This appears to be a standard suit disputing ownership of land, where one party is withholding the deeds, allegedly to prevent the other party proving ownership.
Plaintiff’s Bill
Thomas Pyx, the plaintiff in the suit, states that Bartholomew Stonstrete held 13 acres of land in Kingsnorth, Kent. After his death, half the land descended through gavelkind to Pyx. He is Bartholomew’s great-grandson, via Bartholomew’s daughter, who married his grandfather John Pyx and had his father John Pyx.
(Stonstrete – John Pyx – John Pyx – Thomas Pyx, plaintiff).
The other half of Bartholomew Stonstrete’s 13 acres descended through gavelkind to Thomas and William Elsted, Bartholomew’s great-grandsons, the grandsons of Bartholomew’s other daughter Alice. Thomas Pyx and the Elsteds are therefore cousins.
(Stonstrete – William Elsted – William Elsted – Thomas & William Elsted, defendants).
Thomas Pyx then bought the Elsteds’ share of the land off them, but he cannot prove ownership because he doesn’t have the deeds. He claims that John Barowe (a lawyer and Clerk of the Peace) and John Assherst hold the deeds and that they have concealed them.
Meanwhile, Pyx claims that John Barowe and John Assherst have been trying to oust him and the Elsteds from the property. Pyx has entered a separate common-law suit against Assherst over the ownership of the land, but without any deeds Pyx fears he will lose the suit and the land with it. He believes that John Barowe is so wealthy and well connected in Kent that the case can’t be heard impartially by a jury in a common-law court. He requests an injunction to halt the common-law suit, so that judgment can be made in the equity court instead, where he presumably feels he will get a fairer hearing.