PIRIE, John

Pirie’s putative father and namesake had been bailiff and an MP for Canterbury at the beginning of the fifteenth century. He himself trained as a lawyer, rather than following John senior’s career in the service of Christ Church priory and in civic government.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 85. The details of his education are obscure, but he may have been apprenticed to the leading local man of law, John Sheldwich*, with whom he travelled to London on the city’s business in 1421-2,7 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 153v. although unlike Sheldwich, who was a fellow of Lincoln’s Inn, he joined that of the Inner Temple. In Michaelmas term 1420 he had acted as attorney in the King’s bench for the bailiffs and citizens of Canterbury, and within two years he was formally retained by the civic authorities to act in their pleas at Westminster, for an annual fee of 20s. As such he was regularly employed in riding between Canterbury and London and he also pleaded before the royal justices at Rochester on behalf of the citizens. The most important business he had to attend to while attorney was to defend Canterbury’s rights against a claim by the prior of Christ Church regarding the sale of victuals. In 1429-30, when the dispute was finally settled in favour of the city, he worked alongside John Fortescue* in obtaining an exemplification of Canterbury’s liberties in the King’s bench.8 Ibid. ff. 190, 198-99v; KB27/638, att. rot. Meanwhile, in Michaelmas term 1427 he and Sheldwich had been entrusted with the custody of a local mercer, William Billyngton*, who had been appealed of treason in the same court.9 KB27/666, rex rot. 39d. At Michaelmas 1434 Pirie was replaced as attorney by John Colyns, although he continued to carry out business for his fellow citizens and to receive a fee and livery robe for a year longer. During 1434-5 he met Cardinal Beaufort to discuss the city’s ongoing dispute with the abbot of St. Augustine’s over the manor of Longport, and also to negotiate a reduction of a loan of £100 demanded from the Crown (this was duly was reduced to 100 marks).10 CCA-CC-F/A/1, ff. 230, 243v.

In the early 1430s Pirie was also gaining a reputation as a ‘man of law’ in London, where in 1431 the Grocers’ Company employed him to obtain a copy of the safe conduct allowed to Genoese merchants to trade in the capital, and to ‘seke against the said Jeneweys’, paying him 20s. to do so.11 MS Archs. Grocers’ Co. ed. Kingdon, ii. 205. The first five years of the decade were also taken up with burgeoning responsibilities elsewhere. After Pirie’s appointments to commissions of gaol delivery, in March 1432 he was added to the commission of the peace in Kent, specifically to serve as one of the justices of the quorum and regularly attend the sessions. Wider prominence in the county and beyond probably owed much to his connexion with Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the warden of the Cinque Ports and leading magnate in Kent. The nature of this connexion is not clear, but is evident from his appointment in May 1431 as deputy to one of the duke’s most important servants, Sir John Tyrell, in his office of chief steward of the northern parts of the duchy of Lancaster. His involvement in duchy affairs increased in February 1433 when he was named as one of the justices of assize in its lordships in South Wales (as one of the quorum) and in the following year he was to be appointed chief steward of the duchy lands in Sussex. It was surely Gloucester’s influence that explains Pirie’s return as one of the knights of the shire for Kent at the elections held at Rochester on 11 June 1433, for his modest landed estate cannot have elevated him to the ranks of the leading gentry of the shire.12 C219/14/4. The Parliament, which assembled at Westminster on 8 July, was called amidst growing tensions between Gloucester and his older brother the duke of Bedford, particularly over the conduct of the war in France. Given that Bedford had returned to England to preside over the Parliament, Gloucester may have been anxious to ensure that his interests were well represented in the Commons and Pirie sat alongside ducal servants such as the experienced parliamentarian Tyrell. Yet his fellow MP from Kent was Richard Wydeville*, whose background of service to Bedford would undoubtedly have predisposed him to support that lord. At the close of the Parliament Pirie was commissioned with the other knights of the shire to distribute tax allowances in his home county and in the spring of 1434 to administer the oath against maintenance, but it was Wydeville, not him, who was then summoned from Kent to the great council asked to consider the arguments put forward by Bedford and Gloucester regarding the direction of the war-effort.

