FENNELL, William (d.1473), of Sandwich, Kent.

Fennell, a local man, was first recorded in the records of Sandwich in April 1432 when he was one of a number of merchants to whom Edmund Mechelen entered into a recognizance for £20. ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 3. Four years later he was among those to whom the collectors of customs in the port of Sandwich sold the wool found in a Flemish ship seized by the mayor, Robert White*. E159/212, recorda, Hil. rot. 3. Thus established in the trading community, in December 1438 Fennell was elected for the first time to the ranks of the jurats. Thereafter his involvement in the government of Sandwich was continuous until his death some 35 years later. Having attended his first meeting of the Brodhull in the summer of 1441, as a delegate from Sandwich, White and Black Bks. 18 from July 1447 he began to play a prominent role in the town’s affairs. On the 12th of that month he was chosen as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs to the annual Yarmouth herring fair, an appointment that was confirmed when he was present at the Brodhull 12 days later. In the same month he also attended the first meeting of the court of Shepway held by the new warden of the Ports, James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele. Ibid. 23; ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 71. At the end of the year the mayoral elections saw him put forward by his fellow jurats as a candidate, although he did not prove successful. In 1449 he again represented Sandwich at a meeting of the Brodhull, on 2 Apr., but at home he took the side of the disaffected Walter Langley in his serious quarrel with another of the jurats, John Green I*. Despite such internal disagreements, on 20 Oct. 1449 Fennell was elected to his only recorded Parliament, alongside the relatively experienced parliamentarian, Thomas Haddon*. Nothing is known of his activities at the assembly, which met at Leicester for its third session in the spring of 1450, only to be dissolved when news arrived of the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion. ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 73, 75; White and Black Bk. 23.

After his return home, on the following 7 Dec. Fennell was elected mayor of Sandwich. His year in office saw him attend four meetings of the Brodhull and his appointment as one of the feoffees of the property recently purchased in Yarmouth for the use of the Ports’ bailiffs there during the annual herring fair. In February 1451 he was appointed, ex officio, to inquire into an act of piracy allegedly committed by local men against Dutch ships in the Camber. According to the series of local annals, his mayoralty was also notable for a composition made between the commonalty of Sandwich and the hospital of St. Thomas, concerning rents and other dues in the town after the hospital had lost the majority of its ancient records. White and Black Bks. 27-29; CPR, 1446-52, p. 439; E. Kent Archs., Annals of Sandwich, SA/LC/9. Although a candidate at the mayoral elections on a further six occasions during the 1450s, Fennell was never chosen mayor again. Yet he continued to be appointed as one of the keepers of the keys to the common chest and he frequently took on the mayors’ duties when they were busy elsewhere. As deputy mayor he was sent to the Brodhull in March 1453, July 1455 (receiving 5s. 8d. for his trouble), September 1456 and April 1459 (this last for wages of 6s. 8d.). E. Kent Archs., Sandwich treasurers’ accts. 1454-5, SA/FAt 2; 1458-9, SA/FAt 3.

Lacunae in the local records obscure the details of Fennell’s career in the early 1460s, but it seems certain that he continued to serve as jurat, keeper of the keys and deputy mayor throughout the decade. By December 1467 he was also alderman of the town’s third ward, but it is not clear when he began to serve in this capacity. The infrequency with which he now attended meetings of the Brodhull (only twice between July 1461 and his death), White and Black Bks. 43, 52. suggests that Fennell was not particularly active in the town’s extraordinary affairs, but he did not escape becoming enmeshed in the quarrels provoked by his fellow jurat, Henry Greenshild*. Greenshild’s relations with his fellow jurats had proved difficult since his imprisonment in 1465 by the then mayor, John Westcliff, for a dispute with another jurat, John Brown. Fennell had been one of the five jurats who had committed Greenshild to ward. There is no evidence, however, of personal animosity between the two men prior to this and Fennell had deputized for Greenshild at the Brodhull during the latter’s first mayoralty in 1459. Nevertheless, when on 1 Dec. 1466 Greenshild was once more elected as mayor and Fennell, who had been among the unsuccessful candidates for the mayoralty, was again named as one of the jurats, our MP joined the outgoing mayor, Richard Cheldesworth, and six others in refusing to be sworn in. Given until 10 o’clock in the morning of the 23rd to take the jurats’ oath, the eight men declined to do so and were deprived of their freedom. It was not until 2 Oct. 1467 that Fennell and the others were restored to the town’s freedom and immediately re-elected to the ranks of the jurats. It is difficult to determine the exact causes of the dispute, but it seems likely to have been caused by internal rifts within the town’s elite, rather than reflecting on the growing estrangement between the warden of the Cinque Ports (the earl of Warwick), and Edward IV. Ibid. 40; ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 127v, 166v-71, 173; D. Gardiner, Historic Haven, 147-8. In January 1471 Fennell was one of the assessors in St. Peter’s parish for the levy collected to provide ships to escort Queen Margaret from France to join her husband, the restored King Henry VI, although it is unlikely that this reveals any personal commitment to the Lancastrian cause. ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 199. Following the restoration of the Ports’ liberties by Edward IV in February 1472, Fennell was among those once more chosen as a jurat at Sandwich, a choice confirmed in the following December.

Little evidence survives of Fennell’s private affairs. In 1442-3 he claimed exemption from the parliamentary subsidy in Eastry hundred, E179/124/110. but his primary concern appears to have been his mercantile activities in Sandwich, where he did business as a draper. As a Portsman he used the process of withernam to put pressure on his debtors and other contacts: in December 1442 he sued out letters of withernam against two Faversham men, the following year against Richard White of Winchelsea, and in March 1465 against the town of Folkestone. ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 60, 63v, 121v. Fennell was also a shipowner. In 1445 he had received £20 from the common chest of Sandwich when his vessel sailed across the Channel to help transport Margaret of Anjou and her entourage to England. There is also evidence of his dealings in property. In December 1452 the former mayor, Robert White, and his wife demised a tenement in St. Mary’s parish to him and another jurat, John Palmer, and he also acted as a feoffee alongside other leading Portsmen such as John Chenew* and John Nesham†. Ibid. ff. 67v, 92v-93v, 117v. In October 1456 he acquired an acre of land in Woodnesborough, adjacent to the property he held there already. E. Kent Recs. (Kent Rec. Ser. vii), 40-41.

In his will made on 30 June 1473 Fennell left his property in Sandwich, Woodnesborough and Eastry to be divided between his widow, Elizabeth, and his grandson John Fennell (the son of his son John who had predeceased him), in tail male, with remainder to his daughter Christine. He asked to be buried in his parish church of St. Peter’s, near the image of St. Christopher, and left ten marks for prayers to be sung for the souls of his parents and first two wives. He bequeathed a silver gilt maser to his daughter, and gave 40s. to pay for repairs to the road between Sandwich and Eastry. The residue of his goods and chattels was to be disposed of by his executors (his widow and John Iden, one of his fellow jurats), for the benefit of his soul. Probate was granted on the following 27 July. Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/2, ff. 171v-72.