Rye

The effects of the attack on Rye by the French in 1377 were still being felt in Henry VI’s reign. Attempts had been made to erect fortifications to prevent such an assault succeeding again, and new building had taken place, albeit outside the walls in preference to restoring the burnt and ruined houses within. Those assessed for a scot in Rye in 1414-15 numbered 138 persons altogether, with the mayor, John Shelley, Robert Onewyn alias Taylor† and one other Portsman taxed at the highest amount of one mark each. These four more prosperous inhabitants chose to live in the ward outside the gate. E. Suss. RO, Rye mss, 77/1, 2, discussed by L.A. Vidler in New Hist. Rye, 30. A comparison with the half scot assessed nearly half a century later, in May 1459, indicates a decline both in population and wealth in the intervening period, although this cannot be ascribed to any single cause. By that later date the total number of adults assessed for taxation had fallen to just 79, and none of them paid as much as before. Those taxed highest were the mayor (John Sutton) and 19 others at only 3s. 4d. each, while as many as 41 individuals were taxed at less than 1s. a head. Rye mss, acct. bk. 60/2, ff. 64-65. Some of Rye’s more enterprising inhabitants, such as Shelley, had moved away in the interim, and those who remained were comparatively less well-off. One indication that the community was suffering hardship had emerged in 1430, when the mayor and commonalty sold their chief tower of defence to an esquire named John Ypres, for him to use as a residence, although the authorities retained right of entry at times of hostility or war (and insisted that these terms should still apply after Ypres sold the tower 22 years later to Thomas Stoughton). Cat. Rye Recs. ed. Dell, deed 124/1.

The town derived its income from quit rents levied from shops and stalls in the market place and on the Strand, tolls on catches of fish unloaded at Rye, fees for admission to the freedom and fines for offences brought before the local courts. In 1449-50 total receipts came to about £34, but the town’s outgoings amounted to £43, leaving the mayor considerably out of pocket when he left office. Rye acct. bk., 60/2, ff. 7-14; Vidler, 34-35. Indeed, matters had reached a crisis a short while before. According to a petition addressed to Henry VI, Rye had suffered such wastes and poverty owing to incursions of the tides and arson inflicted by the King’s enemies that the Portsmen were unable to furnish their contingent of ships for the Cinque Ports’ fleet. To ameliorate the situation, on 1 Aug. 1449 the King granted that Tenterden might be incorporated with Rye, as the Port’s first (and, as it proved, only) member. Tenterden was an important town in the weald of Kent. Its thriving landing-place at Smallhythe on the river Rother, within eight miles of Rye, virtually made it a sea-port, and since ships were built there it could assist Rye in providing its quota for ship-service. Now, by royal charter the town and hundred were separated from the county of Kent and annexed to Rye, Vidler, 36; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 276-7. The assumption generally made that the French had recently burnt Rye again (e.g. in HMC 5th Rep. 490-1) is unfounded: Vidler, 34. and this grant was exempted from the Acts of Resumption passed in the next two Parliaments. PROME, xii. 138, 198-9. Whether because of the annexation of Tenterden, or for other reasons favourably affecting the local economy, there are signs that Rye’s finances improved later in the century. The accounts of 1479-80 noted much healthier receipts of £70 14s. 6d. and outgoings of only £61 4s. 2d., leaving the Port with a satisfactory profit. Vidler, 41.

A major drain on Rye’s finances in the period under review resulted from the obligation to entertain the lieutenant warden of the Ports when he visited the locality, and sums of money were also spent on hospitality for the companies of minstrels employed by such magnates as the dukes of Buckingham, Somerset and York, the earl of Warwick and Lord Bourgchier. Rye acct. bk., 60/2, ff. 6, 33, 36v, 42, 43v, 48v, 54v. Whether any political significance should be attached to these payments is doubtful. Rye’s accounts hint at the effects of both foreign and civil wars, noting as they do expenditure on guns and gunpowder and on fortifying the Strand (in 1456-7), and the payment of 16s. 8d. in the spring of 1461 for five red jackets provided for the men Rye sent to St. Albans, apparently to fight in support of the Yorkists. A curious comment is recorded in the Port’s accounts of the same season in regard to a payment for Babylon Grantford’s journey to London ‘to the Kyng and the lordes for the towne is excuse’. Stating that ‘what tyme it was not as it is now blessed be god of his grace of amendement and so to continue’, it too bears the implication that the Portsmen welcomed the eventual triumph of Edward IV at Towton. Ibid. ff. 53v, 88v.

