Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/399

 from the Thames westwards, being then a banneret with a retinue of four knights, twenty men at arms, and three archers. In September he was ordered to protect the English ambassadors crossing to France, and, some of the ships under his command having been taken by the French off the Isle of Wight, he was in October appointed on a commission to impress ships and men. Another admiral was appointed in January 1337, but from 30 May till the following August he was again in command of the western fleet, conjointly with Sir Otho Grandison. He was employed in Flanders in 1338, and in 1342, being in Brittany with the Earl of Northampton, he was by him placed in command of the castle of Goy la Forêt. In May 1345 he was again about to sail to Brittany with the earl, and was then styled ‘chivaler.’ In 1349 he was engaged to serve the king during his life with twenty men at arms and twenty archers at a yearly payment of two hundred marks. He was styled in 1354 Geoffrey de Say dominus de Cowdham; was constable of Rochester Castle in 1356, and was at Roxburgh on 21 Jan. of that year [see under ], being then styled Lord de Say. He died on 26 June 1359, being seised of the manors of Birling, Cowdham, Burham, and West Greenwich in Kent, besides manors in Sussex, Middlesex, and Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire. By his wife Maud, daughter of Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick [q. v.], he had a son, William, who succeeded him, and three daughters: Idonea, who married Sir John Clinton, lord de Clinton (d. 1397); Elizabeth, who married Sir Thomas de Aldon; and Joan, who married (1) Sir William Fiennes or Fienes, grandfather of Sir James Fiennes, first lord Say and Sele [q. v.], and (2) Sir Stephen de Valognes. William de Say, his son, died in 1375, leaving a son, John de Say, who died, a minor and without issue, in 1382, and a daughter, Elizabeth, lady Say, who married (1) Sir John de Falvesey, and (2) Sir William Heron, and died without issue in 1399. Sir John Say (d. 1478) [q. v.] was probably Geoffrey's descendant through a female line. The barony of Say is in abeyance between Lord Clinton, the eldest representative of Idonea, and the descendants of Joan, daughter of Geoffrey de Say.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 511–12; Nicolas's Hist. Peerage, p. 422, ed. Courthope; Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 392–3; Hasted's Kent, i. 3, 118–19, ii. 162, iii. 164, 738, iv. 235, fol. ed.; Nicholas's Royal Navy, ii. 16–20, 27, 525–6; Archæol. Cantiana, ii. 15; Collect. Topogr. and Geneal. iv. 395; Rymer's Fœdera, ii. 702, 943, 948, iii. 38, 284, 317–22, 331 (Record ed.); Murimuth, p. 126, Chron. Angliæ, p. 41 (both Rolls Ser.); Gent. Mag. 1804 ii. 615, 1821 ii. 294, 603; Foss's Judges of England.]

 SAY, JOHN (d. 1478), speaker of the House of Commons, is doubtfully said to have been the son of John Heron (d. 1468), son of Sir John Heron (d. 1420), nephew and heir of Sir William Heron (d. 1404). The last-named was styled Lord Say in right of his wife Elizabeth, sister and heir of John de Say, baron Say (d. 1382) [see under ]. But this pedigree has been credited with a fatal flaw; for John Heron, who died in 1468, apparently had no children (cp., Hertfordshire, iii. 195 and , Hertfordshire, i. 342, 8vo ed.). It is nevertheless certain that Say was descended, probably through a female, from the house of Geoffrey de Say, and, if we reject the Heron pedigree, we may assume that his family name was Fienes or Fiennes, as he is called at least once (Paston Letters, ii. 131). He seems to have been closely connected with James Fiennes, lord Say or Saye and Sele [q. v.], who was descended from the marriage of Sir William Fiennes with Joan, third daughter of Geoffrey de Say. It was not unusual in those days for the younger members of a titled family to use the title of the head of their house as a family name (ib. n. 2).

Say first appears as member for the borough of Cambridge in the parliament of February 1447, evidently through the interest of his father-in-law, Lawrence Cheyney, and he again sat for the borough in the parliament of January 1449, of which he was chosen speaker. During Cade's insurrection in 1450 the rioters cried out to kill both Lord Say and John Say, whom they named as one of Lord Say's associates (Chronicon Henrici VI), and they were both, with others, indicted of treason in the meeting in the Guildhall on 4 July, but Say escaped the fate of his chief

In the parliament of January 1451 the commons presented Say and others as guilty of misbehaviour, and requested that those so accused might be banished from the court, but nothing came of it. In the parliaments of March 1453, July 1455, April 1463, and June 1467, and probably in all the parliaments during that period, with the exception perhaps of Henry's parliament in 1470, he sat for his own county, Hertfordshire. He had considerable possessions in Hertfordshire, the manors of Hoddesdon in Broxbourne, where he resided, of Bedwell and of Weston, which last he appears to have purchased in 1452. Probably through the in-