| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Dover | 1414 (Nov.), 1419, 1421 (Dec.), 1423, 1427 |
Mayor, Dover Sept. 1414 – 15, 1417 – 18, 1420 – 22, 1423 – 24, 1426 – 27, 1428 – 30, 1431 – 33, 1439 – 40; jurat 1415 – 16, 1424 – 25, 1427 – 28, 1430 – 31, 1433 – 35, 1437 – 38, 1440 – 42.
Controller of customs and subsidies, Sandwich 28 Feb. 1416 – 24 May 1425.
Commr. Dover Oct. 1418 – June 1421.
More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 505-6.
By virtue of his status as a Portsman, Stratton claimed exemption from taxation for property situated throughout east Kent. In 1416 he was exempted in Hearne and Bewsborough hundreds and in 1434 in that of Newchurch.2 E179/124/88, rots. 7, 11; 234/2.
It was probably during Stratton’s last term as mayor of Dover that John Lacy of London sued him and John Greenford*, steward of the admiralty court in Dover, in the Chancery. Lacy asserted that he had received a favourable judgement regarding certain of his goods illegally seized at Dover, only for the defendants to refuse to return them to him in accordance with that judgement.3 C1/72/46.
In the first half of the 1450s Stratton’s widow Joan, who appears to have survived him by several years, was mentioned in a Chancery suit brought by the wealthy Nottingham merchant, Thomas Thurland*. Thurland claimed to have paid a ‘notabel summe of money’ for the reversion, expectant on her death, of the Stratton manor of Northcourt, only for the defendant, Richard Grygge*, one of the feoffees of that property, to refuse to make the necessary conveyance. The attempted purchase had probably occurred in about May 1449, when the MP’s son, Augustine Stratton, a London mercer, had granted Thurland his goods. No further details of the case survive, but it is clear that the sale did not go through for, by the end of Henry VI’s reign, the manor was in the hands of William Hexstall*.4 C1/21/8; CCR, 1447-54, p. 141; E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, ix. 455-6.