It seems likely that Sparwe originally came from Hythe, where his putative father, Henry, served as a jurat from 1370 to 1384, for in 1419-20 he was presented by a Hythe jury for obstructing a lane adjoining the property he held in the town.
Sparwe died before March 1439, leaving his widow, Alice, to account for maltolts in his place. He had apparently made enfeoffments of his substantial landed holdings in Romney Marsh and, when ill and dying, instructed the trustees to make estate to Alice for her lifetime, with remainder to his daughter, Elizabeth. But it was afterwards claimed by the latter and her husband, Thomas Barry, in a petition to the chancellor, that the widow and her co-executor of Sparwe’s will had erased, or ‘fait estre rase’, from that document all provisions beneficial to Elizabeth, thus working to her disinheritance.