Sandwich

The largest of the Cinque Ports in Kent, Sandwich had a population of some 3,000 in the late fourteenth century. It was also the most prosperous of the confederation’s Ports in the county – notwithstanding exaggerated claims made in the 1380s and again in the first decade of the fifteenth century that the effects of the Hundred Years’ War and the ravages of plague had left Sandwich desolate and ‘so empty and weak that the inhabitants are not able to defend it’. Whatever difficulties it did encounter, the Port did not suffer from French raids before 1457 or from other disasters like the fire at Hythe in 1401, and it was still relatively affluent in the sixteenth century. Sandwich’s prosperity in Henry VI’s reign depended on its roles as an international port, a hub for the distribution of local produce and as a centre of English military activity, principally through its proximity to the English garrison at Calais but also in the wider campaigns of the war with France.1 Archaeologia Cantiana, c. 189, 199; CCR, 1381-5, pp. 519-20; 1402-5, p. 412; The Commons 1509-58, i. 261; K.J. Wallace, ‘Overseas Trade of Sandwich, 1400-1520’ (London Univ. M.Phil. thesis, 1974); H.J. Hewitt, Organization of War Under Edw. III, 85.

The early development of Sandwich rested upon its excellent harbour and its proximity to the Wantsum channel that gave vessels a convenient route from London to the straits of Dover. Not only did the Port face the Low Countries, one of its primary overseas markets, it also provided facilities for large ocean-going ships from Italy and the Iberian peninsula. Its primary exports were wool and woollen cloth, although the trade in these commodities was contingent on good relations with the duke of Burgundy, and the open hostilities with the duchy in 1435-7 and a ban placed

on English cloth in 1447 adversely affected traffic through the town. The wine trade was also central to the economic fortunes of Sandwich, which ranked among the most important wine ports in the country by the mid fourteenth century. The story of this trade in Sandwich in the fifteenth is, however, one of general decline, albeit full of sudden peaks and troughs related to the course of the Hundred Years’ War. In addition to those of Gascony, sweet wines from the Mediterranean were shipped into the Port by the Genoese and Venetians, and trade with Genoa peaked in the middle of Henry VI’s reign. Dealing in luxury goods and English cloth as well as wine, the Genoese were largely responsible for the prosperity of Sandwich in the 1430s and 1440s, although galleys from Florence also called in there from time to time.2 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 763-4; Wallace, 59-60, 66-74; T.L. Richardson, The Sandwich-Gascon Wine Trade, 3-19; D. Gardiner, Historic Haven, 128-30.

Sandwich’s status as a major port ensured for it a role in national events during the Lancastrian period. Frequently, armies mustered near the town and passed through it on their way to fight in Normandy and northern France. It was from Sandwich that Henry VI embarked upon his coronation expedition in 1430, and it was from there that the ships sent to collect Henry’s new queen, Margaret of Anjou, set sail in 1444. Also strategically important, Sandwich faced invasion scares in 1404 and 1435. The provision of royal artillery and building works bolstered its defences in the early fifteenth century, and more construction in 1435-6 involved the reinforcement of the western walls with earthen mounds and the undertaking of other repairs using Caen stone purchased from the King.3 Gardiner, 134-6; CCR, 1402-5, p. 412; 1435-41, p. 65; E101/43/27. Further significant work, namely the building of the Great Bulwark, a two-storey artillery platform in the south-eastern corner of the walls, and the foundations of a New Gate in the south, was begun in 1451. In the same year, the town’s authorities ordered an assessment of its inhabitants in order to raise money for the purchase of artillery, and 1455 saw the refortification of the Sandown Gate.4 Gardiner, 136-7; ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 86, 100. None of these preparations, however, saved Sandwich from the French raid of August 1457. On the 20th or 21st of that month, an expedition led by Pierre de Brézé, seneschal of Normandy, left Honfleur with some 4,000 men. They anchored in the Downs on the evening of the 26th and in the following morning de Brézé and Charles de Marais, the captain of Dieppe, began their assault. The Great Bulwark fell after a fierce battle and the defenders retreated into the town. Four English ships anchored in the haven struck back, using their guns to harry the raiders and prompting de Brézé to threaten to burn every vessel in the harbour unless they ceased their attack. At about five o’clock in the afternoon, with news of a relief force on its way under the command of Sir Thomas Kyriel*, de Brézé decided to withdraw but not before killing the mayor, John Drury, and carrying off several wealthy townspeople and a great quantity of jewels.5 J. de Waurin, Receuil de Croniques (Rolls Ser. xxxix), 385-8; English Chron. 1377-1461 ed. Marx, 75.

