RUSSELL, Thomas II

Several pleas of debt that he brought in the bailiff’s court at Hythe in September 1434 are the earliest evidence for Russell. H 1018, ff. 131, 146. The town’s records also reveal that he had a diverse range of business interests, trading in grain, livestock, woollen cloths and fish. He paid maltolts on a fish kiddle which he appears to have purchased from Nicholas Brockhill* and by the mid 1440s he possessed rents worth 24s. p.a. Ibid. ff. 6v, 51, 144v, 157.

In early 1438 Russell began his first term as a jurat, and in July that year and in April 1439 he attended meetings of the Brodhull as one of the representatives for Hythe. White and Black Bks. 11. By November 1439 he was serving as deputy to the bailiff of Hythe, Nicholas Brockhill, and he was again present at the Brodhull in the following July, when he was chosen as one of the Ports’ bailiffs for the annual herring fair at Great Yarmouth. He travelled to New Romney for another meeting of that assembly in April 1441 and in January 1442 he was returned to the Commons for the first time. He subsequently claimed wages of £3 16s. for 38 days’ service but his fellow MP, John Overhaven*, an experienced parliamentarian, sought £6 for over 60. H 1055, f. 6v; White and Black Bks. 13, 14; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 887.

In July 1442 Russell attended a Brodhull, where he probably reported on the business of the recent Parliament and at which he was again elected as one of the Ports’ bailiffs at Yarmouth. In 1444 he began a term as a chamberlain at Hythe, attended two meetings of the Brodhull and rode to Dover on at least four occasions for meetings with Ralph Toke* and Richard Needham* in pursuit of his Port’s affairs. White and Black Bks. 17, 19; H 1055, ff. 63, 63v. Upon his election to his second Parliament early in the following year, he travelled to Westminster with the lawyer, Stephen Slegge*. He agreed to serve for the customary rate of 2s. per day but the town’s accounts record that he subsequently forswore £3 6s. 8d., part of the wages he was owed, and do not reveal how long he spent at Westminster. H 1055, f. 43.

One of the leading burgesses of his Port by the mid 1440s, Russell was admitted as bailiff of Hythe in July 1446. As bailiff he held the town’s courts in person and represented Hythe at every meeting of the Brodhull. White and Black Bks. 20-23; H 1055, f. 64v; Hythe recs., hundred ct. pprs. 1398-1445, H 1059. He held the office until Archbishop Stafford of Canterbury replaced him with Henry Fitzjohn, a servant of the new warden of the Cinque Ports, James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, on 14 June 1448. In the event, Fitzjohn’s appointment was extremely short-lived, since just two days later Stafford, perhaps at the request of the Portsmen of Hythe, named Nicholas Brockhill in his stead. Presumably Russell’s removal as bailiff was connected with a serious falling out between him and his fellow Portsmen. On the very day of Brockhill’s appointment as bailiff, the jurats enrolled a list of offences he had committed and barred him from holding any office within Hythe, or from representing the town in Parliament. Unfortunately the list has not survived, but the alleged misdeeds were clearly of great importance for the other Portsmen. The jurats referred the matter to the arbitration of the Romney lawyer, John Chenew*, and probably it was his settlement that gave rise to a series of agreements made between them and Russell in September 1451. On the 9th of that month the latter acknowledged the return of certain silverware he had delivered as a security (presumably to abide by Chenew’s arbitration) to the bailiff and jurats. He also bound himself to them in 100 marks, on condition that he quitclaimed all actions against them by the coming Michaelmas and delivered certain property to the use of the commonalty. H 1055, ff. 26v, 64v, 140; H 1059; HMC 4th Rep. 431.

During this controversy at Hythe, Russell was also embroiled in a dispute which led to litigation in the court of common pleas. In pleadings there of Trinity term 1447, a couple of leading members of the Kentish gentry, Edward Guildford* and Gervase Clifton*, and others, including Robert Horne* of Hythe, alleged that he and one of his servants (both of whom they referred to as mere ‘husbandmen’) had broken into their property at Newchurch by Hythe in March 1444. In his defence, Russell claimed title to these holdings, comprising a messuage and 100 acres of land in Newchurch by Hythe, by enfeoffment of Margaret, daughter of Henry Bonnington. The parties agreed to refer the matter to a jury, but this had yet to sit at the end of 1448. CP40/746, rot. 480; 751, rot. 368d.

Following his dispute with the jurats, Russell ceased to hold office at Hythe, although he was again involved in communal affairs soon afterwards. It was he, for example, who put up the money for purchases of fish given to two distinguished visitors to the town, John Kemp, archbishop of Canterbury, in January 1453 and John Greenford* in the following year. H 1055, ff. 172v, 186v. The dispute may, however, have had a detrimental effect on his wealth: by 1457-8 he was possessed of rents worth only 4s. 8d., and his total maltolts amounted to only 16s. 10d., rather than the 37s. 4d. they had come to four years earlier. He nevertheless met part of the costs of the men who rode to Sandwich in the aftermath of the French raid in August 1457, and he likewise contributed further sums for communal business later in the same decade. Hythe recs., jurats’ acct. bk. 1458-65, H 1019, ff. 60v, 75v, 89. In February 1459 he was appointed to arbitrate in a dispute between a fellow Portsman, William Walton*, and John Archer I* of Hastings. Hythe jurats’ ct. bk. 1449-67, H 1023, f. 105v.

The only evidence for Russell from the 1460s is the record of his continued payment of maltolts, mainly on livestock and cereals sold within the town. H 1019, ff. 102, 112v, 141v. By 1466, he and his son, another Thomas, were members of the fraternity of the Blessed Virgin in St. Lawrence’s church at Hythe, but he was dead by January 1469 when the younger Thomas accounted for his maltolts in Market ward. Mackeson, 31; Hythe jurats’ acct. bk. 1467-84, H 1058, ff. 5, 17.