STYLE, John

Probably related to several fifteenth-century burgesses of Bishop’s Lynn of the same surname,3 e.g. Cal. Freemen Lynn, 32, 36; King’s Lynn bor. recs., translation of hall bk., 1422-9, 1450, KL/C 7/29, pp. 220, 275; KL/C 7/3, ff. 1, 15, 29, 40, 47v, 55, 56v, 69v, 84. the MP is not readily identifiable,4 HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 809, speculates that he moved to Norwich later in his career, since a John Style was a vintner there in the 1460s. not least because in mid 1440 there were two John Styles living at Lynn, one of whom was a member of its upper council of 24.5 Cal. Freemen Lynn, 300, 302. It is likely that it was councillor’s namesake who purchased the freedom of Bishop’s Lynn in 1438-9: ibid. 43. Given that the majority of Lynn’s parliamentary burgesses in the fifteenth century were men who held high office in the borough during their careers, the councillor was almost certainly the MP. It is also likely that the John Style chosen to represent Lynn’s merchants in a dispute with the Hanseatic League 16 years earlier was the man who sat in the Commons,6 KL/C 7/29, p. 311. but the records for the parliamentary election of 1447, both the official return and notes in one of the borough’s hall books, are the only evidence that definitely relates to the MP.7 KL/C 7/3, f. 231v. Nevertheless, he was probably the John Style who participated in selecting Lynn’s burgesses for the Parliaments of 1442, November 1449 and 1450, before the official returns were made,8 Ibid. ff. 151, 269v, 294v. and who was actively involved in local affairs during the mid fifteenth century. Borough records show that a burgess of this name helped to provide entertainment for Thomas, Lord Scales, when that peer visited Lynn at Christmas 1444, that he arbitrated in disputes involving other townsmen later in the same decade and that he occasionally represented Lynn in negotiations with its feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich. On at least one occasion, however, this John Style declined to accept the latter role, since in September 1446 he refused to ride to the bishop on the borough’s behalf.9 Ibid. ff. 196, 221v, 224, 231, 235, 236, 286v.

The MP could well have been involved in the cloth trade, since Thomas Knyght filed a bill in Chancery against John Style and William Mollesworth, merchants of Lynn, for failing to pay for woollen cloths that he had sold to them for £37 in the early 1440s.10 C1/17/97. The first-named defendant in this suit was almost certainly the burgess who exported woollen cloths and imported wine in the mid fifteenth century and the man who received royal pardons in 1452 and 1455.11 E122/96/35, mm. 3, 6; C67/40, m. 24; 41, m. 27. There are also references in local records to John Style’s tenement in Bridegate (formerly in the possession of William Style), a property which he held from the late 1430s until the mid 1450s.12 King’s Lynn bor. recs., treasurers’ accts., Corpus Christi guild, 1438-54, KL/C 57/22-30; acct. scabins Trin. guild, 1477-8, KL/C 38/24; deed, 1496, KL/C 50/34. John Style the councillor was no longer on the 24 by Michaelmas 1457, indicating that he was probably dead by that date.