The French raid severely disrupted normal life in the town and port. In response, the municipal authorities put in place special financial measures to raise money for repairs, sent a delegation to seek help from the King’s Council and ordered the construction of a new bulwark at Fisher’s Gate.6 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 105-6. The raid also affected national politics, and the role of Sandwich and the other Cinque Ports in the developing struggle between the Lancastrian Crown and its Yorkist opponents. Its immediate outcome was the assembling of a fleet under Richard Neville, earl of Warwick and captain of Calais, in October, and his appointment in the following December as keeper of the seas for three years. Warwick was already a popular figure in the town. In the previous May he had assembled the men of Sandwich and Canterbury ‘and thanked hem of her gode hertes and vytaillyng of Calix and prayeth hem of contynuance’.7 M. Hicks, Warwick, 131, 141-2, 144-6. Sandwich’s Yorkist sympathies may even have predated de Brézé’s raid. In 1452 the town was among the recipients of the duke of York’s letters accusing the duke of Somerset of treasonably handling the English defeat in Normandy: John Vale’s Bk. ed. Kekewich et al., 12-15. It seems certain that Sandwich ship-owners assisted Warwick in carrying out his duties as keeper of the seas and local men may well have profited from his campaign of piracy conducted from Calais.8 CPR, 1452-61, p. 411. After the debacle at Ludford Bridge in October 1459, Warwick and a couple of other Yorkist leaders, the earls of March and Salisbury, fled to Calais, and Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, established Sandwich as his base from which to attempt to wrest control of that English outpost from them. In December the warden of the Cinque Ports, Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, received orders to seize Warwick’s ships still anchored at Sandwich, and a force under (Sir) Gervase Clifton* embarked on an operation to blockade Calais. Yet even though Sandwich was a base for Lancastrian operations, its Portsmen appear to have remained loyal to Warwick and the other Yorkist earls, and it is likely that intelligence from within the Port prompted the Yorkist raid on the town in January 1460. The foray led to the recovery of Warwick’s embargoed ships and the capture of Richard Wydeville, Earl Rivers, and his son. Sandwich was where Warwick, Salisbury and March chose to land upon their return to England a few months later, on 26 June. Following their welcome there, they mounted their successful march through Kent to London and then on to victory at Northampton.9 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 555-6; Hicks, 173, 194.

The Portsmen’s support of the Yorkists stood at variance with the Lancastrian affiliations of William Say* and Robert Whittingham II*, then the joint holders of the chief office at Sandwich, that of its bailiff. The right of appointment to that position had belonged to the Crown ever since the priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, had surrendered its lordship of the Port to Edward I in 1290. After that date, however, the priory retained interests at Sandwich, and these sometimes caused friction between it and the Portsmen, as in a dispute over a wharf the monks controlled there that erupted into violence shortly before the accession of Henry VI. From the late fourteenth century onwards royal servants usually held office as bailiff of Sandwich. Both Say and Whittingham were such, as were the earlier known bailiffs of Henry VI’s reign, Robert Choldesworth, appointed by Henry V and confirmed as bailiff in 1422, and John Sandford, who assumed the role in 1436. Say, a yeoman of the Crown and usher of the King’s chamber, obtained a grant in reversion to the office, upon its vacating by Sandford, in 1443. By the time he succeeded Sandford, in 1451, he had received a fresh grant as joint bailiff with Whittingham, a fellow usher of the Chamber, and the pair remained in office together until the toppling of Henry VI in 1461. Yet Say was no absentee bailiff like some of his recent predecessors. A leading figure in east Kent, he possessed lands near Sandwich, and he was certainly more active in the Port than Whittingham. He was one of its jurats in 1457-8 and attended meetings of the Brodhull on its behalf, suggesting that he enjoyed good relations with the townsmen, if only until their Yorkist sympathies became clear.10 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 764; iii. 170; CPR, 1413-16, p. 11; 1422-9, p. 9; 1436-41, p. 153; 1441-6, p. 160; 1446-52, p. 473; 1452-61, p. 481; E403/809, m. 1; White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 31, 32, 39, 41.

