HALLE, William

This MP’s name was a very common one, and it is not always easy to distinguish him from others.3 e.g. the William Halle who was a co-feoffee with Halle of Ore’s uncle John of the widespread and valuable estates in Suss. and elsewhere of Thomas St. Cler (d.1435): CCR, 1422-9, pp. 212, 339-40, 352, 411, 463; 1429-35, p. 40. That William was dead by Nov. 1435 (CCR, 1435-41, p. 24), and may therefore have been the serjeant-at-law of this name who died in 1431: Order of Serjs. at Law (Selden Soc. supp. ser. v), 161, 260, 515; CIPM, xxiii. 614. It was the serjeant who had been the attorney-general of John, earl of Huntingdon, another prominent landowner in Suss. in the 1420s: CCR, 1422-9, p. 270. It is possible that the man returned twice for Arundel was in fact the William Halle who lived about three miles away from the borough, at Slindon. This William, a tenant of the archbishop of Canterbury, petitioned his lord as chancellor after being troubled by the suits of a London mercer, Robert Overton, over debts run up by his late wife, Joan. Described as a ‘gentleman’, he obtained a royal pardon in August 1455.4 C1/17/171; C67/41, m. 32. However, it is more likely that the MP was the prominent landowner of this name, the son and heir of John Halle, who had died in December 1421 before the end of his term of office as sheriff of Sussex and Surrey.5 PCC 52 Marche (PROB11/2B, f. 424); CFR, xiv. 421. John, the elder of two brothers who bore the same name, had inherited land in east Sussex at Laughton and East Hoathly from their father Richard, and acquired a substantial property known as ‘Bentley’ in that neighbourhood in 1405. Through his marriage to the heiress Amice Ore he came into possession of the manors of Ore and Pette and a moiety of that of Gensing,6 Add. Chs. 30223, 30225; VCH Suss. ix. 19, 87, 89, 192. increasing his annual income to at least £44 13s.4d., as estimated for the purposes of taxation in 1412.7 Feudal Aids, vi. 526. Besides her inheritance, Amice brought to the Halles social contacts of importance, for her mother, Joan Rede, was first cousin to the wealthy and influential Sir John Pelham*.8 CP40/618, rot. 505; 635, rot. 98. William was probably not the first-born son of John and Amice (for in 1401 property in East Hoathly and Laughton had been entailed on a son of theirs named John), although it seems that he had fallen heir to both parents by the time his father died.9 Add. Ch. 30221. He had come of age by October 1430, when his widowed mother named him and the Kentish landowner Reynold Peckham*, almost certainly their kinsman, as her executors. The two men arranged her burial in Ore church next to her late husband, and Halle acted as patron of the rectory there just a few weeks afterwards. He later presented to the rectories at Guestling and Pette too. An indication of his status is provided by the description ‘esquire’ given in the bishop of Chichester’s register,10 Reg. Chichele, ii. 455; iii. 489; Reg. Praty (Suss. Rec. Soc. iv), 111, 119, 131. and his later distraint for failing to take up knighthood.

The Parliament of 1433 (to which a William Halle was elected to represent Arundel), stipulated that men of standing throughout the realm should be required to take an oath not to maintain peace breakers. William Halle of Ore appeared on the list returned to Chancery by the knights of the shire for Sussex, among those they thought should do so in their county.11 CPR, 1429-36, p. 372. There is no evidence that this William held any land particularly close to Arundel, and the bulk of his inheritance lay in the east of the shire. In Hilary term 1436 he and his wife Elizabeth were sued for lands and rents in Westdean, in the rape of Pevensey, by the influential Sir Roger Fiennes*, afterwards treasurer of the King’s household. Fiennes claimed the property under an entail made 110 years earlier, but the Halles responded with evidence that a body of feoffees, including the family friend Reynold Peckham and headed by Peckham’s maternal uncles, the brothers John Uvedale* and William Uvedale I*, had been seised of the manor of ‘Cherlton’ (now Charlston) and its appurtenances, of which the disputed lands were parcel. These feoffees had demised the manor to the Halles for a term of 20 years, beginning at Michaelmas 1422. Perhaps the settlement had formed part of the couple’s marriage contract. They appear to have been successful in their defence, since William was to refer to his manor of Westdean in his will.12 CP40/700, rot. 127. Halle had held land in ‘Cherlton’ in 1428: Feudal Aids, v. 148. Also subject to challenge was Halle’s claim to land on the sea-shore adjacent to the manor of Gensing, within the liberty of the Cinque Port of Hastings. It was alleged at an inquiry conducted by the lieutenant-warden of the Ports in May 1443 that his claim had no basis in a royal grant, and was in contempt of the warden, the duke of Gloucester, and the commonalty of Hastings. The outcome is not recorded.13 E. Suss. RO, Homan of Winchelsea mss, AMS 2287. Halle had proved unsuccessful in a bid to expand his interests in land elsewhere. In 1442 his kinsman Thomas Lyvet leased to him the manor of West Firle for a term of 30 years, but the lease was subsequently made void owing to an earlier contract, and in June 1445 Halle sued out a writ for Lyvet’s arrest to enforce a statute staple in £200 entered six years earlier.14 C131/66/7; Bolney Bk. (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxiii), 75-76. Later that year he relinquished any title he might have had to the former Waleys estates at Glynde and other places in Sussex, long the subject of controversy, but this title can only have been a distant one.15 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. ed. Dell, 13. He depleted his inheritance to a minor extent in August 1447 by releasing his rights to certain lands at East Hoathly and Laughton to Bartholomew Bolney* the lawyer.16 Bolney Bk. 36.

Earlier that year, on 2 Feb. 1447, Halle had attested the Sussex elections held at Chichester.17 C219/15/4. He himself was returned to the Commons for a second time two years later, to the Parliament due to assemble on 12 Feb. 1449. On 8 Dec. 1448, a few weeks before the elections, he made a brief testament in which he left his wife all his moveable goods, named her as his executor, along with Reynold Peckham (the same man as had acted in this capacity for his mother), and left small bequests to the churches of Ore (where he was to be buried), Guestling and Pette. On 17 Dec. he issued instructions to his feoffees, who besides Peckham and the latter’s uncle William Uvedale I, included Walter Moyle*, the King’s serjeant and future judge, who were to hold to his widow’s use his lands and manors in Sussex and the advowsons of the same three Sussex churches together with that of Wotton in Kent, but excluding the manor of Westdean. After Elizabeth’s death the estates were to be held by these feoffees on behalf of his son Henry and the latter’s male issue until he came of age. The profits of Westdean (if they amounted to 12 marks a year) were to be spent on prayers for Halle’s soul. The date of his death is not known, but he may have survived the dissolution of the Parliament, at the end of its final session at Winchester on 30 May 1449, for probate was not granted until 21 June following.18 PCC 13 Rous (PROB11/1 f. 103). Henry attained his majority within a year,19 Bolney Bk. 38, 42; Add. Ch. 30231. but his widowed mother was still living in November 1457, for she then sued her late husband’s surviving feoffees in the Chancery. A writ of subpoena in £200 was issued to secure their attendance in court.20 C253/35/278.