Hythe

Hythe was the smallest and poorest of the Kentish Cinque Ports and the last in rank of the original five Ports of the confederation. A borough appurtenant to the archbishop of Canterbury’s manor of Saltwood, it was a significant centre of coastal trade at the time of Domesday but the silting of its haven meant that it had fallen into economic decline by the early 1300s. Despite this decline, it maintained some sort of prosperity as a market town and fishing centre in the latter half of the fourteenth century. In 1401, however, it suffered two catastrophes from which it never fully recovered: first, a major fire destroyed over 200 houses and goods worth £600; secondly, five local ships, with over 100 men on board, were lost at sea. It is difficult to estimate Hythe’s population in the fifteenth century but the antiquary John Leland reported in the mid sixteenth that the town was a shadow of its former self with ruins juxtaposed beside new buildings. A survey of 1566 found there were only 122 households there, significantly fewer than the 280 and 530 respectively at the Sussex Cinque Ports of Hastings and Rye to its south-west.1 Cambridge Urban Hist. ed. Palliser, i. 112; M.W. Beresford, New Towns, 457; W. Boys, Sandwich, 811-12; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 757; 1509-58, i. 257; Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxxi. 96-108.

Even so, there is little explicit evidence of poverty at Hythe in the period under review, probably because it was relative rather than absolute and because of the gradual nature of the town’s economic decline. Hythe continued to function normally as a Cinque Port and fishing centre during Henry VI’s reign. In the first Parliament under that King, the townsmen secured a confirmation of their charters,2 CPR, 1422-9, p. 228. and they appear to have fulfilled their ship-service duty (excused during Henry IV’s reign) in 1436 and 1445.3 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 8, 19. They also seem to have made a reasonable living from fishing and selling produce and livestock in the town’s weekly market during the first half of the fifteenth century. Vessels from Hythe participated in the inshore fishing prevalent along the Kent and Sussex coast and in the Cinque Ports’ fishing fleet that travelled each year to the annual herring fair at Great Yarmouth. Perhaps a third of the town’s male inhabitants engaged in fishing: of the 260 of them from the Middle Ages and up to 1558 who have left surviving wills, 74 were fishermen. Many of them also owned or farmed land on Romney Marsh and it was sheep and cattle from there that provided a livelihood for most of those not engaged in fishing.4 Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxxi. 97, 99; Cambridge Urban Hist. i. 480.

During the period under review, Hythe remained under the lordship of the archbishop of Canterbury. He appointed its bailiff, who governed the town in association with 12 jurats chosen by the commonalty and a common assembly probably synonymous with the body of freemen.5 The Commons 1509-58, i. 257. The bailiff presided over the principal court at Hythe, in which he and the jurats heard pleas relating to debt, breaches of contract and trespass. As in New Romney, another Kentish Cinque Port under the archbishop’s lordship, the court was held ‘plena communitas, coram Ballivo et Baronibus’.6 Hythe jurats’ ct. bk. 1421-41, H 1018.

For most of the first half of the fifteenth century, disagreements between the townsmen and the archbishop over the office of bailiff did not represent the norm. While there were dissensions following Archbishop Chichele’s appointment of John Smallwood, the disliked former common clerk of Hythe, in 1414, Smallwood’s dismissal as bailiff after only five months averted a prolonged conflict. His replacement, an apparently popular servant of the archbishop, William atte Meede, remained in office until his death in September 1426.7 Ibid.; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 757. Atte Meede’s successor was another archiepiscopal servant, Nicholas Brockhill. Brockhill was also a member of a local gentry family with a seat at Saltwood just outside Hythe and, therefore, presumably well known in the town. In spite of his frequent and prolonged absences from Hythe during his first decade as bailiff and his appointment of Henry Tamworth to act as his deputy, there is no evidence of trouble between Brockhill and the townsmen. While Tamworth was something of an outsider to Hythe, it appears he had resided in the town previously and he became sufficiently identified with it to sit as one of its MPs in the Parliament of 1432. On Brockhill’s dismissal as bailiff in February 1441, the office passed successively to two other archiepiscopal servants, Peter Knight and William Burys*, the latter of whom received it for life. Their appointments followed negotiations between Chichele and the townsmen, with James Lowys* of New Romney brokering that of Burys, and on assuming office they swore to uphold the townsmen’s liberties as barons of the Cinque Ports.8 H 1055, f. 17. Some three decades after the ill-fated appointment of John Smallwood, the townsmen quarrelled with the then bailiff, Thomas Russell, even though he was one of their own. Russell took up office by appointment of Archbishop Stafford in July 1446, only to receive his dismissal just under two years later following a serious falling-out between him and his fellow barons. It also appears that the opposition of the townsmen forestalled the appointment in June 1448 of his immediate successor as bailiff, Henry Fitzjohn, a servant of James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, then the warden of the Cinque Ports and the archbishop’s steward in Kent, and led to the reinstatement of Brockhill.9 Ibid. ff. 26v, 64v.