The names of Rye’s barons are known for all but one of the 22 Parliaments of the period 1422-61: they numbered 21 different men. Since half of them (no fewer than 11) only ever sat in one Parliament, it might be supposed that the men of Rye cared little about the continuity of their town’s representation. Yet this was probably not the case, for they elected Grantford, Thomas Long I and Onewyn to four Parliaments each, Broughton, Pope and Shelley to five each, and Thirlwall to as many as seven, and by doing so they ensured continuity to a remarkable degree. This was provided most notably by Thirlwall, who sat in four Parliaments in a row from 1421 to 1425 and then three more consecutively from 1427 to 1431; Onewyn, who sat in three in a row from 1450 to 1455; and Grantford, who was returned to four successive Parliaments from 1459 to 1463. There can be little doubt that returning the same men to consecutive Parliaments was a policy consciously adopted on the part of the Portsmen. Both of the parliamentary barons were re-elected in 1422, 1429 and 1431, and besides these experienced couples (Shelley and Thirlwall, and Thirlwall and Broughton) there was also that of Stoughton and Onewyn, who having sat together in the first Parliament of 1449 were returned again in 1450. On ten other occasions one of the barons was re-elected. Continuity of representation might be maintained over a long period: thus Pope sat for the first time in 1426 and the last in 1460. Furthermore, although it is possible that both the barons of 1426 and 1442 were newcomers to the Commons, Gaps in the returns for eight of the Parls. between 1399 and 1417, as well as for that of 1439, make it impossible to be certain on this point: The Commons 1386-1421, i. 761. in all other Parliaments of the period at least one of Rye’s representatives was experienced in the workings of the House.

Two of Rye’s MPs had gained their experience of the Commons by representing other constituencies: in the 20 years before he sat for Rye in 1449 Adam Levelord had served in six Parliaments for his home town of Southwark; and although Thomas Bayen was a local man he represented Poole in Dorset before being returned for Rye in 1459. Conversely, after sitting for Rye five times, Shelley went on to represent Sandwich in three more Parliaments; and Stoughton was to be elected for London in 1469, several years after he last sat for Rye in 1450. In the event the Parl. did not meet.

Twenty of the 21 parliamentary barons appear to have fulfilled the statutory requirements of residence in the place they represented. Yet this does not mean that they all emerged from the same mould. At least ten of them were Portsmen proper (that is, merchants and seafarers trading primarily in fish and wine), among them ship-owners like the two Longs, allegedly guilty of indulging in piratical activities in the Channel. These Portsmen held land outside the liberty of Rye, at nearby Hope and Wivelridge, and claimed exemption from parliamentary taxation on the moveable goods they kept there. A few came from families which had provided Rye with MPs before: Thomas Long II was probably the nephew of William† and the son of Thomas I (whom he accompanied to Westminster in 1437); and Robert Onewyn the son and heir of a namesake who had sat in four of the Parliaments of Henry V’s reign. Another group of MPs may be better categorized as local landowners. They included three members of the Marchaunt family (John, Robert and Stephen, who held land at Hope, Playden and Iden, and were probably all advocants, or foreign freemen of the Port); Thomas Pope, who married a local heiress; John Chitecroft, who inherited the nearby manor of Leasam, worth as much as £20 p.a., and associated with the Sussex gentry; Babylon Grantford, who acquired by marriage to the widow of William Fynch* lands supposedly worth 100 marks a year (yet was nevertheless a Portsman of both Winchelsea and Rye and became actively engaged in the administration of the latter Port); and John Passhele, descended from a distinguished knightly family with estates in Cornwall, Kent, Oxfordshire and Sussex, who lived at his manor-house of La Mote outside Rye, yet purchased the freedom of the Port to which he paid 3s. 4d. a year as an advocant. Chitecroft, Grantford, Passhele and Pope were all esquires by rank, their status being dictated by their landed holdings. But increasingly townsmen of Rye were coming to adopt armigerous rank too, among them Onewyn and Sutton, even though the latter had set out as a husbandman and fishmonger. The distinctions between landowners and Portsmen were often blurred, especially at a time when more members of the gentry were seeking admission as freemen of the Ports in order to gain exemption from taxation.

