When his uncle Edward died in 1534 without leaving a written will, John claimed that by last wishes spoken at the deathbed he was heir to the manor of Halden and other lands in Kent and Sussex.
As this was disputed by Edward's only surviving child Jane and her husband, then known as Sir John Dudley, in the end he was unable to secure the estates, though the episode had an aftermath many years later.
Dudley gave him the lease of some of the lands the two had disputed nearly twenty years earlier and in July 1553, two days before the sickly young king's death, ordered him to raise a company of 30 men.
Three days after the king's death, he was required to send at least two gentlemen from Kent to join Dudley's force backing the claim to the throne of his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey.
Among their twelve children were:[6][7][8] After 1550, he married secondly Mary, widow of John Shelley (died 1550), of Michelgrove in Clapham, Sussex, and daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam, of Milton Malsor in Northamptonshire.