GRANTFORD, Babylon

Given his very unusual first name, it is surprising that nothing has been discovered about Babylon Grantford’s origins. It seems likely, however, that he came from a minor gentry family in Sussex, and was related to Thomas Grantford, listed among the men of the county required to take the oath against maintenance of peace-breakers in 1434, and to Richard Grantford of Broadwater in Sompting, a ‘gentleman’ who was pardoned in 1446 and attested the shire elections of 1450.6 CPR, 1429-36, p. 372; C67/39, m. 19; C219/16/1. For a ped. of the fam. given in a lawsuit of 1479, see CP40/870, rot. 526, in which John Grantford, s. of Richard, claimed land at Bodyngton and Wyston as gt. gds. of Lucy de Lyons.

Yet before he was ever mentioned as living in Sussex, Babylon was recorded as a member of the household of Henry VI, and during the ten years from 1441 he regularly received fees and livery as an esquire of the hall and chamber.7 E101/409/9, 11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9. It may be speculated that he came by this status, and, more important, contracted his advantageous marriage, through the patronage of the treasurer of the Household, Sir Roger Fiennes*, a prominent landowner in east Sussex and kinsman of the Fynch family, whose estates Babylon aspired to attain. The marriage, to Agnes, the wealthy widow of William Fynch, prompted much litigation, prolonged over many years. In 1440 Fynch had made an enfeoffment of his lands in Sussex, Kent and the liberty of the Cinque Ports, and he stipulated in his will of 1443 that the feoffees should settle the whole estate on his widow for her lifetime, if she remained single; and even if she remarried she was to be assured of an income of 100 marks p.a.8 Archaelogia Cantiana, xiii. 322-4. Lawsuits brought in Hilary term 1444 over the wardship of the heir, William’s eldest son John, suggest that Agnes remarried almost immediately after her husband’s death, as John was not then in her custody, as should have been the case had she remained sole, in accordance with Fynch’s will. Yet it was not until May 1449 that she and her new husband Grantford prosecuted a writ of dower against the feoffees. Although the latter were formidable opponents, numbering among them Gervase Clifton*, the lieutenant warden of the Cinque Ports (who had married Fynch’s sister Isabel), Richard Lewknor*, a member of one of the leading families of Sussex, and William Sydney*, the prominent lawyer, in the Michaelmas term the court of common pleas awarded judgement in the Grantfords’ favour. They thus received a third part of the manors of Netherfield, Icklesham and Ittington, and of some 900 acres of land and £7 8s. rent in different parts of east Sussex.9 CP40/754, rot. 276d; 755, rot. 173. But this was not the end of their difficulties, for Fynch’s three sisters sued them for the sum of £43 6s. 8d. which they said had been unjustly retained by Agnes as executrix of their brother’s will,10 CP40/766, rot. 40d. and when John Fynch came of age in 1457 he ousted his mother and stepfather from the lands she had been granted in dower in Icklesham. This matter came before the assizes in 1458, when damages of £60 were awarded to the Grantfords. Nevertheless, further process was needed in the courts of King’s bench and common pleas to obtain payment.11 KB27/786, rots. 115, 120; CP40/792, rot. 417; 793, rot. 253d. Nor had William Fynch’s feoffees entirely relinquished their claims: in the 1460s the Grantfords alleged that their opponents’ servant Richard Riche had illegally broken into their closes at Guestling and Westfield.12 CP40/806, rot. 310. Furthermore, Clifton accused the couple of waste on Agnes’s dower land at Netherfield, alleging that they had cut down and sold oaks and failed to repair the roofs of outhouses; as a result the granary and apple house had become ruinous, and in the other uncovered buildings the large timber joists had rotted.13 CP40/808, rot. 121; 809, rot. 21. Grantford also quarrelled with another of his stepsons, Henry Fynch, whom he accused of having stolen from him in March 1460 various items of clothing and furs, as well as plate and jewellery, in all valued at £40. When brought to the common pleas three years later the young man denied culpability, only admitting possession of just one gold coin and a gilt bowl. He said that Grantford had given his wife Agnes permission to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury and not having sufficient money in hand for her expenses had allowed her to pawn the coin and bowl. Henry had made her a loan of 10s., keeping these items as a pledge. Meanwhile, Henry had gone on the offensive, accusing his stepfather of the theft of a defensive ‘jack’, two bows, a sheaf of arrows and a sword at Kettering in May 1461.14 CP40/804, rot. 309; 808, rot. 412.

