HANMERE, John, of Lewes, Suss.

It is possible that this MP was the John ‘Hamme’ who held office as ‘porter’ of Lewes castle in Henry V’s reign. In March 1420 a jury at Lewes made a presentment before commissioners of oyer and terminer that on 3 Nov. 1417, acting on the orders of Sir John Pelham*, he had forcibly arrested William Pierys, dean of the collegiate church of South Malling, while he was conducting services in the choir of his church, and had taken him to the castle, where he was kept prisoner for a week. The indictment was eventually sent to the King’s bench, and Hamme was outlawed for failing to appear there to answer the charge. In Easter term 1437, nearly 20 years after the alleged offence, he eventually came to the court, and after pleading a royal pardon dated 27 Mar. that year he was allowed to go free. KB27/694, rex rot. 17d; 704, rex rot. 20; C67/38, m. 28. What makes it likely that the defendant was the same person as he who represented Lewes in the Parliament of 1437, is that 27 Mar. was the date of the dissolution, when Hanmere and his fellow Members of the Commons were sent home. If he did serve as porter of Lewes castle it remains unclear who made his initial appointment, although it may have been Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, or his widow, Countess Beatrice.

Meanwhile, styled ‘of Lewes, yeoman’, Hanmere had been sued in the court of common pleas in 1435 by John Parker†, a local merchant, for a debt of £20. CP40/699, rot. 240d. A few months before his election to Parliament he and John Smith obtained a lease of ‘Medellane’ in the town, and he continued to be held responsible for the rent due from this property, and also to farm herbage in part of the castle ditch (the latter for 16s. p.a.) for several years after John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, inherited his share of the barony of Lewes. Arundel Castle mss, A1871. Hanmere probably owed his office as bailiff of Lewes to the duke’s grant, and may have held the post continuously from before November 1447 until after 1459.