STIKELANE, Thomas

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 477-8.

Stikelane took an active part in the affairs of both Bridport and Lyme Regis. In 1408 he was associated with William Mountfort* and others in receiving a plot of land called ‘Morterheygh’ in Bridport, which they were to hold as trustees for the maintenance of the obit of Isabel Hovell in the parish church of St. Mary.3 CAD, i. C890. Also at Bridport, he served as a juror at the inquisition post mortem on the wealthy Dorset landowner Sir Humphrey Stafford† of Hooke, held in November 1413.4 C138/3/41. He accompanied Stafford’s son and heir, another Sir Humphrey*, to Westminster for his first Parliament in the following spring, when Sir Humphrey represented the county.

In Trinity term 1426 Stikelane brought a plea of trespass in the King’s bench against a husbandman of Lyme Regis.5 KB27/661, rot. 56d. Much more unexpected was his association with the Herefordshire knight Sir John Skydemore*, who three years later, in December 1429, together with Sir John Styward, the master of the King’s horses, entered recognizances for £100 to the King to guarantee that Stikelane would appear in Chancery in the octaves of Hilary following to answer charges brought against him by the cleric John Stokes. The same condition applied on 13 Feb. following, when Stikelane agreed to be present in court in the Easter term. How he had offended Stokes is not revealed, and the record of an action in the court of common pleas proceeding in Trinity term 1432 merely noted that Stokes was suing him for debt.6 CCR, 1429-35, p. 34; CP40/686, rot. 57. In that record Stikelane was described as ‘of Lyme Regis, merchant, senior’. Nothing is known about a younger Thomas Stikelane, and the MP’s precise relationship to John Stikelane*, who sat for Lyme in the following year and again in 1437, has not been ascertained. Thomas last appears in the records as an attestor to his kinsman’s second election to Parliament.7 C219/15/1.