THIRLWALL, William.

In 1417 Thirlwall and his wife leased from John Shelley of Rye, for the lifetime of the latter’s wife, Idonea, three messuages and some 330 acres of land near the border of Kent and Sussex at Tenterden, Broomhill, Playden, Rye and elsewhere, for which they agreed to pay an annual rent of £8. Which of these places they made their home does not appear, although wherever Thirlwall chose to live it was not far from the town he represented in Parliament seven times. In May 1429 he and John Adam of New Romney were chosen by a Brodhull to go up to London to plead the Cinque Ports’ case for exoneration from the new tax levied on parishes, in the same way as the Ports were customarily exempted from parliamentary fifteenths.1CP25(1)291/64/54; Add. 29615, f. 137.