Whoever was bailiff, the day-to-day government of the Port rested with its mayor and 12 jurats, elected annually on the first Monday after St. Andrew’s Day (30 November). The commonalty had elected a mayor since at least the middle of the thirteenth century, and there was a well-established procedure for choosing him and the jurats by the late 1300s. The whole commonalty, assembled in St. Clement’s church, selected the new mayor from a group of four, comprising the outgoing mayor and three other candidates. There then followed the election of the jurats for the coming year, probably largely a nominal process since membership of the bench was usually for life.11 W. Boys, Sandwich, 428-30; Gardiner, 145-6. A 16th-cent. custumal implies that the ‘sworne men’, i.e. the jurats, were chosen by the commonalty: Cott. Julius BIV, f. 4. There was a significant change in the government of Sandwich in 1454. It was decided ‘by all the Comens’ that the mayor and jurats should choose four men from each parish who in turn were to select at least eight ‘or as meny as them seemeth expedient of þe best comeners’ who would ‘with the assent of Mayr and his fellowys ... make almaner of eleccions’ and grant local taxation. The first common council comprised 70 men and thereafter this body formally elected the mayor, parliamentary barons and the Port’s bailiff to the annual Yarmouth herring fair in the name of the whole commonalty.12 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 96v.

The names of 22 of the MPs for Sandwich in Henry VI’s Parliaments have survived, but potentially as many as 25 individuals could have represented the Port in this period, since the names of both barons in the Parliament of 1439 and one of those returned in 1459 are unknown. The relative wealth of Sandwich, and the fact that it was a corporate town in its own right, free of any seigneurial or episcopal lordship, may explain why its MPs, all resident townsmen, came exclusively from within their own ranks. Such a pattern of representation did not set a precedent since all save perhaps one of the known Members for Sandwich of the period 1386-1421 lived in the town. Even though all the 22 were local men, there is no evidence of any real family traditions of sitting in the Commons. The three Cocks were nevertheless evidently all members of the same large Sandwich family and it may well be that the two John Greens were father and son. It is also worth noting that Robert White was the son-in-law of William Gayler†, a former MP for Sandwich who was possibly still alive when White entered the Commons in 1435.13 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 764; iii. 170.

Merchants, of whom White was one, dominated the parliamentary representation of Sandwich. He and Robert Wilde in particular were men of substantial wealth. Both were merchants of the Calais staple and they sat for Sandwich early in their careers, before moving away from the town. Others had more local interests, appearing mainly to have traded in cloth and wool, and most of the MPs were probably involved in the coastal or inland trade, utilizing the Port’s role as a centre of distribution. Lawyers were conspicuous by their absence, since John Green I is the only member of that profession known to have represented Sandwich in any of Henry VI’s Parliaments. His putative son, John Green IV, was both a merchant and ‘gentleman’, and John Cock was another who bore the latter sobriquet. It is unclear how Cock made his living although he and other members of his family possessed land elsewhere in Kent, in the hundreds of Wingham and Eastry, and Richard Cock enjoyed the style of ‘esquire’. Wilde and Drury, whose property outside Sandwich allowed him to claim gentle status, were also esquires, although the former may not have achieved recognition as such until after he had moved away from the Port and his parliamentary career had ended. Another of the 22, Henry Greenshild, was probably born into the gentry and he held manors elsewhere in Kent.

It would appear that the parliamentary representation of Sandwich included a greater gentry element than those of two of the other Cinque Ports in Kent, Hythe and New Romney, perhaps in part testimony to its relative prosperity. As with the other Cinque Ports, evidence for the MPs’ incomes is almost non-existent. Only Drury appears in a subsidy return, in his case for that of 1431. According to his assessment, he held lands in gavelkind in the Kentish hundred of Wingham worth £6 p.a. at that date, but there is no way of knowing whether this valuation still represented his landed wealth at his first election for Sandwich nearly two decades later. While Drury is the only MP to feature in such a return, it is possible that the Joan Mayhew assessed at £12 p.a. in property in Kent and London for the purposes of the subsidy of 1436 was the mother of Robert Mayhew, Drury’s fellow baron in the Parliament of 1453. There is, however, no doubt that White was the wealthiest and most influential of the 22. He possessed sufficient resources to be one of those English merchants to whom the Hungerford family turned for loans in the 1450s, in order to raise the ransom of Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, a prisoner of the French. In the following decade, he was able to use his links with the Hungerfords to purchase several of their manors in Hampshire, apparently his own native county, from that peer’s mother. He had already invested some of the money he had earned through trade to buy another Hampshire manor in the later 1430s but the extent and value of his landholdings at the time of his election to the Parliament of 1435 are unknown. His fellow MP in that assembly, John Shelley, originally from Rye, was certainly a significant landholder at that date, having come into substantial holdings in east Sussex and Kent through his marriage.