Grantford’s involvement in the affairs of the Cinque Ports had begun soon after his marriage, which brought him property both within and without the liberty of Winchelsea. He was called ‘of Winchelsea, esquire’ in the early lawsuits concerning the Fynch estates, and as a Portsman from 1445 onwards he claimed exemption from parliamentary taxation on valuable chattels kept at Guestling, Ore, Icklesham and Pette, in the neighbourhood.15 E179/228/131; 229/138, 154. Yet he was also a Portsman of Rye, as such being exempt from subsidies on his goods at Wivelridge, and on one occasion he sued men of Peasmarsh, to the north of the Port, for illegally entering his land there and stealing crops worth £5.16 CP40/780, rot. 455; E179/189/96. Besides being a landowner of substance, Babylon traded as a merchant, dealing in salt, cloth, lead, grain and wine in both the Ports with which he was associated. Indeed, in 1465 an action was brought against him in the common pleas by the King’s attorney, Henry Sotehill, for an alleged breach of the statutes by trading in wine and other victuals to the value of £100 while in office as mayor of Rye. Grantford is known to have owned at least one ship, and at Rye he possessed workshops in the market and in the Strand, where he conducted his commercial activities.17 Rye mss, ct. bk. 33/7, f. 8v; acct. bk. 60/2, f. 64; E122/34/21; CP40/815, rot. 454d. He was called ‘merchant’ as well as ‘esquire’ in various pardons: e.g. C67/44, m. 6. He continued to trade overseas until his death.18 C76/158, m. 24; PSO1/39/2009.

Although Grantford evidently became popular in the Ports, elsewhere he was sometimes an object of hatred. At Icklesham in 1447 a jury claimed that two women had conspired to cause him bodily harm through the use of ‘magic arts’.19 Lathe Ct. Rolls (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxxvii), 153. Grantford attested the Sussex shire elections held at Chichester, in the west of the county, on 30 Jan. 1449, the only occasion he is known to have done so.20 C219/15/6. Generally, his activities were concentrated in the east. That July he attended a Brodhull at New Romney as a deputy from Winchelsea, and while there he was chosen to be one of the Ports’ bailiffs at the autumn herring fair at Yarmouth.21 White and Black Bks. 26; Cott. Julius BIV, f. 73v. In the 1450s he was increasingly employed on the business of Rye, starting in 1450 when he was acting as deputy bailiff. Thus, in the winter of 1452-3 he journeyed to London on behalf of the townsmen, and also spent four days at Canterbury (presumably as their representative) attending the ceremonial installation of John Kemp as archbishop. Following the mayoral election of August 1456 he headed the list of 12 jurats of Rye, although he was placed second after another esquire, John Pashley*, a year later.22 Rye acct. bk. 60/2, ff. 32, 51, 56. As ‘of Winchelsea, esquire, and of Rye, gentleman’, he purchased a royal pardon on 20 Jan. 1458,23 C67/42, m. 44. but it was in Rye that he assumed the more prominent role for from 3 Apr. 1459 he was referred to as ‘King’s bailiff’.24 White and Black Bks. 40. As there is no surviving patent of appointment and the previous incumbent, Thomas Pope*, who had been granted the office for life, did not die until October 1460, it may be that Grantford was merely acting as Pope’s deputy (indeed, Pope asked him to be his proxy in a conveyance dated 16 Apr.).25 Cat. Rye Recs. deeds 122/13, 14. Nevertheless, there is no doubt which of them carried out the official duties: a list of householders of Rye dated May 1459, noting Grantford among the wealthiest townsmen, also named him as bailiff.26 Rye acct. bk. 60/2, f. 64.