Pirie’s employment as legal counsel by the Cinque Ports may have been prompted by his links with their warden, Gloucester, but his association with the Ports pre-dated his election as a baron for Dover in the Parliament of 1435 by at least ten years. In 1424-5 he had been assessed for maltolts at Dover, and by 1432 he had become a Portsman of Sandwich (probably by virtue of the property he acquired by marriage). In the years 1433-5 the jurats of Dover employed him to advise them in their suit against their member-port of Faversham, inter alia paying him, John Greenford* the steward of Dover castle, and Ralph Toke* 33s. 4d. for ‘counsel and friendship towards our liberties’. Clearly, he played a useful role in drawing up the agreement between Dover and Faversham which was finally sealed in August 1436.13 E179/234/2; Add. 29615, ff. 205v-6; 29810, f. 3; Dover Chs. ed. Statham, 185. It seems that Pirie did not put in a regular attendance in the Commons of the Parliament assembled from 10 Oct. to 23 Dec. 1435. Although John Braban*, his fellow baron for Dover, received wages for 78 days’ attendance (the entire session with a few days allotted for travelling), he himself was paid for just ten days, albeit at the daily rate of 4s. This was twice the normal rate and more than that paid to his colleague who received 3s. 4d. a day for the first 38 days and 20d. for the remainder. Dover’s debt to Pirie had not been honoured at the time of his death, which probably occurred towards the end of 1436. The payment of his parliamentary wages was made to his executors during the accounting year 1436-7.14 Add. 29810, ff. 4v, 8v.

Pirie’s choice of executors reveals the close ties that he maintained with his home city of Canterbury. Among them was his mentor John Sheldwich, as well as another local man, John Stopyndon, by then keeper of the hanaper of the Chancery and destined to become master of the rolls.15 Canterbury city recs., burghmote reg. 1298-1503, CCA-CC-O/A/1, f. 45v. Pirie had stood surety for an Exchequer lease to Stopyndon in 1429 of forfeited lands in Stourmouth and Ickham, and in a curious incident the following year he, described as ‘of Waltham, gentleman’, had entered into a recognizance to Stopyndon and another clerk, John Bernyngham, to abide by an award made by John Kemp, the archbishop of York, from whose park he was accused of poaching game. The circumstances of this case are obscure, but presumably Stopyndon and Bernyngham had given sureties to Kemp on Pirie’s behalf.16 CFR, xv. 268; CCR, 1429-35, p. 52. Given his profession, it is no surprise that Pirie was frequently employed as a feoffee, or that he extended his legal services to his fellow citizens of Canterbury. Robert Bartelot* made a bequest of 40s. to him in his will of 1432, and Edmund Roper of St. Dunstan’s appointed him as an executor in December 1433.17 CP25(1)/114/297/96; 115/307/332; CCA-CC-O/A/1, f. 45v; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Canterbury consist. ct. wills, PRC 32/1, ff. 23v, 25. More unexpected was his association in a group of feoffees that in October 1432 received the manor of Sutton Valence from William Clifford of Bobbing and his wife Elizabeth. This group, which included the influential Thomas Chaucer* and a number of the latter’s close associates, was headed by Archbishop Kemp,18 CPR, 1429-36, p. 247; CP40/688, rot. 39; CP25(1)/115/307/335. and it seems likely that the inclusion of the lawyer came about through his personal links with Kemp. Together with the archbishop’s kinsman William Scott I*, Kemp and Pirie owned the park pertaining to the Kentish manor of Birling. In successive years in 1433 and 1434 commissions of oyer and terminer were set up to investigate their complaints that numerous malefactors had hunted in the park, stolen deer and goods worth £20 and assaulted their tenants.19 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 273, 352.

Pirie’s will has not survived, although it is known that he bequeathed his copy of Vetera et Nova Statuta Angliae (statutes from Magna Carta down to Henry VI’s reign) to Christ Church priory.20 J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1756. It was given in the 16th cent. to Merton College, Oxf., and is now Merton Coll. Lib. mss, 297B. If the MP left any surviving children they died without issue before the early 1450s. He had instructed his feoffees, who included John Sheldwich and William Benet*, to settle his property after his death on his widow, Joan, with remainder to his issue and right heirs. This they duly did, transferring to her ten messuages in Canterbury and lands in Stourmouth and Rainham. At some point before January 1446 Joan married William Say*, the royal servant who represented Canterbury in the Parliaments of 1442 and 1447. The couple quitclaimed Pirie’s executors of all personal actions and acknowledged receipt from them of 100 marks delivered to Joan for certain of Pirie’s jewels. In turn the executors demised to them and Say’s nominees certain lands on the Isle of Thanet. Joan was dead by November 1452 when Sheldwich and Benet released Pirie’s properties in Canterbury, Stourmouth and Rainham to Christine, wife of William Baker, as his next heir; but in 1454 Christine’s title was challenged at law by Thomas Fermory of London and his wife Joan, who asserted that as Christine was merely Pirie’s sister of the half-blood Joan was his true heir. How they were related is not explained.21 CCA-CC-O/A/1, f. 45v; CAD, iii. C3005; C1/24/63-67.