The office of bailiff was again the subject of controversy in the first half of the 1450s, a period that witnessed the deaths in relatively quick succession of Archbishops Stafford and Kemp, on 22 May 1452 and 22 Mar. 1454 respectively. During the vacancies arising from the deaths of these primates, the right to appoint the bailiff passed to the warden of the Cinque Ports, Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, and he appears to have encountered no opposition when he nominated his servant, Thomas Hexstall*, to the office in June 1452 and April 1454.10 Hythe jurats’ ct. bk. 1449-67, H 1023, ff. 32v, 44v; H 1055, f. 153v. There was trouble, however, when in the meantime Kemp, shortly after becoming archbishop, made a fresh appointment of Henry Fitzjohn. Their initial protests having failed to bring about a reversal of the appointment, the townsmen, led by Brockhill, submitted a petition to Kemp in his capacity as chancellor of England in 1453. The purpose of the petition was to seek a writ of subpoena requiring Fitzjohn to surrender his office to allow for its re-granting to Brockhill. In justification of their request, they complained that Fitzjohn’s frequent absences from Hythe (and presumably his refusal or inability to appoint a deputy) led to delays in the ministering of justice by the bailiff’s court, since the jurats were unable to sit in judgement independently of the bailiff.11 C1/21/12. As it happened, they had to wait until the translation to Canterbury of Kemp’s successor, Thomas Bourgchier, to get their way. They agreed to pay Fitzjohn 46s. 8d. in return for yielding office and on 30 Dec. 1454 Archbishop Bourgchier confirmed the appointment of his replacement, in the event William Walton of Hythe rather than Brockhill.12 H 1019, f. 56v; Hythe appts. of bailiffs, H 1078. Thereafter, leading townsmen, elected on an annual basis like the jurats, would exercise the office of bailiff.13 H 1023.

The commonalty chose the 12 jurats on 2 Feb. each year. The process by which they did so is unknown, as is the relationship (if any) between the jurats’ and the four wards. They appear to have enjoyed much less independence from the bailiff than their counterparts at New Romney some nine miles to the south-west. As already indicated, they could not hold the local courts, including those of the hundred and pie-powder, in the absence of the bailiff or his deputy, often chosen from among their number.14 Hythe hundred ct. pprs. 1398-1445, H 1059. The jurats were a tight-knit and relatively static group, often connected by marriage, and in the first half of the fifteenth century they commonly remained continuously in office for 20 or 30 years. It appears that the common serjeant was the only other regular salaried officer. Appointed annually, frequently if not always from among the jurats, he received a fee of 26s. 8d. p.a.15 H 1055, ff. 77, 95.

By contrast, it would seem, thanks to its unusual system of municipal finance, that Hythe did not appoint its chamberlains on an annual basis. Unlike the other Cinque Ports, it did not usually collect maltolts in cash, nor did the commonalty own significant rental property. Instead, each freeman of the liberty of Hythe rendered account before the jurats for his maltolts every January. The maltolts of those involved in the public affairs of the town were set against the costs they had incurred in travelling to New Romney for meetings of the Brodhull (the general assembly of the Cinque Ports), against their parliamentary wages and against other common expenses like the repair of the haven. As for the remainder of the freemen, they usually paid the sums they owed in maltolts directly to the handful of leading townsmen, typically jurats, who bore the burden of the common expenses. In 1451-2, for example, Robert Christian offset the 25s. 1¼d. he had incurred on the town’s affairs against his own maltolts of 4s. 8d. and seven other freemen paid him the difference of 21s. 5¼d.16 Ibid. f. 159. It seems that there was only rarely a surplus of money in the common chest, although in 1444 it contained £3 12s. 10d. in silver, probably because of a collection the town had made to meet the expenses of its ship-service for the conduct of Margaret of Anjou to England. Later, in 1456-7, the chamberlains received £4 19s. 3½d. in cash, almost all of which went towards the cost of Hythe’s bailiff at the Yarmouth herring fair and repairs to the haven.17 Ibid. ff. 45v, 61v; H 1019, f. 52. In the following year, however, they had to deal with allowances totalling more than £12 claimed by nine leading townsmen.18 H 1019, ff. 56v-65.