When returned in 1435, White was mayor of Sandwich and Shelley one of the jurats, and the great majority of the MPs already had experience of serving in local government when they entered the Commons. All but four of the 22 certainly possessed such experience before their returns to their first or only Parliaments as MPs for Sandwich and, as a corollary, few (if any) of them entered the Commons at an early age. In the first six Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign, neither representative was serving as a jurat or the mayor; by contrast, in every other – bar that for 1439 in which Sandwich’s Members are unknown – one or both MPs held one of those positions. The mayor gained election to at least seven Parliaments, those of 1431, 1432, 1435, 1442, 1445, 1455 and 1460. As many as 15 of the MPs served as mayor, nine of them for more than one term, and five for two or more consecutive terms. Nine of those who exercised the mayoralty already had experience of doing so before first entering the Commons, and White was one of six returned to Parliament while mayor. Two others, John Green IV and Alexander Reynold, gained election as mayor while sitting Members. No fewer than 20 of the 22 certainly held office as a jurat, with three quarters of them attaining the position before first entering the Commons, and at least 11 sat in Parliament while jurats. As one might expect, those MPs recorded as serving in the lesser offices of constable or treasurer did so earlier in their public careers, before they entered the Commons, while all those known to have become aldermen attained the status at a later stage, after their time in Parliament was over. Thirteen of the MPs held the office of joint keeper of the keys of the common chest, sometimes in conjunction with that of the mayoralty, just over half of them not until after first entering the Commons. At least eight acted as deputy mayor, all of them after having previously sat in Parliament, suggesting that this ad hoc duty was generally the preserve of the older and more experienced administrators. The lawyer, John Green I, stands out in being the only man among the MPs known to have served as town clerk, an office he exercised for over two decades and held during his first three Parliaments. Green was also a bailiff for the Cinque Ports at Great Yarmouth, as were at least six of the other MPs. He did not serve as such until after first entering the Commons, but three of these bailiffs at Yarmouth fulfilled the role before sitting in their first or only Parliaments.

The pattern of municipal office-holding among the MPs for Sandwich in Henry VI’s reign provides a distinct contrast to that of their predecessors of the three and a half decades immediately preceding 1422. There were fewer returns of jurats to the Commons in the earlier period and a smaller proportion of the known MPs served in the mayoralty. Only two of them were certainly mayor before first entering the Lower House and there is just one known instance of a mayor gaining election.14 Ibid. i. 765. Whether the growing tendency to elect serving office-holders arose out of a deliberate decision to return such men, or whether they found themselves obliged to take on the role of MP for want of alternative candidates willing to accept it is impossible to ascertain.

Non-municipal offices do not loom large in the careers of most of the 22. A majority of them had relatively limited horizons, in spite of Sandwich’s importance as a port and its international connexions. Just nine of them received ad hoc commissions from the Crown, almost all of which related solely to Sandwich or Kent, the only exception being a commission in Hampshire of which White was part in 1457. It is hard to discern what, if any, relevance membership of these bodies had for their parliamentary careers, not least because seven of the nine did not begin their service as commissioners until after entering their first or only Parliaments. One of the most active commissioners was Richard Cock, also a collector of customs at Sandwich, an office he held when the Port returned him to the Commons in 1450 and 1455, in the final eight years of his life. In terms of its breadth and significance, however, his record as an office-holder could not match that of White, a merchant of considerable substance who enjoyed a wider-ranging career than the other MPs, including his fellow stapler, Wilde. In the late 1440s and the 1450s, White served for about seven years as mayor of the Calais staple, during which he was one of the merchants chosen by the Crown for a diplomatic mission to Flanders. It is nevertheless worth noting that these activities post-dated his time as an MP for Sandwich by over a decade.

