PIERS, William (d.1432), of New Romney, Kent.

William paid maltolts alongside his putative father in Holyngbroke ward in New Romney from March 1407. Ibid. ff. 70-139. It was not, however, until 1419 that he was first chosen as a jurat in the Port. He seems seldom to have been involved on special business on behalf of the town but in 1421 he received a payment of 11s. 8d. for collecting the ‘foreign’ rents. Ibid. f. 102. The following year, while serving as a jurat, he was elected with the experienced parliamentarian Richard Clitheroe* to sit in Henry VI’s first Parliament. The duration of his time in the Commons is not clear and a single payment of £8 16s. 8d. was made to both him and Clitheroe for their parliamentary wages. Ibid. f. 136v. Little else is recorded of Piers’s activities on behalf of Romney but by 1426 he was receiving an annual stipend of 10s. ‘for his labours’. Ibid. ff. 107v, 109, 112. The nature of these tasks is not stated.

Piers was described on 4 June 1422 as a barber when he and a fellow jurat, Peter Newene, donated a small plot of land, worth 4d. p.a., to the use of the town. Ibid. f. 92v. Clearly a man of some standing in Romney, in 1426 he was among those jurats, including Clitheroe and James Lowys*, who lent money for the wages of the barons going to the Leicester Parliament. The following year he received a payment of £2 13s. 4d. for ‘divers prests made to the commonalty’. Ibid. ff. 97, 107v. His private interests were concentrated in Romney and its member-port of Lydd, but the only evidence of his property dealings was in April 1412 when, acting as a feoffee of William Aleyn, he demised land in St. Nicholas’s parish to John Newman and his wife. Romney feet of fines, NR/JBr 6/1.

Piers made his will on 12 Jan. 1432. Requesting to be buried in the parish church of St. Lawrence in New Romney, he made provision for his soul in the form of obits and money for lamps there. He also made small bequests to the fraternities of Holy Trinity and Holy Cross in the same church. To each of his unnamed daughters he left the miserly sum of 12d., while his executors were dispose of the remainder of his goods for the benefit of his soul. Upon his death his feoffees were to deliver seisin of his property in New Romney and Lydd, including a number of kiddles, to his widow, Alice. Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Canterbury consist. ct. wills, PRC 32/1, f. 22. Piers was dead by 25 Mar. that year when Alice paid his maltolts. She outlived her husband by at least 20 years, and was last recorded paying maltolts in 1451-2. NR/FAc 2, ff. 115, 117; Romney assmt. bk. 1448-1526, NR/FAc 3, ff. 2, 11, 15.