Like the other towns in the confederation of the Cinque Ports, Hythe’s communal expenses fell into four main categories. First, were the most regular and predictable costs, those incurred in sending representatives to the meetings of the Brodhull. It is unclear whether Hythe paid a daily rate for attendance but it permitted its representatives to claim 4d. for horse-hire, and when John Overhaven, Henry Skinner and William Walton attended a meeting on 10 Apr. 1442 they claimed expenses totalling 3s. 1½d.19 H1055, f. 43v. But White and Black Bks. 15 states that John Prylle, not Walton, was Hythe’s third representative at the meeting. Secondly, there were the expenses incurred in the maintenance of the haven and in other communal responsibilities, like the provision of ship-service and men for the defence of the local coastline or the common expenses of the Ports in defence of their liberties. At times, these could weigh heavily upon the community, as when the town solicited loans from its leading inhabitants to pay for men sent to sea in the aftermath of the French raid on Sandwich in 1457.20 H 1019, ff. 54-67v. Thirdly, the most frequent calls upon the purses of the leading townsmen were the multitude of small payments offered in cash and in kind to those whose favour the jurats sought to secure, and the costs incurred in visiting such people in London, the other Ports and elsewhere in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The burden of seeking and maintaining the patronage of the lieutenant and other officers of Dover castle, the archbishop and his servants, and prominent local lawyers involved almost all of the leading townsmen. In 1456-7, for example, Richard Smallwood rode to Dover and New Romney on nine occasions, as well as travelling to Canterbury.21 Ibid. f. 56v.

Parliamentary wages made up the final, and at times considerable, communal expense. It is likely that on most occasions in Henry VI’s reign Hythe paid its MPs the standard 2s. per day, the rate certainly allowed to its representatives in the Parliaments of 1445, 1447, February 1449, 1450 and 1455.22 H 1055, ff. 28, 43, 153v, 167v. In 1445 Slegge agreed to remit his fee of 2s. per day. For the Reading session of the Parliament of 1453 and for the Coventry Parliament of 1459, however, the daily rate rose to 2s. 4d., an increase that acknowledged the distances they had to travel to attend those assemblies.23 H 1019, ff. 9v, 84v. Only for the Parliament summoned to meet in November 1449 did the wages promised definitely fall below 2s. per day, although Stephen Slegge agreed to forego his wages altogether in 1445,24 H 1055, f. 43. perhaps because he or his patron, James Fiennes, were particularly anxious to secure his return to Westminster. The men returned to the Parliament of November 1449, William Clitheroe and Robert Berde*, agreed to take 18d. and just 12d. respectively. Berde’s reduction reflected the fact that he was a candidate whom the warden of the Cinque Ports, James Fiennes, Lord Saye, assisted by Gervase Clifton* and Ralph Toke*, had persuaded the commonalty of Hythe to elect. Clitheroe had recently become a freeman of Hythe but Berde, a servant of Fiennes, was a stranger to the Port and not one of the resident barons who customarily provided candidates for the Commons. In the event, he withdrew his candidacy and secured one of the seats for Rye, whose jurats were probably prepared to elect him without restriction. Following Berde’s withdrawal, the town allowed his replacement, Richard Rykedon, the same rate as Clitheroe and an additional bonus of 26s. 8d., presumably an incentive for agreeing to sit at short notice.25 Ibid. ff. 28v, 157.