White was also one of the few MPs to enjoy links with one or more magnates, although his dealings with the Hungerfords long post-dated his time in Parliament, as did his service as an estate official for Bishop Waynflete of Winchester in Hampshire. In parliamentary terms at least, it appears that these links were far less significant than Richard Cock’s association with the then new warden of the Cinque Ports, Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, at the time of his election in 1450. It is likely Cock enjoyed the duke’s support when returned to the Parliament of that year, since his appointment as a customs collector at Sandwich, three months before it opened, was at the nomination of that peer. Buckingham’s right to name one of the collectors arose from a grant of a share of the customs and subsidies of Sandwich assigned to him during the previous Parliament for the financing of his arrears as captain of Calais, and during his time as customer Cock made frequent deliveries of money to him and his attorney. It is also possible that Shelley owed something to one of Buckingham’s predecessors as warden of the Ports, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, for his career as an MP, since a John Shelley was among those recruited for Gloucester’s army in early 1424, for the campaign to retake the fortress of Le Crotoy in Picardy.

Prior to sitting for Sandwich, Shelley had served as a parliamentary baron for the Sussex Cinque Port of Rye in several Parliaments, including the first of Henry VI’s reign. He is the only man among the 22 who certainly represented another constituency and who first entered the Commons before 1422. None of them sat for Sandwich after the period under review. Shelley was one of the most experienced MPs among the 22, since he sat in at least eight Parliaments – five for Rye and three for Sandwich. The parliamentary representation of the Port lacked the same degree of continuity or domination by one or two individuals apparent in the other Kentish Cinque Ports. Although both John Green I and Haddon gained election for Sandwich on five occasions, as many as 13 of the other MPs sat for it just once. Furthermore, there were at least four Parliaments in which a couple of novices represented the Port,15 Those of 1422, 1425, 1431 and 1460. and only four in which both Members are known to have sat before.16 Those of 1423, 1427, 1432 and 1447. Even so, it is still the case that one of Sandwich’s MPs in a majority of Henry VI’s Parliaments possessed previous experience of the Commons, and there were six instances of re-election to consecutive assemblies, three in a row in the cases of Wilde in the early 1430s and Haddon in the late 1440s. Both of the MPs of 1422 were re-elected to the next Parliament. Yet, unlike the other Kentish Cinque Ports, such continuity as there was prevailed in the latter part of the reign. The reasons for this are unclear. Sandwich’s jurats were no more of an open elite than in the other Ports but the relatively greater wealth and social status they enjoyed may have meant that parliamentary service was a less burdensome and more attractive proposition for them than for their counterparts in Dover, New Romney and, particularly, Hythe.

As in the other Cinque Ports, the barons of Sandwich held elections to Parliament upon receiving a precept from the clerk of Dover castle, to whom they sent back the results to include in the return he made to the Chancery for all the Ports. The venue for elections, attended by the whole commonalty, was St. Clement’s church, but the conduct of proceedings there is unknown. There is no evidence of any unwelcome external interference at elections during the period under review, even if Richard Cock’s association with the duke of Buckingham facilitated his election in 1450. The return of Cock was scarcely inimical to the interests of the Port: not only was he a well-established resident and office-holder from a prominent local family, he had already sat for Sandwich in a previous Parliament, several years before Buckingham became warden of the Cinque Ports.

There are no surviving petitions presented by Sandwich’s MPs in this period but there is other evidence of the Port pursuing its own interests while a Parliament was sitting. During that of 1432 the Portsmen secured a confirmation of their charter of 1421; in that of 1435 they invoked legislation from the previous Parliament to secure repayment from the customs of a loan of £40 they had made to the Crown; and in that of 1455 they pursued a dispute concerning the office of tronager and pesager at Sandwich.17 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 194, 466; E159/231, recorda Mich. rot. 23, Hil. rot. 25. At least one Sandwich MP probably used his presence in the Commons to pursue interests not related to the Port. As a leading member of the Calais staple, White is likely to have had a part in the presentation of two successful petitions on the staplers’ behalf to the Parliament of 1435.18 PROME, xi. 182-6.

Owing to the loss of almost all Sandwich’s financial records of this period – just two treasurers’ accounts, both from the 1450s, survive – the impact of parliamentary wages on the Port’s finances is unclear. These payments must, however, have proved less of a burden for the comparatively wealthy Sandwich than for the other Cinque Ports in Kent, even though in 1434 the commonalty agreed that the barons should serve for no more than 2s. each per day, apparently the standard rate for the remainder of the Lancastrian period.19 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 15v. The seeming absence of extraordinary loans and assessments towards wages suggests that meeting the costs of Parliaments did not normally place an undue strain upon corporate or individual purses.