I believe that John MACHELL was the fourth son of Hugh MACHELL of Crackenthorpe, 1467-1544. His wife was a LEYBO(U)RNE, possibly Julyan, and their children included Sir John MACHELL, the Alderman and Sheriff of London, and Leonard MACHELL.

The 1634 Visitation of Essex, shows John MACHELL to be the son of another John MACHELL by a wife surnamed Leybourne. (Perhaps this Leybourne was a sister of James Leybourne of Cunswick, Westmorland; Cunswick, like the Machell property in Burneside, was near the village of Kendal.)

According to Burke's Landed Gentry, vol. 2 (1871), p. 851, John MACHELL was the fourth son of Hugh MACHELL of Crackenthorpe. Clearly these records can't both relate to the same John MACHELL, so I take the later record to relate to John MACHELL, the elder.

The name Julyan arises with a tree on Family Search, but has no source citation. This is repeated in other trees as the wife of Hugh MACHELL of Crackenthorpe.

A John MACHEL was buried in 1542 in St Peter, Westcheap in London. His eldest son, John, later Sir John MACHELL, was living in the City of London at that time.