KELE, William, of Rye, Suss.

That Kele remains an obscure figure is due to the scanty survival of the records of Rye for the first half of the fifteenth century. There is no doubt, however, that he was a local man. In March 1408 the authorities at Rye pardoned him for slandering the mayor, William Long†, exonerating him from paying the very large penalty of £10 on condition that he would behave in a more restrained fashion in future. E. Suss. RO, Rye mss, ct. bk. 33/7, f. 38v. Perhaps the incident had something to do with events of the previous year, when Kele had been associated with Long and the latter’s putative brother, Thomas Long I*, as alleged receivers of merchandise unlawfully taken at sea. The charge was that after two crayers of Sluys, laden with madder and other commodities, had been captured by four English balingers in August 1407, the captured cargoes unloaded at Rye had been shared out between the masters of the balingers – the Longs and several other Portsmen, including Kele. This was in breach of the recently-concluded truce between England and Burgundy. In June 1408 the warden of the Cinque Ports, Sir Thomas Erpingham, who had failed to take decisive action against the miscreants, was ordered under pain of £1,000 to make restitution to the Flemish merchants; and in September following he was instructed, along with other royal commissioners including the bailiff of Rye, to arrest those concerned and bring them before the King in Chancery. CCR, 1405-9, pp. 324-5; CPR, 1405-8, p. 484. William Long was one of the most notorious privateers of the age, The Commons 1386-1422, iii. 619-21. but to what extent Kele was a party to his naval exploits is not revealed.

Kele was not numbered among the most prosperous inhabitants of Rye. When a half-scot was levied in 1415 four Portsmen were taxed at 6s. 8d., the highest amount, but he paid no more than 1s. It is not known what part, if any, he played in the government of Rye before his return to the Parliament at Leicester in 1426, and before too long after he sat in the Commons he appears to have moved away from the Port to the Sussex town of Lewes. Described as a ‘merchant of Lewes’, in 1432 he brought a suit in the common pleas against William Penbridge* of that town, accusing him of unjustly withholding a bond for £5 which he had entrusted to his safe-keeping. CP40/686, rot. 356. Interestingly, Penbridge had also been a Member of the Commons at Leicester, so the two men may have become acquainted then.