SYLTON, John

Although Sylton was a merchant, who imported wine and iron through the Sussex ports, on at least one occasion he was described, perhaps derogatively, as a ‘husbandman’.8 E122/34/23; E179/229/154. The son and heir of the MP Thomas Sylton, he began to participate in the affairs of Winchelsea in the 1450s when his father numbered among the most prominent figures in the Port. For nearly 45 years, beginning in October 1450, John was regularly sent from Winchelsea to be a spokesman at Brodhulls for his fellow Portsmen, in that period attending as many as 43 such assemblies.9 White and Black Bks. 28, 34-36, 43, 44, 47, 49, 55-59, 63, 64, 68, 69, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95-97, 99, 102, 103, 106-8, 112, 115. In April 1453 he served on a jury called to St. James’s church at Dover by the lieutenant-warden of the Cinque Ports to provide information about exemptions given to Portsmen from the subsidies granted in the Parliament of 1445-6.10 E179/228/131. As a baron of Winchelsea, he himself could claim exemption from fifteenths and tenths, levied on his moveable goods outside the liberty, at Guestling, Pett and elsewhere in east Sussex.11 E179/189/96; 229/154.

Owing to deficiencies in the records of Winchelsea, the date of the first Parliament Sylton attended is uncertain. The Parliament of 1455 (for which returns do not survive) may be ruled out, as he attended a meeting of the Brodhull on 22 July during its initial session, and furthermore on that occasion he was chosen to be one of the Ports’ bailiffs at the herring fair at Yarmouth in the autumn – an unlikely appointment for a sitting MP. Rather, the Coventry Parliament of 1459 may have seen his introduction to the Commons. Sylton began the first of an impressive eight terms as mayor of Winchelsea at Easter 1462, and at the Brodhull of July 1463, during his second term, he was nominated with John Cobbey* of Hastings and Babylon Grantford* of Rye to be ‘solicitors’ to Edward IV for the new charter sought by the Ports.12 White and Black Bks. 48. When not mayor himself, Sylton was sometimes asked to deputize for the incumbent, for instance in the summer of 1467 when the mayor Robert Basele† was imprisoned in Dover castle.13 Ibid. 55-56. Circumstantial evidence supports the suggestion that he was elected to the Parliament summoned in the name of the restored Henry VI to assemble on 26 Nov. 1470, for during the parliamentary recess, on 7 Jan. following, he sued for that King’s pardon.14 C67/44, m. 7. At the Brodhull of July following he was nominated once again to be a bailiff at the Yarmouth herring fair.15 White and Black Bks. 63.

During Sylton’s fifth mayoralty, that of 1475, he was appointed by the Crown as controller of customs in the port of Chichester, taking responsibility for the Sussex coast extending east to his home port, although he may not have acted in the office. Nevertheless, in May 1481 as the ‘King’s servant and yeoman of the Crown’ he was granted for life the office of bailiff of Rye, a post which from October that year he combined with that of customer at Chichester. Among the tasks assigned to him was the fitting out of The Agnes of Rye for her voyage to Rouen in October following, and arranging passage for a royal herald and another envoy sent by Edward IV as messengers to the duke of Albany. As Richard III confirmed Sylton in both the bailiffship and as customs’ collector, he remained in both posts until that King’s death.16 E404/77/3/59, 60; CPR, 1476-85, pp. 273, 376. Sylton’s royal offices and his four mayoralties of Winchelsea while the Yorkist Kings were on the throne, point to his importance in the Cinque Ports in this period of the 1480s. The Brodhull of July 1481 supported him by granting a general withernam against Sluys in Flanders at his suit; he was among those who made an award in April 1482 in a dispute between the towns of Romney and Lydd; and he was privileged to be one of the barons of the Ports who carried the canopy at the coronation of Richard III and his queen on 6 July 1483.17 White and Black Bks. 83, 84, 641-2. At the Brodhull of April 1484 he and John Chenew† were instructed to ride to London on business concerned with the confirmation of the Ports’ charter, for ‘Allowance’ (exemption from paying parliamentary fifteenths and tenths), and the enrolment of the Ports’ liberties ‘in suche places of the King’s courts as it shalbe thought by them and other learned counsel expedient and behovefull’. Immediately after conferring with Thomas Bayen* (the Ports’ attorney-general in Chancery) they were to sue for a general pardon, and with Bayen’s help choose a new attorney to represent the Ports in the Exchequer. The Brodhull of January 1485 named Sylton as an arbiter in a dispute over a cargo of wine, and he was also required to travel to London to seek legal counsel regarding letters of process sent from Winchelsea to Sluys (a task which earned him a mere 6s. 8d. for 12 days’ work).18 Ibid. 89, 91-92.

Although after Bosworth Sylton lost his posts as bailiff of Rye, yeoman of the Crown and customer, he was reinstated in the last office in February 1489, while attending Henry VII’s third Parliament. At the Brodhull which met in January following, before the start of the final parliamentary session, he and the other barons were authorized to ‘labour’ with the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer regarding the Ports’ advocants. Matters more closely affecting Winchelsea came before the Brodhull of April 1491, relating to suits between its mayor and named men of the Port (including Sylton), and John Bradman of London, a merchant of the staple of Calais; and in the next year the assembled delegates discussed a withernam granted by Dover against Sylton’s home town.19 Ibid. 105, 109.

Sylton last attended a Brodhull in April 1494,20 Ibid. 115. and was replaced as customer of Chichester in November 1496. He probably died round about this last date. His precise relationship to Erkonwald Sylton, his deputy mayor in 1481, bailiff to Yarmouth in 1485 and mayor of Winchelsea in 1486-7,21 Ibid. 81, 93-95. has not been discovered, but it is likely that Erkonwald was his son. In 1497 Erkonwald’s own son John, calling himself ‘kinsman’ of his namesake the MP, conveyed to feoffees all his messuages, lands, tenements and rents in Winchelsea, Hastings, Fairlight and elsewhere in Sussex.22 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 980. Presumably, these had all once been in the MP’s possession, and the younger John’s intention was to place them out of the reach of any Exchequer processes relating to the late customer’s accounts.