Unsurprisingly for a town of limited resources, parliamentary wages often remained unsettled for some time. Hythe still owed Rykedon money for his time at Westminster in 1449-50 three years later. Even the town’s wealthiest inhabitants were unable to offset completely debts owed by the commonalty against the payment of their maltolts. In 1452-3 Alexander Leigh claimed 146 days’ wages for the Parliament of 1450, totalling £3 13s., against two years’ worth of maltolts on fish totalling 27s. 9d., meaning that the remainder of the debt had to be met by payments from his fellow townsmen. Similarly, the town did not finally settle a debt to him of £9 12s. 3½d., owed for his wages as a Member of the Parliament of 1460 and for other expenses until January 1462.26 H 1019, f. 116v; H 1055, f. 174.

The names of 22 men who represented Hythe in Henry VI’s Parliaments survive. Only its Members of 1439 are unknown but there is a good chance that one or both of them had sat previously. In continuance of the pattern of the three and a half decades immediately preceding 1422, a clear majority of the 22 were residents of Hythe when returned to the Commons.27 All of Hythe’s known Members of the 1386-1421 period resided in the town: The Commons 1386-1421, i. 757. It is nevertheless hard to ascertain exactly how many were born there: only Richard Rye, Thomas Stace and William Walton were definitely or almost certainly natives of the town, but it is likely that the same is true for John Honywood, Thomas Rykedon, Richard Smallwood and the two Leighs. Stephen Slegge, who probably never took up residence there and had no known connexion with the town prior to his election, was the only real outsider, although he was a native of Kent rather than an out and out stranger. Not all of the 22 were Kentish-born. William Clitheroe’s ancestral ties were with north-west England but his immediate forebears had firmly established themselves in the county by the beginning of the century. Another of the MPs, Henry Tamworth, was probably originally from the neighbouring county of Sussex.

Several of the 22 came from families that already had a connexion with Parliament, with those of Nicholas Brockhill and the brothers John and Thomas Honywood coming closest to possessing a tradition of sitting in the Commons. Brockhill’s had the most prestigious parliamentary past, since his great-grandfather Sir Thomas Brockhill†, his grandfather Sir John Brockhill† and the latter’s putative brother Thomas† had all served as knights of the shire for Kent. The Honywoods were the relatives – probably the younger sons – of the John Honywood† who sat for Hythe in the first Parliament of 1397. The son and heir of the latter John (himself the son of Alan Honywood†, one of the town’s MPs in 1393) was Alan Honywood*, who represented Hastings in the Commons of 1450. Furthermore, Thomas Honywood was the father of a third John Honywood†, an MP for Hythe in 1504 and 1510. Three other local families supplied parliamentary representatives for the town in the period under review. It is likely that Richard and Thomas Rykedon were father and son, as probably were John and Alexander Leigh, while Richard Rye was a relative (perhaps the son) of Stephen Rye† who sat for Hythe in five earlier Lancastrian Parliaments. Clitheroe could draw upon a wealth of paternal knowledge of the workings of the Commons prior to taking up his seat in 1449, since his father, Richard Clitheroe*, sat for New Romney in at least 13 Parliaments of the first half of the century. Another of the 22, Tamworth, was the brother of John Tamworth*, who had begun his parliamentary career (as an MP for the Sussex Cinque Ports of Winchelsea and Hastings) in 1419. More tenuously, John Alby married the widow of Henry Philpot†, five times a Member for Hythe under Henry IV and Henry V, some years before he himself entered the Commons. Of those of the 22 with no known parliamentary pedigree, Walton and the obscure John atte Dawne were perhaps fathers of later representatives for Hythe, the Thomas Walton† who sat for the town in the Parlianent of 1487 and the Robert a Dawne† who was one of its MPs in that of 1487.

The backgrounds of the 22 generally reflect the socio-economic character of the governing elite of the town. As a group, they were very similar in terms of their occupations to their predecessors of the three and half decades before 1422.28 Ibid. The evidence of their maltolts shows that eight of them derived their principal livelihood from fishing and a further eight (among them Richard Smallwood, principally a victualler, and Richard Rykedon, originally a stonemason) from dealing in livestock, cereals, beer and other foodstuffs. In local terms at least, some of them were merchants of some substance. John Leigh was a ship-owner and John Overhaven possessed a half-share in a couple of small vessels. Lawyers, so important in the parliamentary representation of both Dover and New Romney, were conspicuous by their absence. Only Slegge and Alby were certainly members of the legal profession and the latter, sometimes known as a merchant, also engaged in trade. Although Slegge was an outsider, it is very likely that Hythe’s electors had at least some say in his return and that they valued his legal expertise. He worked actively on behalf of the Cinque Ports while sitting for the town, since a special Brodhull awarded him and Richard Needham*, one of the MPs for Dover, £10 for their expenses in lobbying on behalf of the Ports during the Parliament of 1445.29 White and Black Bks. 20.