Three of the MPs for Rye in this period fail to fit into the categories of either Portsman or local landowner: Thomas Stoughton (returned in 1447, February 1449 and 1450), and the two Members in the Parliament of 1449 (Nov.), Robert Berde and Adam Levelord. Stoughton, purveyor of fish for the royal household and later warden of the Fishmongers Company of London, technically fulfilled the statutory requirement of residence, for he was numbered among Rye’s advocants who paid the usual annual fee of 3s. 4d. Yet while the men of Rye were prepared to accept him as an MP in three Parliaments, the Brodhull denied his appointment as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs at Yarmouth in 1448 on the grounds that he lived in London. Perhaps the tolerant attitude of the electors at Rye was encouraged by Stoughton’s willingness to serve without payment (there is no record of any parliamentary wages paid to him, merely of the occasional gift of fish). Berde, who came from Sevenoaks in Kent, presents a similar case. At the time of his election in the autumn of 1449 he was serving as clerk of Dover castle under the warden of the Ports, James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele. The latter, well aware that the government would face severe criticism from a Commons learning the news of the military collapse of English forces in Normandy, actively attempted to influence the elections in the Ports. First, he tried to get Berde returned for Hythe, but the jurats there responded that they always elected local residents, and that Berde would only be acceptable if he came to Hythe to be admitted to the freedom before going to Westminster and if he took no more than 1s. a day as his parliamentary wages. Either these terms proved unsatisfactory or perhaps the jurats of Rye did not impose any such restrictions: they elected Berde, while the Portsmen of Hythe returned one of their own number. Berde’s companion was Adam Levelord, a lawyer who normally lived in Southwark and was currently serving as a coroner in Surrey. Having recently acquired the manor of Leasam and other property in and near Rye from John Chitecroft, he technically, as an advocant, fulfilled the residential requirements, even though he seems never to have made his home in Rye. The election of gentry and ‘outsiders’, like Berde, Levelord and Stoughton, became a more regular feature of Rye’s representation in the 1440s and 1450s than before. More than half of the seats from 1442 onwards were filled by such men.

Even so, many of those who represented Rye in Henry VI’s reign had participated in the Port’s administration before their returns to Parliament, by serving as mayor (elected annually on the Sunday following St. Bartholomew’s day – 24 Aug.), on the mayor’s advisory body of 12 jurats, or else as the bailiff appointed by the King. Cat. Rye Recs. p. xiv. The loss of detailed records before the late 1440s, means that the earlier lists of mayors and jurats are by no means complete. Nevertheless, there is evidence that at least nine of the 21 parliamentary barons served as jurats of Rye, and that active members of this body were returned in 1449 (Feb.), 1453, 1455, 1459 (both MPs), and 1460. The esquire John Passhele was apparently first made a jurat at the election of late August 1455, during the recess of the Parliament in which he was then representing Rye, although it may be that he had earlier replaced another jurat in mid term and before he entered the Commons in July. The same number of barons (nine) are recorded as mayor of Rye, the majority of them gaining election to the mayoralty only after their first service in the Commons. Some occupied this office for several terms: Grantford and Sutton each did so for five years, and Broughton for as many as ten. The men of Rye were not adverse to their mayor’s absence during his term: the current mayor was returned to Parliament in 1429, 1431, 1432 (Broughton in each case), 1435 (Thomas Long I), 1445, 1447 (Pope) and 1453 (Onewyn). The bailiff of Rye, although appointed by the Crown, shared a prominent position in the town’s government with the elected mayor. During the 40 years or so that Thomas Pope held the office he was returned by Rye to the Parliaments of 1426, 1433, 1445 and 1447, and similarly Babylon Grantford, who seems to have taken over from Pope in April 1459, served in the Parliaments of 1459 and 1460 while so employed.

