CORBOYLE, Laurence, of Rye, Suss.

Laurence may have been the son of John Corboyle (fl. 1354) and grandson of a namesake, who both lived at Rye.Cat. Rye Recs. ed. Dell, 136/71, 83, 97, 105; CPR, 1350-4, p. 352. In 1366 and 1367 he and his wife Joan made enfeoffments of 57 acres of land at Ivychurch, Newchurch and elsewhere in Romney Marsh, part of which Joan held in reversion pending the demise of Isabel, widow of Walter Salerne. The couple employed Benedict Sely of Winchelsea as receiver and bailiff for these holdings, but they came to suspect him of dishonesty and undertook an action of account against him. By March 1367 writs of exigent had compelled Sely to abandon evasion and give surety to appear to answer them.CP25(1)106/181/1595, 183/1643; CCR, 1364-8, p. 372.

Corboyle’s fellow collector of poundage at Rye in 1371-2 was John Salerne I, quite likely his brother-in-law, and when in 1374 he was made a royal commissioner, this was in order to arrest John Glesham of Beckley, who had broken prison at Rye after being held to answer Salerne for debts. Between 1375 and 1383 Corboyle owned land outside Rye at Udimore and Wivelridge, on which as a Portsman he claimed exemption from taxation. He may also have sought to be exonerated from scots customarily levied on tenants in the tithing of Goldspur, for at Michaelmas 1392 a jury from that hundred presented him along with other men of Rye for their refusal to pay. In the meantime, in 1385-6, Corboyle had been named as a feoffee of a contingent remainder under a settlement of the nearby manor of Knelle, made by Sir Robert Bealknap, c.j.c.p.E179/225/5, 12; Ct. Rolls Rape of Hastings (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxxvii), 122; Suss. Feet of Fines (ibid. xxiii), no. 2555.