COBBEY, John, of Hastings, Suss.

As a baron of Hastings Cobbey claimed exemption from parliamentary subsidies from 1440 onwards. These claims indicate that he had landed holdings at Wilting, Ore and Guestling, near his home Port, and also, as recorded in 1463, substantial moveable goods at the vill of ‘Esthall’ in the hundred of Eastbourne. E179/189/96; 228/112, 118, 131; 229/138, 154. Specific details about his possessions are lacking, although they included some marshland near Winchelsea. Bolney Bk. (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxiii), 60.

Cobbey’s career was focused on Hastings, where he was actively engaged in the administration of the town for over 25 years. Indeed, his fellow Portsmen sent him as their delegate to Brodhulls at Romney on as many as 37 occasions between 1439 and 1465. White and Black Bks. 11, 17, 21-28, 30-34, 36, 38-43, 47-49, 51-54, 56. Furthermore, he was chosen at Hastings to be one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs to the Yarmouth herring fair five times, more often than any of his contemporaries. His service as bailiff of Hastings itself was similarly impressive, for he acted as such for eight annual terms. The first of his two elections to Parliament took place while he was holding office. Besides the business of his own Port he was engaged on tasks undertaken for the Ports generally. At the Brodhull of July 1448 he was among those required to attend a special meeting on 10 Sept. to bring to an end disputes between the authorities at Sandwich and Nicholas Aydlabye of Dover; and at that of July 1451 he was named among the barons who were to take formal possession in the name of the Ports of the ‘place’ purchased at Yarmouth for the use of the Portsmen. At the assembly called in June 1452 he was one of five prominent barons who were to ‘persue for the ... save conductes’ needed from the Crown for the Ports’ fishing vessels; and in April 1454 it was decided that he should have 29s. 7d. for his labour in seeking from the duke of Buckingham, as warden of the Ports, an official letter which might be sent to the authorities at Yarmouth. Ibid. 24-25, 27, 30, 32. Although not formally appointed to royal commissions to do so, when he was bailiff of Hastings in 1455 he was associated with the abbot of Battle, the abbey’s steward Bartholomew Bolney* and the steward of Eton College in conducting surveys of the water courses, trenches and sewers of the Pevensey Levels, with a view to draining them. They compiled a detailed report. C260/149 no. 16, printed in Suss. Arch. Collns. liii. 50-51; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 221, 306. After Cobbey ended his sixth term as bailiff, he was among those commissioned in May 1461 to provide wheat, malt, oxen, mutton and fish to victual the new King’s fleet. CPR, 1461-7, p. 13. At the Brodhull held in the summer of 1463 one man from each Port was selected to be a ‘solicitor’ for the charter requested from Edward IV; Cobbey was the person chosen from Hastings. White and Black Bks. 48.

That Cobbey was a man to be trusted is suggested by his nomination by Bartholomew Bolney to be a feoffee of the manor of Stonelynk in Fairlight, a duty he fulfilled for 26 years, from 1449 to 1475. Bolney Bk. 63-64. He was called upon to witness a deed by the son and heir of John Passhele* esquire, regarding property in and near Hastings in 1472, and in June 1478, when Bishop Storey of Chichester visited Hastings, it was in Cobbey’s chamber that he conducted his business. CCR, 1468-76, no. 1013; Chichester Cart. (Suss. Rec. Soc. xlvi), no. 865. The MP is not recorded thereafter.