STIKELANE, John

Members of the Stikelane family had represented Lyme Regis in eight of the Parliaments between 1394 and 1423, and the nearby borough of Bridport in 1406 and 1417.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 476-8. John himself is not known to have held property in either place. Rather, he lived at Stratton, situated some three miles north-west of Dorchester, on the banks of the Frome. At a visitation made by the dean of Salisbury in 1405 he had been among the tenants of the cathedral chapter who reported that the prebendary of Stratton was endowed with two carucates of land, and that 30 customary bond tenants paid rents amounting to £9 p.a.2 Reg. John Chandler (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xxxix), no. 18. In Trinity term 1428 he brought a suit in the court of common pleas accusing a local husbandman called John Kynge of assaulting him at Stratton in the previous August, causing him serious injury; he claimed damages of as much as £40. When brought to court to answer the charge, however, Kynge protested that Stikelane had been the aggressor and he had merely defended himself.3 CP40/670, rot. 129d. It may be presumed that John was related to Thomas Stikelane* of Bridport and Lyme, who attested his second election to Parliament, although their precise relationship has not been discovered. John is not recorded thereafter.