Family and Education

1st. s. of John Lynde (d.c.1399) of Canterbury by his w. Joan.1 m. (1) Joan (d. 21 Nov. 1417), da. of John Hacche of Canterbury by his w. Agnes;2 (2) Katherine, 2da.

Offices Held

Clerk of the jurats’ chamber, Canterbury June 1414-Mich. 1415; jurat Mich. 1414-16, 1418-20; city attorney in the common pleas June 1417-Mich. 1420, 1425-8; alderman of Burgate ward from Mich. 1418.3

Biography

By his will enrolled at Canterbury in March 1399, John Lynde left his house in Castle Street to be shared by his widow and four children. Henry, the elder of the two sons, was at that time not yet 15 years old; nevertheless, by November 1408 his career in the law had begun with his appearance as an attorney at the assizes held at Dartford. It would seem that he received his professional training from the Canterbury lawyer, John Sheldwich I*, with whom he was then associated; and while up at Westminster for his first Parliament in 1410 he acted on behalf of Sheldwich in obtaining the registration in the court of common pleas of a conveyance of property in Canterbury in which he himself figured as a trustee. Other references to Lynde show him engaged in activities for which a lawyer’s training and standing were appropriate. For example, in April 1412 he was named as an arbitrator in a local dispute, as chosen on behalf of the widow of a citizen of Canterbury in her suit with John Monyn*, esquire. Two years later the civic authorities appointed him clerk of the jurats’ chamber and paid him 20s. for writing up the financial accounts of the city, which from the time of his clerkship began to be set out in a more rational way than previously. Early in 1417 he took on the executorship of the will of Robert Raynhull, vicar of St. Cross, Westgate. From June that same year he assumed the role of Canterbury’s attorney in the common bench, for which he was to receive an annual fee of £1 6s.8d.; and, during his third Parliament a few months later, he was also kept busy preparing the city’s plea against the abbot of St. Augustine’s, a task involving considerable study and labour, which earned him a reward of 10s. On later occasions, as in 1418-19 and 1424-6, he received expenses for his work in the central courts on matters concerning Canterbury’s charters. Meanwhile, in December 1418, when he had witnessed a deed for the prior of Christ Church, he had been expressly described as ‘literatus’. Lynde’s clients were not drawn exclusively from Canterbury: he appeared at the Exchequer in February 1427 as surety for Geoffrey Lowther^†, lieutenant warden of the Cinque Ports, and John Darell*, steward of Archbishop Chichele’s estates, for their custodianship of the manor of St. Lawrence on the Isle of Thanet, and when, in May following, Lowther and Darell relinquished the lease to Lynde’s fellow mainpernor, Thomas Wykes*, he was again present to provide securities on behalf of the new lessee.4

Little is known about Lynde’s property holdings, although in 1426 he had acquired a messuage and land in Chislet, a few miles from Canterbury. In his will he asked that his executors sell all his stock, alive or dead, together with any chattels not otherwise designated, and all his lands in Kent so that his widow might have £40 and his two young daughters £20 each for their marriages. Lynde made the will on 26 Oct. 1427 during the first session of the Parliament to which he had recently been elected. There is no date of probate, and no evidence to show whether or not he was able to attend the rest of that session or indeed the second one, which was dissolved on 25 Mar. following. He asked to be buried in St. Mildred’s church, Canterbury, near his parents’ tomb, where masses were to be said not only for their souls, but also for those of his first wife and her parents. He named as a supervisor of the testament his then companion in the Commons, John Sheldwich II.5 Among Lynde’s executors was his nephew John Bolde, a notary public who, having risen to be a member of Archbishop Chichele’s household, was to name his uncle Henry in his own will in 1442 as one of those for whom two non-beneficed clerks studying at Oxford were to offer prayers.6 Another of Henry’s nephews, John Lynde^† (son of his brother John), became Canterbury’s first mayor in 1448.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. Canterbury Cathedral, City and Diocesan RO, burghmote reg. O/A1, f. 18d.
• 2. W.D. Belcher, Kentish Brasses, ii. 24.
• 3. Canterbury accts. FA1, ff. 111, 114, 115d, 126d, 131, 133d, 137, 139, 173d, 180d; A/C/1, f. 1.
• 4. JUST 1/1521 m. 48; CP25(1)112/273/489; CCR, 1409-13, p. 353; Reg. Chichele, ii. 120; Bib. Top. Brit. i. 382-3; CFR, xv. 160, 172; FA1, ff. 114, 126d, 137, 170, 174d.
• 5. CP25(1)114/299/130; Canterbury consist. ct. wills, 1, f. 19.
• 6. Canterbury consist. ct. Reg. G, f. 254; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, i. 212.