John Heydon (died 1479)

[2][5][6] However Heydon chiefly owed his prominence in East Anglia to his service with William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk (d. 1450), with whom he had become associated by 1435.

[5] Through his influence with Henry VI, Suffolk is said to have ousted John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, from his rightful position as the dominant magnate in East Anglia.

Two of his agents in particular, Heydon and Sir Thomas Tuddenham, from 1443 jointly held the 'powerful and lucrative' stewardship of the Duchy of Lancaster,[5] and are said to have terrorised East Anglian gentry, including the Paston family.

[7][5][8] Suffolk fell from power at the beginning of 1450, and Heydon and Tuddenham immediately found themselves under attack by their principal opponents in East Anglia.

Indictments were drawn up which provided details of Heydon's and Tuddenham's actions during the previous fifteen years; according to Richmond, these allegations were perhaps biased, since Fastolf, John Paston, and the City of Norwich were among the principal informants, but it is 'likely that much of the shire was hostile to the pair of them'.

During the years 1450–51 the Duke of Norfolk, John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, and Fastolf also exerted efforts to remove Suffolk's former agents from positions of local power.

[10] During the Readeption of Henry VI he attempted to gain the favour of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, a Lancastrian, and was appointed to two commissions, but thereafter, for the remaining eighteen years of his life he was not prominent in public affairs, although he continued to practice law and to administer his clients' estates as well as his own.

Among them was his seat at Baconsthorpe, where he had rebuilt the manor house, a project perhaps begun about 1446 when the King granted him forty oak trees from the forest at Gimingham.