HYLLYS, Thomas (d.1449), of Great Yarmouth, Norf.

While the identity of this MP is uncertain, he was probably the merchant active at Yarmouth between the mid 1420s and later 1440s. Ct. rolls, 1425-6, 1427-8, 1429-30, 1438-9, 1442-3, Y/C 4/135, mm. 2d, 11; 136, mm. 5, 10d, 19d; 138, m. 15; 142, m. 5d; 147, m. 6d; 150, m. 7; CPR, 1436-41, p. 106. The merchant had a local namesake who was a mariner or ‘shipman’, but which (if either of them) was the Thomas Hill who attested Yarmouth’s election to the Parliament of 1431, is impossible to ascertain. To complicate matters, Thomas atte Hill, another merchant, became a freeman of the borough in 1435-6. Ct. rolls, 1420-1, 1424-5, 1430-1, 1433-4, 1435-6, Y/C 4/130, m. 9d; 134, m. 6; 139, m. 9; 142, m. 9d; 144, m. 11d. In short, the only certainty is that the Thomas Hyllys who represented the borough in the Parliament of 1449 served as one of the bailiffs of Yarmouth in 1448-9, since as bailiff he presided over his own election to that assembly. Yet it is more than likely that he was also the burgess who sat for Yarmouth in 1442 and, perhaps, the Thomas Hill who had served a term as a chamberlain of the borough two decades earlier.

It is also likely that the MP was the Thomas Hyllys, merchant of Yarmouth, who died in May or June 1449, since his will indicates that he was a burgess of substance, well qualified to represent the borough in the Commons. Ibid. Y/C 4/162, m. 13. The will, recorded in the borough’s court roll for 1455-6, bears the date 3 May, four days before the second session of the Parliament of 1449 opened. The testator sought burial wherever God pleased, suggesting that he could have been away from home at the time: if the MP, he was perhaps on his way to Westminster or already there. Apparently childless, he left his wife, Christine, his capital messuage in Great Yarmouth for life. After her death, it was to be sold, with the money thereby raised going towards pious uses, as were the proceeds from the sale of another messuage in the town immediately after his own death. In addition, Christine was to receive other holdings in Great Yarmouth, including two fish houses and a garden, properties over which he gave her free disposal. It is possible that she was not his first wife, since a Thomas Hille, merchant, was the husband of Joan, widow of Martin Davy of Yarmouth, in May 1428. Ibid. Y/C 4/136, m. 5. Apart from Christine, Hyllys provided for his god-daughters, Matilda and Agnes (the daughters of John Hyll), to whom he bequeathed land and buildings in the town known as ‘Maynardeshalle’, and the local poor, for whom he set aside six tenancies. He also ordered the immediate sale of other holdings at Yarmouth, along with any properties not specifically mentioned in the will. Finally, he appointed Christine to act as his executor and named (Sir) Miles Stapleton*, a knight closely connected with the borough, as supervisor. The will bears no date of probate although the testator had died by the following 16 June when his feoffees conveyed his properties to Christine and Stapleton. Ibid. Y/C 4/162, m. 13. The Parliament of 1449 sat for another month after that date: assuming that the testator was the MP, there is no evidence that his fellow burgesses elected a replacement to fill his seat in the Commons. Administering the will put Christine Hyllys to some trouble, for she was party to several suits in Great Yarmouth’s borough court in her capacity as her late husband’s executrix. Ibid. 1449-50, 1455-6, Y/C 4/156, mm. 15d, 20; 162, m. 2d. These difficulties may have been what prompted her to have it enrolled on the court’s rolls in the mid 1450s.