Ordinarily, lawyers enjoyed the status of gentry, as Slegge came to do in spite of his relatively humble origins. Two other MPs, Brockhill and Clitheroe, could claim gentle status by virtue of their landholdings. Brockhill possessed the most impressive pedigree of all the 22, since his forebears included belted knights and the Brockhills had been one of the leading families of east Kent in the fourteenth century. Their Kentish roots lay deep, since they had held their manor at Saltwood since at least the reign of Edward I. In accordance with the local custom of gavelkind, it passed to Brockhill’s younger brother; he himself succeeded to another manor, situated a few miles further inland at Aldington. Brockhill’s mustering as a mounted man-at-arms in the retinue of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, for the Normandy campaign of 1417 bears further testimony to his gentle status.

There is little doubt that Brockhill was one of the most substantial men among the 22 but it is impossible for want of evidence to estimate the incomes, landed or otherwise, of him and most of his fellow MPs. According to the subsidy returns, however, Slegge held lands worth a mere £7 p.a. in the mid 1430s and testamentary evidence and the extant municipal records indicate that the Honywoods, John Prylle, Thomas Rykedon, John Skinner, Smallwood and Stace were some of the richest residents of Hythe. Yet, even if the Hythe residents among the 22 were among the town’s most prosperous Portsmen, most were insignificant figures in terms of wealth at a regional (let alone national) level and their counterparts at Sandwich, the largest and most prosperous of Kent’s Cinque Ports eclipsed them in that respect. The period under review therefore appears to have differed little from that of 1386-1421. Even though at least 11 of the 25 known MPs for Hythe of the earlier period owned land outside the town, few were wealthy.30 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 757.

Like the Members of 1386-1421,31 Ibid. 758. the 22 were almost exclusively of jurat rank, for only three of them, the lawyers Alby and Slegge, who played no part in the government of the town at all, and Tamworth, never held the office. Clitheroe is exceptional in not attaining the position until after he had sat in Parliament, since usually Hythe’s Members were serving jurats. Including Clitheroe, the town appears to have returned non-jurats on only eight occasions in Henry VI’s reign, to the Parliaments of 1431, 1432, 1445, Feb. and Nov. 1449, 1453 and 1459. The return of Stace, the non-jurat Member of 1453, came just over three weeks after he had stood down from the office. It is possible that he had negotiated an exemption from it in anticipation that he would be one of those whom the electors would choose for a potentially demanding Parliament at Reading.

As many as nine of the 22 served as bailiff of Hythe. As already indicated, Brockhill, Russell and Walton held the office, as did the two Honywoods, Christian, Thomas Rykedon, Smallwood and Stace for one or more terms. While the Honywoods, Rykedon and Stace did not become bailiff until after the period under review, three of the bailiffs of Henry VI’s reign, Brockhill, Smallwood and Walton, gained election to the Commons while in office and combined the role with that of an MP. By contrast, just two of the known Members of 1386-1421, John Dyne† and John Bernard†, served as bailiff during that period, in spite of the archbishops’ usual practice, down to 1399 at least, of selecting townsmen for that responsibility. Furthermore, neither of them sat in the Commons while in office.32 Ibid. ii. 203.

Two of the bailiffs, Russell and Walton, also served as deputy to the bailiff of Hythe during Henry VI’s reign, as did Richard Rykedon and the already mentioned Tamworth: all four of them did so under Brockhill. Both Walton and Russell held the position before entering Parliament but Tamworth combined it with that of an MP. His only known official position at Hythe, he held it for years rather than for just a short period like some of the other deputies. Christian was also briefly deputy bailiff but in his case after the period under review and several years after he himself had served as bailiff. Later still, the Yorkist Crown appointed the compliant Christian ‘keeper’ of Hythe following the resumption of the liberties of the Cinque Ports in 1471, in spite of his possible involvement in the Ports’ ill-judged decision to support the Readeption of Henry VI.