Grantford’s four consecutive Parliaments for Rye coincided with a period of national crisis and civil war. Rye’s accounts for the autumn of 1459 show him being paid 3s. 4d. for costs he had incurred in excusing the town to ‘our lord the earl of Arundel’, but precisely what service the Portsmen had failed to perform does not appear. He was elected to the Coventry Parliament, meeting on 20 Nov., and eventually received for his wages there two payments, one of 40s. (denoting a rate of just 1s. a day), and another of 33s. 4d. The Parliament attainted the Yorkists who had taken up arms at Ludford Bridge, but in the following summer, when they returned in force from Calais to confront the Lancastrian army at Northampton, Grantford went to Battle to make Rye’s excuses to one of their number, John Audley*, the new Lord Audley, presumably for failing to provide men or ships. At an unknown date he also received 10s. 8d. for riding up to London to offer the King and the lords the town’s ‘excuse’, ‘what tyme it was not as it is now blessed be God of his grace of amendment and so to continue’. The implication of this comment, written after the Yorkists had triumphed, is that the men of Rye viewed this victory with enthusiasm. Grantford was returned to the Parliament assembled at Westminster on 7 Oct. 1460, at which the duke of York was acknowledged to be Henry VI’s successor. He received 36s. 10d. as part payment for his wages for the first session (until 22 Nov.), and his service ‘afterwards at the palace of the bishop of London’ (where the King had been lodged), but there is no record of any payments to him for the second session, which met briefly at the end of January 1461, after York’s death at Wakefield. That spring he accompanied the mayor of Rye and Thomas Bayen* to Winchelsea to attend a court held by Lord Dacre, a supporter of the new King, Edward IV.27 Ibid. ff. 74, 80v, 87, 97. Grantford was among the barons of the Cinque Ports who attended Edward’s coronation on 28 June, for which Rye paid him expenses of 26s. 8d.28 Ibid. f. 94. At the beginning of the following month he was appointed to a royal commission to investigate an incident of piracy. However, Thomas Long II*, who had seen service at Calais with the Yorkist earls, had a better call on the new King’s patronage, and not only replaced our MP as bailiff of Rye two weeks later, but in December secured the office for term of his life.29 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 89, 124.

Grantford attended the Brodhull of July 1461 as one of Rye’s delegates, and went on to perform the same task on 15 more occasions in the course of the next 15 years, while also representing Rye at Guestlings. As lieutenant of the mayor, he rode to Winchelsea early in September 1461 for talks with the royal bailiff, John Copledyke*, and Thomas Thunder II* in an attempt to resolve disputes between Rye and its member-port of Tenterden.30 White and Black Bks. 43, 49-56, 63, 67, 68, 71; Rye acct. bk. 60/2, ff. 93, 94v. His third Parliament met on 4 Nov. following, and ten days after it assembled he appeared as a witness to the grant made by Thomas Hoo II* and others to the new King’s friend William, Lord Hastings, of the lordship, barony, honour and rape of Hastings. He was in exalted company.31 CCR, 1461-8, p. 93. Grantford’s last Parliament, which met in April 1463, was not dissolved until nearly two years later. During the recess in July 1463 he was named as one of seven men (a representative from each of the Cinque Ports), who were to be ‘solicitors’ to the Crown for a new charter of liberties, and in the following April he was instructed at the Brodhull to pay John Goldwell his fee for acting as the Ports’ attorney. The Brodhull allotted 20 marks to cover the expenses of obtaining confirmation of the charter, to be paid ‘at the next Parliament’ [i.e. the next session], with Grantford ‘and another’ nominated as principal spokesmen. Grantford was to be paid £2 if the business took him 20 days or more, and if he remained at Westminster after the Parliament ended he was to receive 2s. a day, as well as his ‘foreign’ costs. Work on this matter continued through the summer of 1464 and in January 1465, when Parliament reassembled.32 White and Black Bks. 48-52. Grantford’s rate of pay for his parliamentary wages varied over the course of the Parliament: he was paid 3s. 4d. a day for the eight days spent journeying to and from York in 1464 (for a proposed session which in the event did not take place), 1s. 8d. a day for 16 days while at London, and 2s. a day for the final session from 28 Jan. to 23 Mar. 1465.33 Rye acct. bk. 60/2, f. 106v. In addition he combined his duties at Westminster with those of the mayoralty of Rye, which he occupied for four consecutive years from August 1463. While still mayor he was placed on a panel to arbitrate in a suit between Tenterden and Lydd, in April 1466.34 White and Black Bks. 54. Three months later he once more came to the attention of the government, when he and his kinsman John Grantford were granted for life the office of bailiff of Rye, following Long’s resignation.35 CPR, 1461-7, p. 525. John was not his son, according to the lawsuit of 1479: CP40/870, rot. 526. Thus, for a little over a year Babylon occupied the two most important offices in the Port concurrently. In April 1469 he was to be one of those whom the Brodhull appointed solicitors on behalf of four men of Pevensey being held in the Marshalsea prison contrary to the liberties of the Ports.36 White and Black Bks. 59.

