SHARP, John II

This John Sharp cannot now be identified with any certainty. It may be speculated, however, that the MP for Lyme Regis in 1426 was John Sharp III* of Bristol, a prominent merchant who represented his home town in four Parliaments, beginning in 1429. His link with Lyme could have come about through dealings with the gentry family of Brooke, seated at Holditch in Devon. In 1415 Sir Thomas Brooke† (d.1418) and his wife Joan (d.1437) were granted by the Crown custody of the borough of Lyme Regis, to hold for term of their lives in return for a small annual payment of £5 for the fee farm. During the period of the Brookes’ custodianship the impoverished and depopulated town was often represented in the Commons by their servants and associates, and as Joan herself was the widow of a wealthy Bristol merchant and owner of a considerable amount of property there, she and her son Sir Thomas* were well acquainted with the townsmen.1 CPR, 1413-16, p. 325; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 372; ii. 377-9. The ports of Lyme and Bridport gave access to the English Channel to the mercantile communities of Somerset, and it is plausible that Sharp of Bristol traded there.