomas Hamon.[58]

58. Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, 2 vols. (London, 1826), 2:742; Nicolas has modernized the spellings, and I have altered the punctuation slightly for clarification. Another abstract was published in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th series, vol. 4 (1920-22), 19.

links:

• http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/people/dobson/genealogy/ff/Exherst.cfm
• http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/person/g23403.htm
• Descendants of Symon de Monyn 

see also:

A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of ..., Volume 3 by John Burke, Bernard Burke

The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent ..., Volume 4

by Edward Hasted