GOLDYNG, William

It seems likely that the William Goldyng who served as a juror at Dover in 1409, helping to compile a list of Portsmen exempted from parliamentary taxation on their possessions in Sussex, was an older namesake, although perhaps a relation of our MP.3 E179/225/38. He himself, as a baron of Hastings, was to claim exemption in 1440 from being taxed on his moveable goods outside the liberty, at Wilting, yet he does not seem to have been a landowner of much consequence.4 E179/228/112. Richard Huntingdon*, who represented Hastings in nine Parliaments from 1413 to 1429, made Goldyng a feoffee of some of his lands in Kent and Sussex, in association with John Edward* and apparently with the intention that these two would convey the property after his death to his niece and heir, Katherine, the wife of Richard Whatton, one of the duke of Gloucester’s retainers. However, according to a petition which the Whattons later sent to the chancellor, the feoffees failed in their duty.5 C1/69/354.

Goldyng participated in the administration of Hastings from the early 1430s, when he was returned to Parliament for the first time. At the Brodhull held at New Romney in July 1434 he presented John Rede II* as Hastings’s choice as bailiff at the autumn herring fair at Yarmouth, and in the following year Rede reciprocated by nominating him. Following his time at the herring fair, Goldyng came to the Brodhull on 16 Dec. 1435 with his fellow bailiffs and reported that they had been honestly received by the authorities at Yarmouth, that the keys of the prison had been handed over to them and all else during the time of the fishing had been dealt with according to the Ports’ liberties and ancient customs. This was a relief: serious trouble had erupted in previous years owing to the obstructive behaviour of the local burgesses.6 White and Black Bks. 4, 6, 7. Goldyng was sent as a delegate from Hastings to 12 Brodhulls in the course of the next 16 years.7 Ibid. 6, 8, 10, 11, 13-16, 19, 20, 23. Having been chosen as bailiff of Hastings in the spring of 1436, it was while still in office that he was elected to his second Parliament, the assembly summoned for 21 Jan. 1437. Goldyng served as both bailiff to Yarmouth and bailiff of his home town again in later years. He is last recorded at the Brodhull of November 1451, when he was called ‘bailiff of Hastings’, although this was probably a mistake, as Alan Honywood* was then in office; perhaps he was acting as Honywood’s deputy.8 Ibid. 29.

William may have been the father of Laurence Goldyng of Hastings, a chaplain pardoned outlawry in 1445,9 CPR, 1441-6, p. 305. and of John Goldyng, the bailiff of 1457-9 and 1470-2, who represented the Port in at least part of the Parliament of 1472.