PYMPE, Reynold

More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 151-2.

One of Pympe’s building projects was a new nave for the church at Nettlestead, which adjoined the manor-house he erected in that parish. It is therefore likely that he commissioned the stained-glass windows in the nave, decorated with the coats of arms of many of Kent’s leading families and celebrating the connexions between the Pympes and their neighbours.2 Archaeologia Cantiana, xxviii. 165-241. A deed of December 1413 reveals the nature of some of these connexions. It records a settlement of a group of manors that the feoffees of Pympe’s brother-in-law, John Freningham†, made on one of the latter’s kinsmen and heirs, Roger Isle. In fulfilment of Freningham’s will, Isle was expected to find two chaplains to sing for the souls of the testator and his lords, the late earls of Stafford. Should, however, Isle die without a male heir, then the manors and the responsibilities incumbent upon them were to remain to Pympe’s son, John, the eventual recipient of most of Freningham’s estates. Earlier, Freningham had enfeoffed Pympe and John Culpepper of the same properties, and the MP’s connexions with the Freninghams and Isles were among those commemorated in the windows of Nettlestead church.3 Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Scott mss, U1115/T118.

As observed in the previous biography, Pympe was often in financial difficulty, although at least one of the Londoners who sued him for debt failed to pursue the claim. In pleadings at Westminster in Michaelmas term 1402, this plaintiff, a skinner from the City named William Hulot, claimed that he had yet to receive a payment of 44s. for furs he had sold to Pympe five years earlier, but in the following Trinity term the MP was dismissed sine die after Hulot had not reappeared to prosecute his suit.4 CP40/567, rot. 116.

Although there is no evidence that Pympe served in the French wars in person (unlike his elder son, John, who campaigned with the duke of Gloucester in 1415 and 1421), he appears to have been considered among the leading military figures in Kent. Prior to the departure of the Agincourt expedition, he was a commissioner of array and in December 1419 he was among the 12 men in the county identified by commissioners and ordered to assemble arrayed for war before the King and Council at Westminster early in the new year.5 E28/97/15A. The reason for the pardon issued to him on 16 Oct. 1415, just days before Agincourt, is unknown: C67/37, m. 28.