STACE, Thomas

The Staces were a large family long-established at Hythe. The MP’s putative father, John Stace, served as a jurat there and it is probable that the subject of this biography was one of three sons who played an active role in local government.4 Hythe recs., jurats’ ct. bk. 1421-41, H 1018, ff. 11, 117; H 1019, ff. 109, 139, 151v; H 1058, ff. 96v, 116v, 136.

The earliest known reference to Thomas is a suit for debt that he brought against another townsman in the bailiff of Hythe’s court in June 1437.5 H 1018, f. 11. He claimed exemption as a Portsman from the parliamentary subsidy in Folkestone hundred in 1442-3, by which date he was paying maltolts in Hythe’s West Ward. In the same year he sought allowances for 5s. he had paid on behalf of the town to a local lawyer, Stephen Alby*, as well as the expenses he had incurred in riding to Hastings and on work on the harbour.6 E179/124/110, rot. 9d; H 1055, ff. 11, 25v. Later in the same decade, Stace was elected a jurat for the first time. By then he was well established in the family fishing business and probably one of the wealthiest of Hythe’s residents. In January 1447, for example, his maltolts were for 31 lasts of herring caught at Hythe and Great Yarmouth, 12, 000 mackerel, a large quantity of sprats, a ‘netfyssche’, barley and other victuals and totalled £3 15s. 6¾d.7 H 1055, f. 90v. Two years later, he accounted for maltolts amounting to £2 15s. 1d. Also in 1449, Stace claimed allowance for 13s. 4d., his contribution to a general ‘prest’ raised by the town in its efforts to obtain the nomination of the archbishop of Canterbury’s bailiff.8 Ibid. f. 117. In July the following year he attended his first meeting of the Brodhull as one of Hythe’s representatives, and in 1451 he became a feoffee for the property that the Cinque Ports had purchased in Yarmouth for the use of their bailiffs during the annual herring fair there. It was also in 1451 that he presented a conger eel worth 18d. to the lieutenant of Dover castle, Gervase Clifton*. Evidently his business concerns sometimes combined with the communal interests of the Ports, and doubtless he had a personal interest in the business of the special Brodhull he attended in June 1452, a meeting which discussed the matter of safe-conducts issued to the Ports’ fishing fleet during the Yarmouth fair.9 Ibid. f. 145v; White and Black Bks. 26, 27, 30.

On 25 Feb. 1453 Stace was elected to his first Parliament, alongside Thomas Honywood*. It seems likely that his election had been planned as soon as news of the impending Parliament was received, for he had not been chosen as a jurat on the previous 2 Feb., perhaps in anticipation of a long absence on parliamentary business. He travelled to Reading, the venue for the first session, via London, arriving there on 3 Mar. 1453, three days before the Parliament opened. He departed for the second session at Westminster on 24 Apr., the day before its opening. Both he and Honywood travelled frequently between Hythe and Westminster during this session. Stace returned to Hythe on 22 May and left again two days later, setting off again on the 16th for Westminster, where he remained for two weeks. Back at Westminster for the closure of the second session on 2 July, he returned to Hythe four days later. Unlike Honywood, he appears not to have attended the brief third session at Reading, although he did depart for the final session at Westminster on 8 Feb. 1454. He returned to Hythe on the 22nd of the same month, before leaving for Westminster again on the 29th. There he remained there until 24 Mar., when he went back to Hythe once more, although he was present at Westminster for the dissolution on 18 Apr.10 H 1055, ff. 153v, 163. Eleven days later, Stace attended a meeting of the Brodhull, no doubt to report on the business conducted at the Parliament.11 White and Black Bks. 32. For the remainder of the decade he continued to serve as a jurat, sitting frequently with his colleagues in Hythe’s courts and attending a further seven meetings of the Brodhull. He also continued to contribute towards the town’s common expenses and provided gifts of fish for important men like Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers, in 1459.12 H 1023, f. 89v. Further evidence of the status he enjoyed in Hythe in this period is his appointment as bailiff of the town on 2 Feb. 1461 and his election to Edward IV’s first Parliament later in the same year.13 Ibid. f. 1v. There are no details of Stace’s service in this short assembly, and gaps in the records mean that evidence for his activities in general during the earliest years of Edward’s reign is lacking.

On 31 Mar. 1465 Stace was re-elected bailiff of Hythe on the unexpected death of Henry Locke. If an unusual choice – given that he was not then a jurat – his nomination further reflected his local status. While he was bailiff, he and three other townsmen attended the coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville at Westminster.14 H 1019, f. 149. In 1466 Stace was again chosen as a jurat and served as one of the bailiffs of the Cinque Ports at the Yarmouth herring fair, seemingly the culmination of a particularly intense period of activity – during which he also attended five meetings of the Brodhull in little over a year – in the communal affairs of the Ports.15 White and Black Bks. 52-54. Although not re-elected as a jurat in February 1467, he was returned to his third Parliament in the following spring. It is likely that he attended its first session at Westminster in June, but thereafter his participation in this long assembly, which lasted until June 1468 and included a session at Reading, is unclear. He afterwards claimed allowance of £6 from his maltolts for 60 days’ service, of which sum the commonalty of Hythe still owed him £3 13s. 4d. in January 1469.16 H 1058, f. 12.

