GREEN, John IV

Green’s early career is difficult to disentangle from that of his namesake and putative father. Unlike the older John, who appears to have been trained in the law, this MP appears to have made his living from trade, and it was almost certainly he who was ordered to be arrested along with others from Sandwich and the south-coast ports in September 1452, on charges relating to an act of piracy.2 CPR, 1452-61, p. 56. In December of that year he was elected to the ranks of the jurats and his standing in the town was confirmed on 3 Dec. 1453 when he was chosen as mayor. Little evidence survives of this first mayoralty, but less than two weeks into his official year he was commissioned to seize the late earl of Shrewsbury’s ship, Le Mawdelen Lisle, then anchored at Sandwich, in the wake of the earl’s death at the battle of Castillon. The following month he was ordered to deliver the vessel to a servant of the dowager countess.3 CPR, 1452-61, p. 166. During his first mayoralty Green also attended three meetings of the Brodhull.4 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 32-33.

In December 1454 Green returned to the ranks of the jurats, but on 20 June the following year he was chosen, along with his friend the mayor, Richard Cock*, to attend the Parliament called to meet at Westminster on 9 July.5 ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 97v. The two men’s election to the Commons gave them a further chance to pursue their on-going dispute concerning the office of tronager and pesager in the port of Sandwich. On 4 Dec. 1452 Henry VI had granted this office to Thomas Swetman, but when Swetman tried to exercise it on 20 July 1454 Green and Cock had prevented him from weighing 20 sacks of wool belonging to a Lombard merchant. Following Swetman’s complaint to the barons of the Exchequer, on 12 Nov. the Sandwich men had appeared in person before them and were briefly committed to the Fleet prison for contempt before being released on bail. Now, during the parliamentary recess on 20 Oct. 1455, Green and Cock received royal letters of pardon and in that same Michaelmas term, shortly before the opening of the Parliament’s second session, they appeared before the barons to plead their pardons. The background to this case is revealed by proceedings in the Exchequer court the following Hilary term. On 7 Feb. 1456, during the third parliamentary session, both Green and Cock appeared before the barons again and were committed to the Fleet for appointing a local man, William Nede, to the office of tronager and pesager during their respective mayoralties, in contempt of the King’s grant to Swetman. Having quickly found sureties for their release (rather than going through the long process of suing out writs of parliamentary privilege), they returned to appear in the barons’ court on 2 Apr. when it was decided that the office of tronager and pesager was properly in the gift of the mayor and commonalty of Sandwich according to their ancient privileges.6 E159/231, recorda, Mich. rot. 23, Hil. rot. 25; C67/41, m. 23. The costs of this suit in defence of Sandwich’s liberties are revealed by the local treasurers’ accounts. The townsmen employed the services of the New Romney lawyer, John Chenew*, and also sought the patronage of William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, and the King’s remembrancer in the Exchequer, William Essex* (to whom they paid 56s. 8d.). In 1454-5 the expenses of the case totalled £19 5s. 1½d. The same account also details the parliamentary wages paid to Green and Cock for their service in the first two sessions, in 1455: Green travelled to Westminster on 7 July and remained there until 2 Aug.; he returned to Parliament on 10 Nov., leaving on 15 Dec. (suggesting that he was not present in Sandwich when chosen as mayor for a second time on 1 Dec. that year).7 Sandwich treasurers’ accts. 1454-5, SA/FAt 2.

Green’s second mayoralty, then, saw the successful settlement of the dispute over the office of tronager and pesager. Whether he attended the Commons for the whole duration of the final session of the Parliament of 1455 (which ended on 12 Mar. 1456) is not known, but he travelled to New Romney for the Brodhull on the following 6 Apr., both as mayor of Sandwich and, presumably, to report on parliamentary proceedings.8 White and Black Bks. 35. On the previous 14 Mar. he had also been commissioned to inquire into an act of piracy committed in the English Channel. Little else is recorded of Green’s second mayoralty and one of his final acts was to attend another meeting of the Brodhull on 13 Nov. He spent the remainder of the 1450s among the ranks of the jurats and clearly continued to enjoy the status of the one of the leading Portsmen, frequently being involved in Sandwich’s extraneous affairs. On 26 July 1457 he was again present at a meeting of the Brodhull, this time deputizing for the mayor, John Drury*.9 CPR, 1452-61, p. 304; White and Black Bks. 36, 38. On 20 Apr. 1458 Green purchased a royal pardon as ‘late mayor of Sandwich, alias merchant, alias gentleman’ and in the following June, in the aftermath of the French raid on the town the previous year, he and Cock travelled to Westminster to petition the King’s council for financial assistance.10 C67/42, m. 13; ‘Old Black Bk.’, f. 105.

