WESTBOURNE, John

As a young man, in 1434 Westbourne was fined 5s. for cutting down trees in Sir John Pelham’s wood at Wilting near Hastings.4 Lathe Ct. Rolls (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxxvii), 136. In the years before he entered Sir John’s service as steward of his estates, he received some training in the law, and in the late 1440s he occasionally appeared as an attorney in Sussex suits brought in King’s bench, and was called ‘of London, gentleman’ when a mainpernor in the court of common pleas in 1447.5 KB27/747, att. rot. 1; 752, rot. 64; CP40/745, rot. 323. That he was qualified by residence to represent Hastings in the Parliament assembled in November 1449 is indicated by his claim to be a baron of the Port and therefore exempt from payment of fifteenths and tenths in respect of his moveable goods in the vill of Salehurst. The claim had been made shortly before his return to the Commons, in September that year. He continued to seek exemption into the 1460s.6 E179/189/96; 229/154. Following the dissolution of the Parliament at Leicester in June 1450, Westbourne attended the Brodhull held at New Romney on 21 July, as one of three deputies from Hastings. His fellow MP, John Clyve*, did likewise, no doubt so that they might together make a detailed report to the assembly about the business of that eventful Parliament.7 White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 26.

This was the only occasion that Westbourne represented Hastings either in Parliament or at a Brodhull. In fact, his next appearance in the Commons, in the immediately succeeding Parliament (meeting from November that same year until May 1451), was as a representative of another Sussex borough, East Grinstead. The county itself was represented by Robert Poynings*, subsequently held to have been sword-bearer to the rebel Jack Cade, whose rising in the summer of 1450 had caused turmoil throughout the south-east. Before the Parliament ended Poynings had been incarcerated in the Tower of London. These were troubled times, and like Poynings Westbourne got caught up in the serious unrest in their home county, either at the time of Cade’s rebellion, or soon afterwards. As a yeoman ‘of Hollington’ (some two miles from Hastings) he eventually received a royal pardon on 14 Oct. 1451, exonerating him from any treasons, felonies and trespasses he had committed, and of any consequent outlawries and forfeitures. But this pardon had its price: it was granted only after Westbourne had submitted personally to the King on his visit to Chichester on the previous 12 July. Stripped to the waist, he had publically prostrated himself on the ground as Henry walked through the city.8 CPR, 1446-52, p. 508.

Westbourne recovered from this ignominy by Michaelmas term 1455, when John Devenish*, the former sheriff of Sussex, named him as his attorney in the Exchequer of pleas, and by 1460 a much more prominent lawyer, Thomas Hoo, was employing him as a bailiff.9 E13/146, rot. 29; KB29/92, rot. 11d. After Edward IV came to the throne his fortunes recovered further. He appeared as a juror at a court at Ore in 1461, and as ‘of Hastings, gentleman’ he stood pledge for Thomas Etchingham, one of the most important landowners in east Sussex, when he brought a suit in Chancery.10 Lathe Ct. Rolls, 202; Genealogist, xxi. 137; C1/29/41. Within a few years Sir John Pelham made him his steward. This was a role he continued to fill until 1480 or later, and in the meantime, in January 1471, Pelham called on him to witness his will.11 Add. Ch. 30433.

The date of Westbourne’s death is not known. It is likely that he was the father of Thomas Westbourne of Salehurst, who died in 1488 leaving his property in Robertsbridge to his sons John and Thomas.12 PCC 9 Milles (PROB11/8, f. 78).