Later that year, Stace advanced money towards the journey that the warden of the Cinque Ports, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, and his ally, George, duke of Clarence, made to the north to join up with Richard of Redesdale’s rebels. The Ports also supported Neville and the Readeption government of Henry VI in 1470-1, and Stace and other leading Portsmen made loans towards the costs of escorting Queen Margaret back to England from her exile in France, in his case 20s. Furthermore, he spent 5s. on the ‘journey to Blackheath’, almost certainly a reference to his presence in the Bastard of Fauconberg’s army which camped on the heath after its repulse from London in May 1471. Following Edward IV’s recovery of the Crown, the Cinque Ports suffered a suspension of their liberties, and Stace and his fellow Portsmen worked hard to rehabilitate themselves with the Yorkist King. He spent 3s. 4d. at Canterbury when representatives of the Ports met Edward in June, and he contributed a further 31s. 8d. to a communal fine, paid to Lord Dynham and Sir John Fogg† at Ashford and Folkestone.17 Ibid. ff. 50, 68. He also attended emergency meetings of the Brodhull in June and July and was among the Portsmen who approached the earl of Arundel, then warden, in an attempt to recover their suspended liberties.18 White and Black Bks. 63. In 1472 he continued to work towards Hythe’s rehabilitation with the Yorkist regime, attending a court of Shepway held by Arundel and presenting a gift of fish, worth 4s. 10d., when Fogg visited the town later that year.19 H 1058, f. 88.

Notwithstanding his ill-judged support of the Readeption, on 1 Sept. 1472 Stace gained election to the Parliament of 1472-5 as the senior parliamentary baron for Hythe. Twenty days later, he was at Maidstone to attest the return to the same assembly of John Isle† and Sir Henry Ferrers† as the knights of the shire for Kent. Stace departed for the Parliament with his fellow baron, Robert a Dawne†, on 4 Oct., two days before its opening, only to come home again after 13 days.20 Ibid. f. 77v. Poor health may have prompted his early return, given that he died at the beginning of 1473, during the recess between the first and second parliamentary sessions.

In his will of 26 Jan. that year,21 PRC 32/2, ff. 244-55v. Stace requested burial in his parish church, St. Leonard’s, Hythe, to which he left bequests for its high altar and lights. Apart from a requiem mass, he sought obits for a period of four years following his death and he bequeathed 12d. to the works at the nearby church of Postling. As for his large family, Stace gave each of his sons, John, Nicholas and Richard, the token sum of 4d. in cash, and left seven marks towards the marriage of his three youngest daughters. Each of the three girls was also to share a legacy of 40s. that he had received from John Borne of Selling. Stace further directed that his brother, John (d.1474), was to have his murray gown, ‘laying at London’ (almost certainly the livery robe of the Ports which he had worn to Parliament), that his sons should receive small quantities of jewels and that his nephew, another John, should have items of clothing. His executors were to dispose of the remainder of his goods, employing the proceeds for the benefit of his soul. He appointed as his executors his eldest son, John, his nephew of the same name and Thomas Wode of Hythe.

With regard to his real property, Stace left most of his interests in Hythe (including his principal tenement there), Saltwood and ‘Pedling’ to his wife, Katherine; after she died they were to be divided between his two youngest sons with remainder to their elder brother. To his eldest son, he assigned a tenement at Hythe which he had purchased from the executors of Thomas Heghested and property in West Hythe. John was not, however, to receive the West Hythe lands until six years after his father’s death or until he got married. Should he die before either condition was met, they were to pass to his younger brothers. If he did succeed to them, John was to pay each of his brothers 20d. p.a. for a period of ten years after the MP’s death. Stace also left John all his fishing equipment, upon a similar condition that he provided for his brothers in cash. Finally, the testator instructed his executors to make estate to Thomas Brownyng of a property in Postling that he had by the enfeoffment of one of Brownyng’s kinsmen. After the witnesses had signed the will, Stace added one more bequest of £10 13s. 4d. to his widow. He died immediately after making it, for probate was granted at Canterbury the following day. The executors then returned to Hythe and made their final account for Stace’s maltolts, receiving a final payment in discharge the debts due to him for the various services he had rendered to the town.22 H 1058, f. 88.

Katherine Stace did not long outlive the MP. She made her own will on 1 June 1474, seeking burial beside her late husband and leaving small bequests for the high altar and fabric of St. Leonard’s and for ten obits. She also left money for lamps to be lit in the chapel of that parish’s fraternity of the Blessed Mary, which she had joined in 1472. Her final provision for her soul was her assignment of 33s. 4d. for a chaplain to celebrate masses for four years. The remainder of her will was concerned with the division of her goods and chattels among her three unmarried daughters and two youngest sons. She appointed these sons, Richard and Nicholas, and Richard Bernes of Hythe as her executors, and they received a grant of probate on the following 15 Feb.23 PRC 32/2, ff. 306v-7; H.B. Mackeson, Fraternity of the Blessed Mary at Hythe, 31. It is unclear whether it was the MP’s son John or his nephew of the same name who represented Hythe in the Parliament of 1478. Both Johns made their wills within days of each other in July 1479.24 Archaeologia Cantiana, li. 47-48.