While the bailiff’s deputy was a lieutenant who stood in for him while he was elsewhere or unable to attend to his duties, it appears that the under bailiff was very much a subordinate. Smallwood is the only man among the 22 known to have served as such, in his case some years before he became a jurat and well before he first entered the Commons. Similarly, just one of the MPs, Christian, appears to have held office as common serjeant of Hythe. It was his first known municipal office, exercised before he became a jurat and represented the town in Parliament. Christian also served a term as a chamberlain of Hythe although not until after the period under review. Other holders of the office were Russell, Rye and Walton, of whom only the last received his appointment before entering the Commons for the first or only time.

As with the municipal offices besides that of jurat, there is no discernible pattern between service as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs at the Yarmouth herring fair and service in Parliament. Nine of the 22 were bailiffs at Yarmouth on one or more occasions, with four serving as such before first entering Parliament and five after they had begun their parliamentary careers. The latter five nevertheless included John Honywood and Stace, neither of whom performed the role until after the period under review.

Reflecting the relative insignificance of Hythe, almost all of the 22 who held public office did so only within the town and not at a county level. The sole exception is the outsider, Slegge, who served the Crown in Kent as under sheriff and escheator before his election for Hythe, received his first ad hoc commission while sitting for the town in the Parliament of 1445 and took up office as sheriff of the county in 1448. Such non-involvement in the administration of Kent was no break with the past, since none of the known MPs for Hythe in the years 1386-1421 played any part in it. The other Kentish Cinque Ports present a distinct contrast, since over a third of the men known to have represented Sandwich in the Parliaments of Henry VI, a third of the MPs for Dover and just under one third of New Romney’s representatives in the Commons participated in the government of the county. Even at Hastings, the poorest of the Sussex Cinque Ports, there was slightly more involvement in the administration of that county on the part of its known MPs of the period under review than there was on the part of the Members for Hythe in that of Kent. Participation in county government was similarly negligible among Hythe’s parliamentary representatives of the period 1510-58. Although they did include several outsiders to the Port of some significance, a majority of them were resident jurats.33 The Commons 1509-58, i. 257-8. Slegge was the only man among the 22 to hold office under the Crown outside Kent. Soon after sitting for Hythe in the Parliament of 1445, he was auditor of the north parts of the duchy of Lancaster. Through his association with James Fiennes, a prominent Household man, he had a connexion with the royal establishment although there is no evidence that he was ever formally a member of it.

It is possible that Slegge’s connexion with Fiennes, a knight of the shire for Kent in the Parliament of 1445, played a part in his election although he perhaps first came into contact with Hythe through its then feudal lord, Archbishop Stafford, whose service he had entered following that ecclesiastic’s translation to the see of Canterbury. He may however have owed his introduction to the law and initial advancement to the earlier patronage of the Brenchesles, a non-noble Kentish family that numbered the justice of the common pleas, Sir William Brenchesle (d.1406) among its more distinguished members. Only two of the other MPs, Alby and Brockhill, appear to have possessed links with the nobility, whether secular or religious.34 Such links are likewise apparently lacking for Hythe’s MPs of 1386-1421. Perhaps in connexion with the victualling of Calais, Alby received royal letters of protection in 1423, prior to embarking overseas in the retinue of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, but this was some years before his election to Parliament and the letters are the only evidence of an association with that lord. Similarly, it seems unlikely that Brockhill owed anything to the duke of Gloucester, under whom he had served in France as a young man, for his parliamentary career, even though the duke was warden of the Cinque Ports from 1415 until his death in 1447. There is no evidence that he still possessed a connexion with the duke at the time of his election to the first of his two known Parliaments, in any case the assembly used by the Court to bring Gloucester down. Of far greater significance was Brockhill’s attachment to Archbishop Chichele, whose service he had entered by the early 1420s. It was to Chichele that he owed his initial appointment to office in Hythe and, therefore, his subsequent involvement in its affairs.

