WERMYSTON, William

Although of unknown parentage, Wermyston was probably a kinsman of Thomas Wermyston, who served six terms as a jurat of Romney between 1430 and 1440.3 NR/FAc 2, ff. 112, 114, 116, 118v, 128v, 130v. Certainly established in the town by 1422, he paid his maltolts in Bachery ward from that date until the mid 1430s, but from 1436 onwards he made such payments in Hospital ward.4 Ibid. ff. 96, 108, 109v, 111v, 113, 115, 117, 119v, 123, 125, 129v, 131, 133, 137, 139; NR/FAc 3, ff. 2, 15, 17. He possessed interests in St. Lawrence’s parish, where in November 1425 he and his wife, Margery, sold two tenements to Thomas Smith*, and where he and John Harneys purchased holdings six years later. He and Margery made another sale, of a house and plot of land in Romney, to Richard Ford in 1438.5 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 397; New Romney recs., feet of fines, NR/JBr 8/14, 30, 40.

Wermyston’s earliest known employment on behalf of Romney was in 1430, when he rode to plead with the royal purveyor about demands that the town faced in relation to the King’s coronation voyage to France.6 NR/FAc 2, f. 112. He was first chosen as a jurat in March 1432, shortly before he was returned to the Parliament of that year. He remained at Westminster for 56 days, ten longer than his more experienced colleague, Thomas Smith. Indeed, Smith may have been replaced by Richard Clitheroe* after returning from Parliament early, since it was ‘in eorum adventu de parliamento’ that Romney made a payment of 10d. to Wermyston and Clitheroe in the same year.7 Ibid. f. 116. After sitting in the Commons, Wermyston became a leading figure in the government of his Port. Frequently a jurat, he was also the bailiff for Romney and Dover at the Great Yarmouth herring fair of 1436, and he attended six meetings of the Brodhull between July 1434 and July 1449.8 White and Black Bks. 4, 5, 8, 15, 26. Furthermore, he occasionally performed special tasks on behalf of his community. In 1436, for example, he and Richard Clitheroe rode to Winchelsea to meet John Exton*, the ‘clerk of the King’s ships’, probably to discuss Romney’s ship service for the relief of Calais.9 NR/FAc 2, f. 124v. In fact, William Soper* of Southampton was then clerk, so Exton may have been acting merely as his deputy. In the following year, Wermyston, Clitheroe, John Adam* and James Lowys* met with the jurats of Dover to discuss the latter Port’s dispute with its member-port of Faversham,10 Ibid. f. 126v. and in 1441-2 he was among a delegation of jurats and lawyers who treated with the steward of the archbishop of Canterbury over the appointment of the bailiff of Romney.11 Ibid. f. 132.

Wermyston was probably dead by March 1453 when Isabel Wermyston, possibly his daughter, appears to have begun paying maltolts in his place. She continued to pay them until 1464.12 NR/FAc 3, ff. 19, 24v, 26v, 29, 31, 34v, 37v, 40v, 42v, 47, 49.