Not surprisingly, those who represented Rye’s interests in the Commons had often been earlier chosen to do so at Brodhulls (meetings of delegates from all the Cinque Ports). At least nine of the 21 were so selected, and a few were very active in this respect: Broughton attended 23 such assemblies or more, and Onewyn at least 25. In some cases (for instance, that of Sutton in 1442), parliamentary barons recently returned home were sent to Brodhulls to report what had taken place in the Commons. Eight of the 21 MPs are recorded as Rye’s nominees to serve among the bailiffs sent by the Cinque Ports to Yarmouth for the annual herring fair; half of them had done so before their first or only elections to Parliament.

A number of Rye’s MPs benefited from Henry VI’s patronage. Besides his post as bailiff of Rye, Pope, a royal annuitant and ‘King’s esquire’, secured from the Crown appointment as a serjeant-at-arms and collector of customs and subsidies, and he was a controller of customs when returned in 1445 and 1447. As already noted, Stoughton was returned to three Parliaments when in office as a King’s serjeant and purveyor of fish for the Household, and Grantford had been an esquire of the King’s hall and chamber before his election for Rye in 1459. Grantford’s companion, Thomas Bayen, was a royal servant of a different sort for he belonged to the staff of the Chancery. Already a trusted colleague of the clerk of the Parliaments, Master John Faukes, Bayen subsequently served as the Commons’ own clerical officer almost to the end of the century. Other MPs were associated with prominent figures at Court: Chitecroft and Robert Marchaunt were personally acquainted with the treasurer of the Household, Sir Roger Fiennes*, and the link between Berde and Sir Roger’s brother Lord Saye has already been touched upon. During the first session of his Parliament of 1449 (Nov.) Berde was appointed escheator of Kent and Middlesex, and before it ended he was dispatched to Dover on errands for Saye, then treasurer of England as well as warden of the Ports.

Rye’s financial accounts provide a glimpse of the electoral process. In the autumn of 1449 a messenger was rewarded for bringing notice of the summons from Dover, and paid 8d. ‘for beryng up of the returne of the wrytte for the parlement’; and six years later the bearer of the writ received 6d. and a quart of romney was drunk at the ‘selyng [of] the comyssion for the parlement’. In 1463 the common clerk of Rye rode to Dover with the second return to the Parliament, following its postponement to 29 Apr. Rye acct. bk., 60/2, ff. 5d, 12, 44, 103. Nevertheless, save for providing confirmation that elections were held locally, nothing is revealed about the identity of the electors. The concern of the Portsmen to be kept informed about legislation is indicated by their payment of 22d. for copies of the Acts of the Parliament of 1463. Ibid. ff. 104, 107v.

In this period Rye could not always afford to be generous to its parliamentary barons. Earlier on in the century they had each received 2s. 6d. a day, The Commons 1386-1421, i. 763. but during Henry VI’s reign they were generally paid much less. Nor was there a standard rate of remuneration. Onewyn was paid varying amounts, ranging from 1s. 4d. to 1s. 8d. a day, and Passhele received 1s. 8d. a day for attending the Parliament of 1455, but Grantford fared better, for payment for his service at Coventry in 1459 eventually amounted to 2s. a day, as too did his wages in the final session of the Parliament of 1463-5, and he received as much as 3s. 4d. for each of the eight days he spent riding to and from York for an aborted session in 1464. Richard Rypps seems to have been especially poorly treated. His services were paid for in small sums delivered over a prolonged period, so that he finally had to resort to withholding the maltolts he owed the town during his mayoralties in order to gain recompense. Rye acct. bk., 60/2, ff. 32, 33, 37, 44, 48, 49v, 50, 55, 106v.