Steyning

In the fourteenth century Steyning had always shared its representatives with the borough of Bramber, on the opposite bank of the river Adur. The Parliament of 1453, the first one in more than half a century in which Bramber and Steyning were represented in the Commons, marked a new departure, since never before had both boroughs each sent two Members.1 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 649-50. Thereafter, Steyning’s representation remained separate from its neighbour’s, but continued to be sporadic. The borough is known to have sent MPs to the Parliament of 1460, to three of those summoned in Edward IV’s reign and to that of 1491, but not to any of the other 11 Parliaments assembled before 1509, or indeed until 1529.

In the first half of Henry VI’s reign Steyning’s feudal lord had been the widower of the King’s great-aunt, Sir John Cornwall (from 1432 Lord Fanhope), who held it for term of his life. From the town he received revenues, such as rents of assize, tolls and court perquisites, which ranged from between £4 12s. 4d. and £7 6s. 10d. a year until his death in 1443, and formed only a very small part of his income from an estate which brought him as much as £258 p.a.2 SC6/1036/4-6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16; 1037/1. Under the terms of a settlement of 1414 this estate passed when Fanhope died to Syon abbey, to be amalgamated with the even more substantial holdings already belonging to the abbey in Sussex,3 CPR, 1441-6, p. 254; VCH Suss. vi (1), 227. which were worth at least £455 p.a. Under the abbey’s lordship, revenues from Steyning slumped: in the period from the 1440s to 1468 they never amounted to more than £4 15s. 3d. p.a., and in one year sank as low as £3 2s.4 SC6/1037/2-7, 9-15.

Whether these figures are a reflection of the declining fortunes of the town, or rather a sign of mismanagement on the part of the abbey’s officials is debateable. Steyning had long since been eclipsed as the chief town of this part of Sussex by New Shoreham (a few miles down-river, on the coast), and although buildings that survive to the present day may indicate a fairly prosperous community in the late Middle Ages, records from 1445 show that a number of burgages there lacked tenants or could only raise reduced rents. The small population (containing just 72 taxpayers in 1378, when Steyning and Bramber were taxed together), seems to have dwindled numerically in the following century. The local economy was affected in the early 1440s, when, as Lord Fanhope complained, Steyning’s weekly market lost business to the new market set up by Ralph Rademylde† and Roger Lewknor* at nearby Broadwater, which traded on the same day. Whether for that reason or another, the proceeds of Steyning’s market declined thereafter. In 1444-5 the abbess of Syon received just 4s. 6d. from the tolls of fairs and markets in the town, and three years later the tolls were farmed to the bailiff and burgesses for no more than 3s. 4d. a year. By the mid 1460s even this sum had been reduced – to as little as 13d.5 VCH Suss. vi (1) 220, 224, 234; CP40/725 rot. 444d; SC6/1034/1, 7.

Usually, in the period under review the accounting officer for the borough was the bailiff of Steyning, although very occasionally a beadle took responsibility for its finances. Successive abbesses of Syon showed no particular interest in the town or its inhabitants, but their officials, such as John Michaelgrove*, the receiver-general of the abbatial estates in Sussex, and John Wood III*, the abbey’s chief steward, may have done so. Significantly, Wood was under treasurer at the Exchequer when Parliament was summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453, and this may explain the return for Steyning of Thomas Bourne. Certainly, Bourne, a minor official at the Exchequer, is known to have been in personal contact with the Speaker Thomas Thorpe*, then one of the barons, and also with the duke of Somerset while the Parliament was in progress. The duke of Norfolk held a number of burgages in the town, and it is possible that he too exerted some influence over the Steyning elections, as his successors were to do.

Four different individuals were returned by Steyning to the two Parliaments under consideration. Unlike those elected by Bramber, who all represented other constituencies at some stage in their careers, none of Steyning’s four sat in Parliament again, either for this or any other place. All were newcomers to the Commons; none had any experience of the workings of the House to commend them to their electors. As at Bramber, none of the MPs are known to have had any connexion with the borough they represented, or with its inhabitants. It looks as if none of them complied with the statutory qualification of residence, and Bourne is the only one of the four who may have been related to a local family. Joskyn, whose origins are obscure, was living in Hertfordshire at the time of his return in 1453: he had been styled ‘of Hertfordshire’ four weeks before the Parliament assembled, and on 1 Mar. he even attested the electoral indenture for that county. Significantly, Nicholas Morley*, returned for Bramber to this same Parliament, was a landowner in Hertfordshire, and had represented that county as a knight of the shire in four earlier Parliaments, and although no evidence has been found to connect Joskyn with him, a close association between them may be suspected. Johnson, returned for Steyning in 1460, was probably a Yorkshireman by birth, and certainly married a widow from the North Riding. His companion Gayton, who came from a Lincolnshire family, had gone into business as a grocer in London, and long before his election for Steyning had held office as warden of his Company, and attested the London elections to Parliament.

For three of the MPs an explanation for their returns may be found in their role as minor royal servants. Bourne, as we have seen, was employed at the Exchequer, and Joskyn, his fellow MP in 1453, had been a groom and then serjeant of the bakery of the royal household, and, having served on ad hoc commissions in Hertfordshire, was currently occupied as escheator of Kent and Middlesex. There can be little doubt that their returns for a borough which had not been represented for 54 years were engineered by the Crown to help ensure that the Commons would be packed with compliant men. By contrast, Johnson, who held the posts of alnager of Nottinghamshire and joint packer of goods in the ports of Poole and Ipswich, owed these far-flung commitments to a government controlled by the Yorkists, so it is entirely feasible that he supported their regime in the Parliament of 1460. He may have secured his seat through the patronage of the duke of Norfolk, for his wife appears to have been a kinswoman by marriage of the duke’s retainer John Bekwith*. What motivated his companion, Gayton, to seek election, is hard to determine. Yet Gayton was not the only Londoner to sit for a Sussex borough in this particular Parliament: he was joined in the Commons by John Harowe* and John Worsop*, who both represented the duke of Norfolk’s borough of Horsham. Unlike Johnson and Harowe, however, when required during the parliamentary recess to take a stand either for the royalists or for adherents of the duke of York Gayton seems to have sided with the Lancastrians.

Little is revealed by the surviving returns about the electoral process at Steyning. The return of 1453 consists of an indenture drawn up on 25 Feb. between the sheriff of Sussex on one part and John Snelling, a former bailiff of Steyning (though here described as one of the constables), on the other, and stating that Snelling, together with ‘the community of the borough’ had elected Bourne and Joskyn. No other participants are named. The indenture for the Parliament of 1460 is missing; the names of the MPs are known only from a schedule listing all those returned by the shire and boroughs of Sussex.6 C219/16/2, 6.