TOKE, John

According to one source, John was the youngest son of John Toke of Westcliffe, but it is unlikely that he was the ‘John Toke junior’ who served as a juror in Dover in June 1409. Egerton 2088, f. 146v. Unlike his brothers, Ralph and Thomas, he appears not to have taken an active role in the government of Dover immediately after the death of their father. Although he certainly became a freeman of the town, his family possessed interests elsewhere, and in 1440 he and Thomas claimed exemption from the parliamentary subsidy for property in the hundred of Bewsborough, almost certainly the family’s manor of Bere in Westcliffe, just outside Dover. E179/225/24; E. Hasted, Kent, ed. Drake, ix. 422. It is possible that John pursued a career in London, perhaps in the law since a John Toke was a member of Furnival’s Inn in the later 1440s. J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1537. Whatever the case, his acting as a mainpernor for William Beaufitz* in 1444 suggests connexions with the City’s merchant elite, even if he did so as ‘of Dover, gentleman’. CFR, xvii. 294.

It would appear that Toke had yet to hold office in his Port before gaining election to his first Parliament. At the election Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, used his influence to secure the return of his servant, the London mercer Richard Needham*, as the other baron for Dover. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that Toke was also connected with the duke and his election most likely came about through the prompting of his brother Ralph, then mayor. Furthermore, while Needham was later that year indicted of treason because of his association with Gloucester, no such opprobrium was attached to Toke. Both Needham and Toke received wages (at a daily rate of 3s. 4d.) for 22 days’ attendance at Bury for the duration of the Parliament and eight spent travelling back and forth. Add. 29810, f. 63v. The subsequent return of Toke to the Parliament of 1449 seems to confirm that his brother had secured his election to the previous assembly. The other baron for Dover was Stephen Slegge*, then sheriff of Kent and a servant of James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele. Ralph Toke was also closely linked to Slegge and Saye, and his brother’s election was perhaps further evidence of the dominance of this group in the parliamentary politics of Kent in the late 1440s. John and Slegge were each paid (at a daily rate of 12d.) for 117 days’ service, of which 107 covered the period Parliament was in session at Westminster and Winchester. Ibid. f. 66.

John Toke’s influence in Dover survived the death of his brother and the collapse of the Court party’s influence in Kent following Cade’s rebellion in 1450. By September 1451 he had entered the service of Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, the new warden of the Cinque Ports, at Dover castle, where he became ‘bodar’, an office probably relating to the collection of tolls. He also appears to have attached himself to Thomas Doyly*, who had married his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, and emerged as a leading figure in the Port. In February 1453 he and Doyly were elected as Dover’s barons to the Parliament that met at Reading and Westminster that year. Both men left for Parliament on 3 Mar. and Toke remained there for 29 days, one more than his colleague. They left Dover for the Parliament’s second session on 23 Apr., two days before the commencement of business: Toke stayed at Westminster for 48 days but Doyly for ten only. Add. 29615, f. 220. In the following September, Doyly was elected mayor and on 12 Nov. of the same year the third session of the Parliament began at Reading, only to be prorogued immediately. For the final session, meeting at Westminster from 14 Feb. to 18 Apr. 1454, Toke received payment for 34 days’ service. Add. 29810, f. 74.

During the course of the Parliament, a writ of parliamentary privilege was sued out in favour of William Derykson, a Dutchman who – or so it was claimed – was Toke’s servant. Later, one Thomas Pope of ‘Middleton’ in Kent alleged in Chancery that a couple of London fishmongers had vexatiously sued out this writ to thwart an action of debt in the London sheriffs’ court. C1/22/101. The plaintiff would seem to have been a different man from the Thomas Pope* who was currently bailiff of Rye. Again in Chancery, during the same Parliament John Bladsmyth sued Toke for seven marks. According to Bladsmyth’s bill of November 1453, the debt arose out of an obligation (from a third party) which the MP had delivered in part payment of an earlier debt. C1/21/24.

The remaining evidence for Toke’s career reveals a continued association with Doyly, whom he served as deputy mayor on at least three occasions, a responsibility that helps explain his attendance at four consecutive meetings of the Brodhull between July 1455 and September 1456. White and Black Bks. 34-36. It was also around this time that Toke, Doyly and 28 other Dover men were accused of committing ‘a certain trespass and other enormous offences’ (the exact nature of the charges are unknown) against the King. The matter was still pending in Michaelmas term 1462, when the process of outlawry was begun against Toke and others of the accused then still alive. KB27/787, rex rot. 5; 806, rex rot. 12. On 11 Sept. that year Edward IV had granted a pardon to some of the Dover men involved in this case and a fuller one was issued on 10 May 1463. CPR, 1461-67, pp. 194, 266. Toke was not among the individuals pardoned on these occasions, although he headed the list of those named in the outlawry process of Michaelmas 1462. He was probably still alive in Trinity term 1463, when ‘John Took senior’ was among those ordered to appear before the King in the following Hilary term, to answer for the fine imposed upon them in the same matter. KB27/809, rex rot. 12d.

If Toke made a will, it has not survived. The details of his putative marriages and offspring listed above are drawn from sixteenth-century visitation records and are impossible to verify.