Grantford does not appear to have lost his office as bailiff of Rye during the Readeption, and he took out a pardon from the restored Henry VI on 28 Jan. 1471.37 C67/44, m. 6. The men of the Cinque Ports made what turned out to be a serious error of judgement when they supported the Bastard of Fauconberg in resisting the return of Edward IV that April, and as a consequence the Ports’ franchises were declared forfeit. In June Grantford and Thomas Thunder were nominated to approach the warden of the Ports, the earl of Arundel, to seek his advice as to how to return to royal favour. The two emissaries were each paid 2s. 6d. a day from the common chest. Then, in December Grantford was one of the 12 Portsmen sent to petition the King personally at London for the return of the franchises.38 White and Black Bks. 63-64. He took the opportunity to purchase a royal pardon for himself.39 C67/48, m. 24. Although he and his kinsman John Grantford had continued to be joint bailiffs of Rye, in July 1474 John, now promoted as a yeoman of the Crown, was granted the bailiwick alone.40 Cat. Rye Recs. deeds 130/3, 4; CPR, 1467-77, p. 448. This may have been so that Babylon could again take up the mayoralty; he was duly elected at the end of the following month. During this, his final term, in April 1475 he was named by the Crown to arbitrate in a dispute in which Robert Baseley†, the former mayor of Winchelsea, was a party.41 CCR, 1468-76, no. 1464. He continued to be assigned tasks by the Brodhull: three months later he was given responsibility for making payments to Thomas Bayen, the clerk of the Commons, for the Ports’ suits in Parliament, and he acted in a similar way in April 1476, paying legal fees on the Ports’ behalf.42 White and Black Bks. 69, 71. Nevertheless, there are signs that he was reluctant to serve again as mayor of Rye. During his last term he passed an ordinance that anyone elected to the office should not be re-elected in the three years after he stood down,43 The ordinance was confirmed in 1504: Rye mss, acct. bk. 60/4, f. 145v. and a few days after he left office it was agreed by his successor, the bailiff and a number of jurats, that all manner of debts ever incurred between Rye and him had been ‘clere satisfied and content’.44 HMC 5th Rep. 494.

Grantford died intestate at an unknown date between 7 Sept. 1476 and 12 Feb. 1477. By the latter date John Grantford was acting as administrator of his goods,45 White and Black Bks. 71; Rye mss, ct. roll 33/1; deeds 137/21. and may have been his heir. John continued to be bailiff of Rye until his death in 1481.46 White and Black Bks. 72-76, 78, 80; CPR, 1476-85, p. 273. Babylon’s wife had predeceased him.47 Apparently bef. Sept. 1473: CP40/922, rot. 444.