On 1 Dec. 1460 Green was elected as one of the jurats for the last time. He was in dispute with his fellows over wages due to him for his second mayoralty and for other business carried out on the town’s behalf, which had been put to the arbitration of John Chenew, another Romney man, John Joseph†, and Thomas Gore I* of Dover. In January 1462 the matter came before a meeting of the Brodhull. The mayor of Sandwich, William Kenet†, refused to hand over a copy of Green’s disputed account unless he was willing to ‘pay for the wrytyng’, and as Chenew was now dead the Brodhull suggested that new arbiters be appointed. To this Green agreed, but Kenet refused saying ‘that he durst not take so muche upon hym in the Commens name, but he would Commen with his Commens first thereof’ and report their decision to the next meeting. In July Green presented another petition to the Brodhull against ‘dyverse mysprisyons and wronges’ done to him by Kenet. He recalled how he had complained to meetings of the Brodhull before as well as ‘to your masterships at London at the parlyament tyme’ (presumably to the Ports’ parliamentary barons in the assembly of 1461), and asserted that the auditors appointed to settle his mayoral account had placed upon it charges which he had never incurred. Kenet had failed to deliver a true copy of the account as he had promised and, when asked to compare it with Green’s own version of his expenses, he had failed, thus causing Green damages of £100. Green asked the Brodhull to issue a testimonial under the Ports’ common seal that he had always fulfilled his part of the arbitration award and requested leave to take the matter to the warden’s court of St. James’ church, Dover. The Brodhull agreed that Kenet should provide Green with a copy of his account and bill of expenses and the matter was passed to the judgement of Otwell Worsley, the earl of Warwick’s lieutenant at Dover castle, and the local gentleman, John Oxenden.11 White and Black Bks. 44-46.

This, however, was not the end of the matter and the later stages of the dispute, if not its final outcome, can be traced through the Sandwich year books. On 31 May 1465 Green entered into a recognizance for £200 to Laurence Cundy and Alexander Reynold* (on behalf of the commonalty of Sandwich) payable at the feast of St. Laurence following, while Cundy and Reynold did likewise to Green. This concerned the award of a new group of arbiters, including Joseph, John Greenford* and Robert Cock†. The arbiters were due to make their award by the forthcoming feast of St. Laurence and Green pledged certain property in the town to abide by their decision. Evidently this too failed to settle the quarrel and in March 1467 Green and Kenet appeared before Warwick’s current lieutenant, John Guildford, to submit to a third set of arbiters, including Cundy, Guildford and the former mayor of Sandwich, John Westcliff. In January 1469 Warwick intervened in person, placing both parties under recognizances for £300 and appointing one of his servants, Guy Fairfax, to decide the matter.12 ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 117, 168, 173, 185. It is unclear whether even this was the end of the affair. In January 1471 the jurats and common councillors of Sandwich agreed that disagreement between the town and a John Green should be settled at the next Brodhull, but although this may have related to the MP, it might have concerned another John Green (d.1486), of Minster on the Isle of Thanet, who had incurred the townsmen’s wrath in 1467 by securing the arrest of a Sandwich man contrary to the town’s liberties.13 Ibid. ff. 174, 199v; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/4, f. 93. In either case, there was no mention of the dispute in the records of the Brodhull as the Ports became embroiled in the national struggles between the restored Lancastrian monarchy, the earl of Warwick and Edward IV.

The remainder of the MP’s career is obscure. Despite his quarrel with his fellow townsmen he appears to have remained resident in Sandwich through the 1460s and into the 1470s. In 1462 he leased a tenement called ‘Le Belle’ to two local men, and he also remained involved in the affairs of his neighbours as a feoffee. Thus, in 1464 he was acting as such of property in Staple and Woodnesborough and four years later he and Alexander Reynold surrendered their interest in property in Sandwich in which they had been enfeoffed by another local man, William Kennyngthorp. In March 1470 Green quitclaimed his interest in a tenement in St. Mary’s parish to Thomas and Alice Boteler.14 W. Boys, Sandwich, 134, 156; ‘Old Black Bk.’, ff. 112v, 182; Harvard Univ. Law School Lib., English deeds, 440. Between 1452 and 1462, like many leading Sandwich barons, he had been a tenant of the archbishop of Canterbury’s manor of Sandown.15 E. Kent Recs. (Kent Rec. Ser. vii), 77-80. Most significantly, he served as one of the wardens of St. Thomas’s hospital during the 1460s, as such receiving in May 1468 from the widow of the jurat, Nicholas Burton, her right to a room in the hospital.16 Boys, 156. Green died before 1480 having founded a chantry at the altar of the Holy Cross within his parish church of St. Clement.17 Kent Chantries (Kent Rec. Ser. xii), 249-56.