ALARD, William, of Winchelsea, Suss.

When Winchelsea was at the height of its prosperity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries one family, that of Alard, was pre-eminent. By William Alard’s day the family had been settled in the Port for well over 200 years, and included among their number Gervase and Stephen Alard, admirals of the Cinque Ports’ navy and of the west in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II. L.F. Salzman, ‘Notes on Alard Fam.’, Suss. Arch. Collns. lxi. 126-41; W.D. Cooper, Hist. Winchelsea, 59-60, 67, 133-4. Wealthy merchants, they founded two chantries in St. Thomas’s church at Winchelsea, endowing them with valuable land in Kent and Surrey as well as at Pevensey, a few miles away, which provided an income for six priests. Suss. Chantry Recs. (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxxvi), pp. xxi, xxviii, 9, 12; Suss. N. and Q. vii. 193-7; CAD, iii. B3935. Although the main line of the family moved away from Winchelsea in the second half of the fourteenth century, both to Kent and to Pevensey, Alards retained a presence in the Port. William is the first of their number known to have sat in Parliament.

As a Portsman, Alard claimed exemption from taxation on his moveable possessions in the neighbourhood of Winchelsea (at Icklesham, Guestling, Udimore and Pett), from the reign of Henry IV through to the 1440s. E179/225/34a, 36, 40; 226/69, 71; 227/94; 228/107, 118, 131; 229/138. In 1419 he was named as a feoffee of property in the Port and elsewhere, Cott. Julius BIV, f. 39v. and thereafter he was regularly called upon to witness local deeds. In this respect his name was attached to transactions on behalf of Richard Lundeneys*, and with regard to the endowment of the chantry of St. Nicholas by William Skele† in 1430. Battle Abbey mss, deeds 869, 1321, 1424, 1428; Cat. Winchelsea Recs. ed. Dell, 82; Cott. Julius BIV, f. 40v. As one of two wardens of St. Giles’s church he played a central role in the fulfilment of the will of John Salerne† (d.1410), and also attested important documents regarding Salerne’s bequests in 1432. Cott. Julius BIV, ff. 42-50. By that date he had already officiated as mayor and had sat as one of the barons of the Cinque Ports in the Parliament of 1429. It must be presumed that he had served as a jurat of Winchelsea for at least two years before the earliest records of the holders of that position. His continued status as a jurat depended on the nomination of such mayors as John Godfrey*, William Fynch*, Godard Pulham* and Thomas Sylton*, and reflects his place among the elite of the Port. He was sent to Brodhulls as one of two delegates from Winchelsea in July 1433 and May 1435. White and Black Bks. 1, 5. Alard was elected to Parliament again at the end of 1436, and just a few days after the dissolution on the following 27 Mar. he was chosen mayor once more. During this term of office he attended the Brodhulls of July and December 1437, on the latter occasion accompanied by his kinsman Roger Alard. He represented Winchelsea at five more Brodhulls in the years 1439 to 1446. Ibid. 12, 14, 21.

Little is recorded about Alard’s private affairs, and it remains uncertain how he made a living. His occupation was not given in the records of the court of common pleas when, in 1435, he was associated with William Pope*, the King’s bailiff of Winchelsea, in bringing a suit against a local carpenter for a debt of £20. CP40/699, rot. 187d. There is no firm reason to believe he was the same person as William Alard, citizen and skinner of London (fl.1430-63). He is known to have leased a house on ‘le keye in le Trecherie’ at Winchelsea, which was among the properties granted to Pope by the King in January 1442 after their forfeiture in accordance with the statute regarding purchases by aliens. CPR, 1441-6, p. 31. Elsewhere, he held land at Pevensey, where one of his kinsmen had earlier served as bailiff. Battle Abbey mss, deed 971; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxi. 139. William was elected to Parliament for the third time early in 1447, while he was still a jurat of Winchelsea. Although he was still living in the autumn of 1463, when he finally relinquished all claim to a tenement in the parish of St. Thomas of which he had been enfeoffed 42 years earlier, Add. Ch. 20209. he would appear to have moved his residence more permanently to Pevensey in the meantime.

Alard’s precise relationship to a namesake, William Alard of Westham, a ‘gentleman’ who was engaged in suits against Sir John Pelham over land in Wartling and Herstmonceux in the 1450s, is uncertain, although the latter may have been his grandson. The younger William, who was sometime bailiff of Pevensey (situated in his home parish), represented Pevensey at a Brodhull in 1486. Add. 39376, f. 69; Suss. Arch. Collns. lxix. 65; Battle Abbey mss, deeds 1043, 1352; C67/46, m. 28; White and Black Bks. 59, 95. He m. Isabel, wid. of John Jakelyn of Hastings: C1/54/113.