LONG, Thomas II

Called ‘junior’, Thomas was sent from Rye to a meeting of the Brodhull at New Romney in April 1436, during the mayoralty of his presumed father and namesake. It was the older man who attended the Brodhull held in the summer of that year, and the two of them were returned together to the Parliament which assembled at Westminster in January 1437. The younger Thomas served as a delegate from Rye at the Brodhull of December 1438,2 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 8, 11. but thereafter no distinction was made between them in the records. Presumably, Thomas Long I died or else retired from public life about that time. Our MP witnessed a number of deeds in Rye in 1439 and 1441,3 Cat. Rye Recs. ed. Dell, deeds 122/9; 135/1; 136/189, 190; 137/11. but there is no indication that he was ever elected to Parliament again. Little is known about his property, although a garden belonging to him in Rye was mentioned in the early 1440s.4 Ibid. 136/189.

Long probably made a living by trade, and the customs accounts of the period show him dealing in wine brought into the ports of Sussex.5 E122/34/21. Yet he was also engaged in seafaring activities, and in 1448 he joined two ‘mariners’ in the court of the bailiffs of Canterbury in an obligation to pay a Kentish merchant the sum of £40.6 C241/235/124; 249/5. The debt was still owing 16 years later. He was commissioned to conscript crews and soldiers to serve at sea in the summer of 1449, at the height of the crisis when the Norman garrisons were coming under attack from the forces of Charles VII, but while in Dieppe, or sailing nearby, he was taken prisoner and held to ransom. Lacking the means to pay for his release, he petitioned the Crown, and on 18 Oct. he and a fellow prisoner were granted licence to ship woollen cloth worth £50 over to the Norman port in order to do so.7 CPR, 1446-52, p. 305. Back home at Rye, round about Christmas 1451 he was fined by the authorities for spilling the blood of one Richard Grene in a violent altercation outside the inn of one of the jurats.8 E. Suss. RO, Rye mss, acct. bk. 60/2, f. 26v. It may be that Long then moved away from Rye for a while, for when he took out a royal pardon on 6 Apr. 1452 his place of residence was given as Winchelsea, another of the Cinque Ports.9 C67/40, m. 34. He took no part in the government of Rye for several years, a period during which he joined the English garrisons at Calais. There he formed an attachment to the Yorkists serving under the earl of Warwick, and it was as ‘one of the soldiers of Calais’ that he was granted the office of King’s bailiff of Rye by Edward IV in July 1461. Furthermore, specifically described as a servant of the new King, he was awarded this post for term of his life on 12 Dec. that year.10 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 89, 124.

Initially, Long was prepared to be active in the affairs of Rye. For instance, in February 1462 he accompanied the mayor on a visit to Tenterden, now annexed to Rye as its member-port, and twice in 1464 he was delegated by the Portsmen to represent their interest at Brodhulls. Nevertheless, his payments for the farm of the ‘tower’, owed to the commonalty, fell into arrears,11 Rye mss, 60/2, ff. 94v, 101v; White and Black Bks. 49, 51. and in 1466 he agreed to surrender his patent of office as bailiff so that the post might be granted to Babylon Grantford* and a kinsman of his.12 CPR, 1461-7, p. 525. This resignation did not, however, mark the end of Long’s service to the Crown, for he was appointed controller of customs and subsidies at Chichester in the following year, and carried on as controller and then intermittently as collector until the autumn of 1469. While in office he again attended a Brodhull in January 1469.13 White and Black Bks. 58. His was a common name, and it cannot be established whether he was the Thomas Long who served as bailiff of the liberties of the abbot of Battle in the early 1470s.14 E368/245, rot. 1d; 247, rot. 6d.