Research Notes:

JOHN LESTRANGE I, son and heir. In 1158 he had a grant from the King of land to the value of 7l. 10s. yearly in Ness, Salop; in 1163-64 his brother Hamon's land in Cheswardine had passed to him. In 1166 he was returned in William FitzAlan's carta under Shropshire as holding 1 knight's fee of his Norfolk fee, and in his own carta as holding in chief in Shropshire Ness and Cheswardine by service of 1½ knights. In 1168-69 he had a grant from the King of pasture in Staffs. Before 1176 he gave the churches of Hunstanton and Cheswardine to Haughmond Abbey, having previously given to the Abbey a ½ virgate in Webscott. In 1171 he had a grant to pay the men serving in the March of Wales. He married Hawise. He was dead before Michaelmas, 1178. ¹

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John le Strange (I) lived through the whole of the troublous reign of Stephen (1135-54), and during the first twenty-four years of the reign of Henry II. In Hunstanton he inherited two distinct manors, one from his father Roland, and another through his mother Matilda. He must have succeeded his father towards the close of the reign of Henry I, as his name appears as a witness to a grant by William fitz Alan and his wife Christiana of land in Sheriff Hales to Haughmond Church.... At that period John le Strange held no fiefs in Shropshire; the large possessions which the family subsequently possessed in that county date from the reign of Henry II, or shortly before it, a reward doubtless for their services to the Empress Matilda and her son during the usurpation of Stephen. The Breton (or Angevin) connection of the family is emphasized by their loyalty to the house of Anjou; hence the Cheswardine grant by Henry before 1154, and the subsequent establishment of the family in Shropshire....

Between the years 1155 and 1160 John's name occurs many times as a witness to charters, mostly those of fitz Alan. John and his brother Wido (Guy) attested a grant of fitz Alan's to the monks of Shrewsbury, which was included in Henry II's confirmation of 1155. A confirmation by William fitz Alan of a grant by Gilbert de Hadnall to Haughmond of 1155-58 is tested by 'Johanne Straunge cum duobus fratribus ejus, Wydone et Hamone.' ²