LYNDE, John

John and his older brother Henry were children when their father died and John did not make his first appearance in the Canterbury records until January 1415 when he was described as a citizen and vintner to whom three men from outside the city were indebted in £18.4 C241/210/34. At Michaelmas 1416 he was appointed one of the four cofferers of the city’s revenues. He must have obtained the freedom of the city as a preliminary to assuming his role in civic government but the date of his admission is not recorded. Unlike his brother, who was a lawyer, John followed a career in the victualing trade: in 1418-9 he was paid for wine delivered to the abbots of Winchcombe and St. Albans on the city’s behalf, and in 1447 he received a pardon as ‘John Lynde of Canterbury, brewer’.5 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 137v; C67/39, m. 8. He does not appear to have been heavily involved in the city’s affairs in London: it was not until 1431-2 that he next received an extraordinary payment in the city’s accounts. This was for riding to London with William Rose*, then one of the bailiffs, and John Sheldwich*, for a case against the archbishop of Canterbury concerning a disputed fishgarth.6 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 212v. In April 1432 he was one of four local men who witnessed the parliamentary election indenture for Kent at the meeting of the shire court in Canterbury.7 C219/14/3. Lynde’s status within the city was clearly rising: in May 1434 he was among those in Canterbury who took the oath against peace-breakers and at the following Michaelmas he was chosen as one of the two bailiffs.8 CPR 1429-36, p. 390. In May 1436 Lynde, along with William Bonnington* and William Osbourne, led a group of citizens who invaded the close of St. Augustine’s abbey, ostensibly to make a pilgrimage to St. Lawrence’s hospital, but in reality part of the city’s long-running jurisdictional dispute with the abbey.9 KB27/706, rex rot. 29; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Production of St. Lawrence’s Hosp. Regs.’, The Fifteenth Cent. XIII ed. Clark, 113. Lynde and the others were eventually acquitted.

In December 1436 Lynde was elected to the first of his two Parliaments, meeting the following 21 Jan. Accompanied by the lawyer, Gilbert German*, he spent 45 days at Westminster, ten less than his more experienced companion.10 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 243. Evidently neither stayed for the 65 days’ duration of the session. The following year he accompanied William Billyngton* and William Bonnington to Westminster to obtain an exemplification of a judgement made in Henry III’s reign between the city and the abbot of St. Augustine’s.11 Ibid. f. 250. In April 1439 Lynde delivered a loan of £40 to the King on behalf of the city. Although a privy seal letter had originally demanded 100 marks, an intervention by John Stopyndon, master of the rolls and himself originally from Canterbury, had led to a reduction in the sum the city was required to lend.12 Ibid. f. 259v; E401/763, m. 3. Later that year Lynde was again elected as one of the MPs. He received wages for 65 days, suggesting that he was present both at the Parliament’s initial session at Westminster and at its later session in Reading. There was some delay in the payment of his wages of £6 10s.: an initial payment of 53s. 4d. was not made until 1441-2 and the outstanding £3 16s. 8d. was paid a year later.13 CCA-CC-F/A/1, ff. 285, 294.

At Michaelmas 1447 Lynde was elected to his second term as bailiff. During that year the city received a new charter, replacing the two bailiffs with a mayor, and the following Michaelmas Lynde was chosen as the first mayor of Canterbury. According to a dispute in the city’s court during Henry VII’s reign, on his election Lynde decided to abandon his trade as a victualler, presumably because it did not have sufficient social status. It was claimed that ‘after his discharge [he] never occupied as viteler but toke uppon hym in the occupacion of clothe makyng and lyved lyke a gentilman’.14 Canterbury city recs., burghmote ct. orders 1469-1608, CCA-CC-A/B/1, f. 11. Alternatively, he may have wished to avoid trouble over the statute which prohibited any victualler from trading while holding municipal office and taking the assizes of bread and ale, as at least one other mayor of Canterbury, John Winter*, also abandoned his trade on becoming mayor. Lynde’s change of profession was, however, in keeping with his status as one of the wealthiest inhabitants of Canterbury: in 1450 he was one of four men assessed at an annual income of £20 for the subsidy; only Gervase Clifton* was assessed higher.15 E179/124/218, rot. 3d. This reveals a marked increase in his wealth and status during his career in city government: in 1431, when he had himself served as one of the jurors assembled to assess the subsidy, he was said to be seised of property worth only £4 a year.16 Feudal Aids, iii. 56, 58.

Despite his wealth, Lynde does not seem to have had many associations outside of the city. His property appears to have been concentrated in St. Cross parish in Westgate by Canterbury, where in February 1450 he was granted a tenement by John Sheldwich which had belonged to his brother, Henry. This consolidated his holdings in that parish as it bordered another garden and messuage of his to the south.17 C146/10349. In August 1446 he had been among a group of feoffees to whom William Benet* conveyed a building in St. Mary Castle parish, called ‘Le Hermitage’ with part of the land belonging to the ‘Great Dungeon.’18 Canterbury city recs., Woodruff’s list, CCA-CC-WOODRUFF, bdle. 21, no. 6. Lynde also enjoyed the freedom of Sandwich, perhaps owning property there. This was, however, a common ploy that allowed the holder to become a Portsman and benefit from the tax exemptions and other liberties enjoyed by the Cinque Ports confederation.19 E179/227/106, mm. 166, 199. Lynde’s appearances in the Westminster law courts also show associations mainly within Canterbury and its environs, involving debt cases against men from Canterbury, Herne and Reculver and a woman from Westgate by Canterbury.20 CP40/663, rot. 127; 680, rots. 167, 421d. Furthermore, the marriage of his daughters reinforced his connexions within the city. Joan appears to have married three times and on each occasion a local man was able to obtain the freedom of the city by virtue of the marriage. Similarly, Lynde’s other daughters, Agnes and Elizabeth, also married Canterbury men.21 CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 11v, 24v, 46, 62, 77; E210/11296.

There are no further references in the Canterbury accounts to Lynde after the end of his mayoralty at Michaelmas 1449 but in December 1450 he was one of only two Canterbury citizens named on the commission of array against rebels and traitors within Kent.22 CPR 1446-52, p. 436. Lynde died soon afterwards in February 1451 and was buried in St. Cross church.23 The inscription on his tomb, now lost, apparently gave 12 Feb. as his date of death, whereas John Stone, the monk of Christ Church, recorded his death as occurring on 19 Feb.: W. Somner, Antiqs. Canterbury ed. Urry, app. 71; Chron. John Stone ed. Searle, 51. His widow, Constance, outlived him by some years: in February 1455, after her marriage to Robert Bertyn†, she was admitted to the freedom of the city by redemption, although the normal fee was respited, and thus became the only woman to gain this honour during the fifteenth century.24 CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 46. She was still alive in 1465 when she brought an action in Chancery against Bertyn’s feoffees. She chose to be buried next to Lynde.25 C1/27/66.