DREYLOND, John

The Dreylonds were an ancient Faversham family settled at Cooksditch within the town since at least the reign of Edward III.2 Archaeologia Cantiana, xiv. 20. There is some difficulty in distinguishing the MP from his father and son, both of them namesakes. It would seem likely that the John Dreylond who received a licence in May 1392 to alienate 24 acres in Faversham and Ulcombe to the abbot of St. Saviour was our MP’s father.3 C143/414/6; CPR, 1391-6, p. 97. Similarly, it was probably the father who, as ‘John Dreylond, senior’, witnessed a local deed in 1398.4 E. Kent Recs. (Kent Rec. Ser. vii), 50. The first certain mention of our MP was in 1399 when the sons of Nicholas Crouche made a recognizance to him, described as ‘son of John Dreylond of Faversham’, and John Surrenden, a London mercer. His father died between November 1405, when he received a papal indulgence for plenary remission, and 3 Apr. 1407 when a royal writ relating to lands in which he had been enfeoffed stated he was dead.5 CPL, vi. 10; CCR, 1405-9, pp. 264-5. Our MP was named to his first ad hoc commission, to array the men of the Isle of Thanet, in 1410 and was appointed to further commissions in 1414 and 1416. On 9 Mar. in the latter year he attested the parliamentary election at Canterbury.6 C219/11/8. In February 1417, for causes unspecified, he and his brother, Reynold, entered into an obligation to pay John Stace and Thomas Tolthe 46 marks by Michaelmas next.7 E210/5085. They were again mentioned together in the summer of 1422 when they were party to the apprehension of a felon. On this occasion John’s son, also John and described as ‘junior’, was rewarded for passing information to the Exchequer by which the Crown was able to recover £35 6s. 8d. from the felon’s goods.8 E403/660, m. 13.

Dreylond’s public career took a conventional course. Appointment as escheator of Kent and Middlesex in 1423 followed after service on a number of ad hoc commissions, and at Michaelmas the following year he was chosen mayor of his home town, a position he still held when elected as one of the knights of the shire for Kent at Canterbury in March 1425.9 C219/13/3. The circumstances of his election are obscure. His fellow knight was John Darell*, one of the leading figures of the county and a man whose standing and wealth Dreylond could not equal, being in comparison an unimportant figure. It may be that the key to his election lay with Darell’s links with Faversham, through his first marriage to the daughter of a local man, Valentine Baret. Yet although Dreylond was connected with Baret (as his co-feoffee of property in Challock in 1419), there is no other evidence to link him with his fellow shire knight.10 CP25(1)/113/289/255. After this brief foray into national affairs as an MP, the remainder of Dreylond’s career was concerned with more local matters. In August 1427 he again attested the parliamentary election, this time at Rochester, endorsing Darell’s sixth return as knight of the shire, this time alongside John Bamburgh*.11 C219/13/5. In Michaelmas the following year Dreylond was once more elected as mayor of Faversham.

Of Dreylond’s private affairs more evidence survives. In 1412 he had been assessed towards the parliamentary subsidy as having £20 a year in land in Faversham hundred, but by 1416 he had secured exemption from fifteenths and tenths as a Portsman of the Cinque Ports.12 Feudal Aids, iv. 468; E179/124/88. By that date he owned property in both Faversham and its neighbouring hundred of Boughton but the details of its acquisition are obscure. Frequently, however, he was involved in local property transactions as a feoffee.13 CP25(1)/114/303/235, 304/257, 305/294; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Stanhope of Chevening mss, U1590/T2/43. In September 1427 he was one a large group of feoffees, including men from Canterbury (among them Richard Prat* who had sat with him in Parliament) to whom William Bernes conveyed land in Newchurch.14 CP25(1)/114/301/175. Occasionally his involvement led to litigation. In about 1432 Nicholas Masham brought a suit against him in Chancery over an enfeoffment made by Masham’s mother, Alice, of certain property in Faversham for the performance of her will, and around the same time William Brigges sued him for refusing to deliver a rent of 40s. from other property in the town which Robert atte Fenne had promised to Brigges in his will.15 C1/11/100, 12/203. On other occasions Dreylond was the plaintiff: in Michaelmas term 1426 he sued the abbot of St. Ragemund’s for entering his close at Sutton Valence and Langley, a property which, he claimed, the abbot had earlier demised to him.16 CP40/663, rot. 186d.

The identity of Dreylond’s wife is not known. The individual described as ‘John Dreylond of Faversham, junior’, whose wife was called Katherine, was almost certainly our MP’s son. The latter predeceased his father, probably in 1432,17 The identity of the John who died around 1432 as the MP’s son is confirmed by a suit brought against his executors in the ct. of c.p. where he was described as ‘John Dreylond of Faversham, junior’: CP40/688, rot. 158d. and in 1433 the MP and his brother Reynold were involved in litigation following John junior’s estate. Our MP’s grandson, Richard, brought a suit in Chancery against them as his late father’s feoffees, together with another local man, Stephen atte Cherche. In his petition Richard claimed that his father had bequeathed property in Faversham to another son, Valentine, of which he was to gain possession when he reached the age of 21. Valentine died before attaining his majority and the feoffees had refused to make seisin to Richard.18 C1/9/348. Our MP and his brother were also sued by his daughter-in-law, Katherine, who married John St. Cler soon after her husband’s death. In one suit she alleged that the feoffees had failed to give her possession of certain property as stipulated in her late husband’s will;19 C1/7/213. while in another she sued William Brigges (with whom our MP had clashed earlier), who refused to deliver property to her husband’s executors for transfer to her.20 C1/7/246. Reynold was still alive in 1439 when he was distrained for knighthood, but as there was then no mention of our MP it looks likely that he was probably dead by that date. It is unclear whether the Robert and James Dreylond who were associates of William Manston* and William Isle* in the 1450s were the sons of John or Reynold.21 CP25(1)/115/324/750, 325/753, CP40/782, rot. 187; Stanhope mss, U1590/T7/27.