In sitting more than once, Brockhill was in a majority, since two thirds of the MPs represented Hythe in two or more Parliaments of the fifteenth century. Both Overhaven and Richard Rykedon were Members of no fewer than seven between 1420 and 1451 and Skinner of four spread over the latter part of Henry V’s reign and the first decade of that of Henry VI. Furthermore, John Leigh attended the penultimate Parliament of Henry V and two consecutive assemblies of the early 1430s, six of the other MPs sat at least twice and it is possible that either one or both of the unknown Members of 1439 had sat before. Five of those who began their parliamentary careers during the period under review also sat in one or more Yorkist Parliaments of the later fifteenth century. Only one of the 22, Slegge, represented another constituency (Dover in 1449) and, so far as is known, he was a parliamentary novice when he took up his seat for Hythe in 1445. Further evidence that the electors put considerable store in continuity of representation is the fact that at least one of Hythe’s MPs in the first 14 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign, save for that of 1439, had certainly sat before. In those of 1422, 1423, 1426, 1435 and 1437 both Members had already previously represented the town in the Commons. There were also at least five instances of immediate re-election, of one or both MPs, before 1447. From 1447 until the end of the reign, by contrast, a couple of novices represented Hythe in three Parliaments, those of 1447, 1455 and 1459, and there was just one immediate re-election, of Brockhill to that of February 1449. There are three possible reasons for this change, mirrored in the Sussex Port of Hastings but less so in the other Kentish Cinque Ports. First, the deaths of Overhaven in 1444 and Richard Rykedon a decade or so later removed two of those with both the wealth and inclination to serve in the frequent Parliaments of the period 1447-55. Secondly, the increased duration of the Parliaments of the late 1440s and first half of the 1450s and the declining wealth of Hythe could have made parliamentary service a less attractive proposition. Finally, the politically charged circumstances of the later Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign may also have increased men’s reluctance to serve.

To initiate parliamentary elections at Hythe and the other Cinque Ports, the Chancery sent the writs of summons to the warden of the Ports, or his lieutenant, at Dover castle. The clerk of the castle then issued precepts to each of the towns of the confederation, which then held their elections locally and sent the results back to the clerk to include in his return to Chancery. From the late 1440s, the jurats’ account books of maltolts often recorded the elections at Hythe of the town’s MPs. They show that the proceedings took place in the common hall in the presence of the jurats (and occasionally, as in October 1449, the bailiff) and the whole commonalty (‘tota communitas’). For want of evidence to the contrary, this was probably the procedure followed since before the accession of Henry VI. The entries in the account books relating to the elections of October 1449, 1450 and 1460 suggest that the choice of MPs rested with the whole commonalty, as does a local ordinance of July 1454. Agreed upon by the jurats and whole commonalty, ‘for the commone weele profyte & wourship of the town’, the ordinance directed that elections of MPs, as well as those of the bailiff for the Yarmouth herring fair and of barons to attend royal coronations were to take place only in the common hall. It also ruled that every non-attending jurat should suffer a fine of 6s. 8d. and that every absent commoner should pay 3s. 4d. On the other hand, the references in the account books to the later elections to the abortive Parliament of 1469 and the Parliaments of 1470 and 1472 seem to indicate that the jurats alone were the electors and that the commonalty merely witnessed the proceedings. It is nevertheless impossible to prove that a change in electoral procedure had occurred since the period under review. The books’ entries for Hythe’s elections to the Parliaments of 1483 and 1484 offer no clarification. They merely record that, with ‘the whole commonalty being present in the common hall of the town of Hythe’, the MPs ‘were elected’.35 H 1019, f. 1v; H 1055, ff. 28, 28v, 43, 183; jurats’ acct. bk. 1467-84, H 1058, ff. 22, 38v, 280v, 281v.

There is little evidence of much undue interference in the parliamentary elections of the Cinque Ports during Henry VI’s reign, even though the Ports numbered among their MPs servants of individual wardens, like John Pirie* at Dover in 1435 and Slegge at Hythe and Dover in 1445 and 1449. Hythe did however see one of the more blatant interventions, that of the then warden, James Fiennes, on behalf of his servant Robert Berde, in 1449. Yet, as already noted, Berde withdrew his candidacy rather than face the conditions, including a lowly daily salary, demanded by the barons of Hythe in return for accepting him.