GRYGGE, Richard

Grygge was almost certainly a local man and the son of a namesake who served on a jury in Dover in 1402 and who eight years later was the plaintiff in a plea of debt before the mayor. That older Richard Grygge, a skinner, was among the Portsmen of Dover who secured exemption from the parliamentary subsidy in the Kentish hundred of Bewsborough in 1416,4 Egerton 2088, ff. 135, 145v; E179/124/88. and was involved in property transactions elsewhere in the county during the early 1420s.5 CP25(1)/113/291/301; 293/364. Like his putative father, our MP was exempt from taxation in Bewsborough hundred, and developed landed interests outside Dover, notably through his marriage at an unknown date to Marion Bratyll of Staplehurst. The match led to litigation in the court of Chancery over the settlement of Marion’s dowry, and after her death and that of their son Peter, the MP attempted to recover from her late father’s feoffees lands which he claimed Marion had settled upon him in her will.6 E179/229/142; C1/34/86-87. Meanwhile, in Dover itself Grygge had taken up residence in St. Mary’s ward, where he was one of the constables responsible for organizing the watch in the 1430s, and he also owned property in Werston ward.7 Egerton 2105, f. 36v; Dover Chs. ed. Stathum, 271.

Grygge, described in a royal pardon as a merchant, taverner and vintner, was regularly assessed for the maltolt as a wine merchant, and made his living trading in this commodity.8 C67/42, m. 28; Add. 29810, ff. 1v, 65v. In 1428-9 it was his wine that was offered to Lord Scrope and other visiting dignitaries as a gift from the corporation of Dover, and in 1435 he sold 12 tuns of wine to the jurats. Also a shipowner, in May 1432 he was paid for ferrying the duke of Bedford, then captain of Calais, and other lords across the Channel to meet the King on his return from the coronation expedition.9 Add. 29165, ff. 143v, 208; E403/703, m. 3. Furthermore, around 1446 he was paid a reward of £5 for exposing himself ‘to great danger at sea going to Calais’ at the request of the duke of Gloucester, the warden of the Cinque Ports.10 S.P. Statham, Dover, 87.

Early in his career, Grygge served as the mayor of Dover’s serjeant, otherwise known as the common serjeant, for which he received an annual fee of 20s.11 Add. 29165, f. 71v. It was probably in this capacity that he was appointed as an appraiser of goods bought before the mayor’s court on several occasions during the late 1420s,12 Egerton 2088, f. 198v; 2089, ff. 2, 5v. and he was also sent on extraordinary business by the mayor and jurats. Thus, in 1424-5 he twice rode to Dover’s member-port of Faversham and to Kingsdown on their instructions.13 Add. 29165, f. 79. Although replaced as serjeant in 1430, he nevertheless continued to be employed on the Port’s business. He was one of the six men chosen by the jurats to travel to Canterbury to discuss their dispute with Faversham that year, and on 1 Aug. 1436 he was among the leading men of Dover who witnessed the indenture which settled the disagreements between them and the member-port.14 Ibid. f. 169v; Dover Chs. 195. Probably by then he had been elected one of the jurats, although it is not until September 1439 that he can certainly be identified as such. In 1440 along with William Brewes* the mayor, Ralph Toke* and John Ward I*, he again went to Canterbury to discuss the Port’s business.15 Add. 29810, f. 37. Having been chosen in July of the same year to represent Dover at a meeting of the Brodhull, he did so on ten further occasions during the course of the decade. At one such meeting in 1443 he was named as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs to Great Yarmouth.16 White and Black Bks. 13-26. Of more importance, Grygge was sent by Dover, along with Toke, Brewes and Ward, to attend the coronation of Queen Margaret in the spring of 1445, each of the delegates receiving expenses of 26s. 8d. He and Toke were the two men chosen to represent their Port at the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster in the autumn of 1449. Both of them were present in the Commons throughout the initial sessions held at Westminster and London between 6 Nov. and the end of the following March, for which they were paid wages at the rate of 2s. a day, but Grygge alone travelled to Leicester for the final session, which ended in the first week of June 1450 when news came of the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion in the south-east. Later that year he was again elected as one of the barons to represent Dover in the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster early in November. On this occasion he was accompanied by the mayor, Thomas Gore I*, and received wages at the same daily rate for 133 days, one less than his colleague.17 Add. 29810, ff. 61v, 67v, 70.

A few months after the dissolution, on 8 Sept. 1451, Grygge was elected to the first of two consecutive terms as mayor of Dover. According to one account, he had actually become mayor earlier in the year on Gore’s resignation,18 J.B. Jones, Annals of Dover, 290. but there is no evidence to support this assertion in the local records and as both men were at Parliament until May of that year it seems unlikely. Little is known of Grygge’s mayoralty as the accounts of the chamberlains are wanting for those years. He continued regularly to attend meetings of the Brodhull as a representative for Dover throughout the 1450s,19 White and Black Bks. 26-41. while also being employed on extraordinary business by the Ports collectively. In November 1451 he was one of the four Portsmen chosen by the Brodhull to ride to London to present a supplication to their warden, the duke of Buckingham.20 Ibid. 29. In September the following year, along with the mayor of Sandwich and others, he took the muster of the retinue of Gervase Clifton* at Dover, and in December he was commissioned ex officio to requisition four ships for the transport of men and victuals to Gascony.21 CPR, 1446-52, p. 583; 1452-61, p. 59. After the end of his mayoralty, Grygge returned to the ranks of the jurats of Dover and in 1456-8 he served as deputy mayor to Thomas Doyly and Thomas Gore, standing in for both men at meetings of the Brodhull. In 1460 he performed the same task for Thomas Hexstall*.22 White and Black Bks. 37, 39, 42. Meanwhile, in June 1458 he and Thomas Kerver, the common clerk of Dover, had travelled to London in response to a writ of privy seal. The nature of this summons is unknown, but Grygge stayed on for a week after Kerver returned home. During the same year he was also in Canterbury in the Port’s business. On occasion his house was used to entertain the jurats’ guests, such as the wife of Sir Thomas Kyriel*, the lieutenant of Dover castle.23 Add. 29810, ff. 79v, 83.

Grygge’s personal connexions sometimes led to litigation. This was the case with his role as feoffee of property in Dover previously belonging to Alice Field, which ended in acrimony when the parties had to submit to the arbitration of a panel of local men; and his nomination as a trustee by Walter Stratton* and his wife of the manor of Northcourt in Hougham led to his summons to appear in Chancery, sometime between July 1452 and March 1454 after he refused to recognize the sale of the manor by one of Stratton’s sons to the Nottinghamshire merchant, Thomas Thurland*, and deliver seisin to him.24 Add. 29615, f. 217; C1/21/8.

Grygge is last recorded, in July 1460, attending a meeting of the Brodhull. The identity of his heir is not known.25 White and Black Bks. 42. John Grygge, who was carpenter at Dover castle in 1458-9, was almost certainly a kinsman of our MP, perhaps his brother: E101/54/17.