Background
Born c. 1390, on his father"s death and his elevation to the title, he "soon became enmeshed in border politics and Anglo-Scottish negotiations." He was appointed constable of Roxburgh Castle in 1421, being paid £1,000 p.a.
Born c. 1390, on his father"s death and his elevation to the title, he "soon became enmeshed in border politics and Anglo-Scottish negotiations." He was appointed constable of Roxburgh Castle in 1421, being paid £1,000 p.a.
During time of truce and double that in time of war, for a four-year contract, when he was replaced by Sir Robert Ogle. The first of these discussions resulted in a truce with Scotland in March. Indeed, this embassy also took the role of providing an escort back to Scotland for the newly married James I who had recently married the king"s cousin Joan.
Service to the crown was not however confined to the border.
In 1430-1431 he acted, at the behest of the royal council, as a royal commissioner to collect loans amounting to £400 to assist in the prosecution of the French wars. He acted as an adjudicator in local gentry quarrels, alongside peers such as the earl of Northumberland.
In the Income Tax of 1436, he was assessed at an income of £650 p.a, and although never belonging to the higher echelons of the northern nobility, his family has been described as being regionally "a force to be reckoned with," in a relatively compact area that "jostled" with such landowning families. Although traditionally the Greystoke family had been retained by the Percies, Earls of Northumberland, by the 1430s John had come within the sphere of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury.
He may have been possessed of a greater-than-conventional piety, bequeathing valuable items to his father"s clerical college, including vestments, ornaments, "and lead to repair the choir.".
The second resulted in a furthertenuousextension to the truce, a not insignificant achieving in view, as one historian has put it, of the fact that Greystoke and his fellow negotiators ran the gauntlet "whilst on Scottish soil.".
Twice, in 1424, and again six years later, he was a member of ambassadorial expeditions to treat with the Scots.