PRYLLE, John

Active at Hythe by the second decade of the fifteenth century, Prylle was involved in the affairs of the Port, particularly the repair of the haven, throughout Henry V’s reign. The upkeep of the haven was a personal interest, since he made his living principally from fishing, paying maltolts on large quantities of herring, mackerel and sprats. He was also a shipowner and ran some kind of passenger service. In 1413 Prylle was assessed as having goods and chattels worth £10, making him one of the dozen or so wealthiest men in Middle Ward, and in the following year he received an exemption from parliamentary taxation in the hundred of Folkestone.2 Jurats’ acct. bks. H 1052, ff. 8, 37v, 55v, 84; H 1054, f. 42v; E179/124/83. In 1415 he lent 17 marks towards the hire of a vessel from Dover, to fulfil Hythe’s obligation to provide ships for Henry V’s expedition to Harfleur.3 HMC 4th Rep. 435.

Prylle was next recorded on 20 Jan. 1422 when he acted as surety for a plaintiff in the bailiff’s court, where he himself heard pleas as a jurat on the following 4 Apr.4 H 1018, ff. 2v, 5. Prylle held the position of jurat, an office he had already exercised in 1413-14 and in which he would serve for many more years, when elected to both of his Parliaments. During the first of these assemblies he sat alongside a fellow jurat, John Skinner I*, and in the second with the experienced parliamentarian, Richard Rykedon*. In 1445 Prylle was one of the Hythe jurats sent to the coronation of Margaret of Anjou. He subsequently claimed expenses of 36s. 8d. for the 11 days he had spent at Westminster, and a further 21s. for a scarlet robe he wore as one of the barons of the Cinque Ports, sums he was allowed to offset against the payment of his maltolts. In the following year he was able to claim allowances for gifts of fish made to Stephen Slegge*, perhaps for his time as one of the barons for Hythe in the Parliament of 1445.5 H 1055, f. 91v, 102. As well as serving in Parliament and at the coronation, Prylle also frequently represented Hythe at meetings of the Brodhull. His first recorded attendance was in December 1433 and he was present at a further 17 meetings, the last in June 1452.6 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 2, 5, 8, 10-11, 14-16, 20-22, 27-28, 30.

Besides the evidence of his trading activities derived from his maltolt accounts, little record survives of Prylle’s private affairs. He certainly married and had at least one son (although the name of his wife remains unknown) and was a frequent litigant in the town’s courts. In 1422 the jury of the Hythe hundred court found that a wharf belonging to him obstructed the King’s highway and six years later the hundred jurors presented that he and John Skinner, his fellow MP in 1425, had fouled and obstructed the High Street near St. Nicholas’s church when cleansing a gutter.7 HMC 4th Rep. 431-2; H 1018, f. 2v; H 1023, f. 26. On at least one occasion Prylle was sued in the courts at Westminster. In a Chancery bill of unknown date, Thomas Leigh detailed how his cousin, Margaret Canon, had enfeoffed property in Hythe and Newington on Prylle and William Hobday of Cheriton, holdings which they had afterwards failed to release to him as her heir.8 C1/72/62.

Not among those named as jurats in February 1453, Prylle must have been an old man by that date. On 9 Jan. 1454 he appeared before the jurats of Hythe to account for his maltolts for the previous six years. As well as large quantities of mackerel and herring, Prylle had also been trading in billets of wood, and had amassed rents totalling £4 p.a., so he now owed £4 12s. 1d. He also agreed to pay a debt run up by his son, probably the Thomas Prylle who paid maltolts in West Ward.9 H 1055, f. 191v. The Ralph Prylle who likewise paid maltolts in West Ward and who had claimed exemption from parlty. taxation in 1414 may have been the MP’s brother: E179/124/83. Prylle probably died shortly afterwards since there are no further references to him in the Hythe records.