Family and Education

m. bef. 1415, Joan, da. and h. of John Symond (d.1412) of Mersham, Kent, ?1da.

Offices Held

Mayor, Sandwich Dec. 1418-19; jurat 1420-1, 1420-1, 1423-4 1427-8, 1432-3, 1437-46.1

Biography

In 1412, Halle’s wife inherited two acres of land at Mersham. But at the same time he himself was found liable to honour a bond in £57 made to the King many years earlier by her father on behalf of the bailiff of Hythe, who had broken the terms of his bail. In 1415 Halle was obliged to procure a royal pardon of this sum, a pardon which he had to produce as late as 1430 in answer to the Exchequer’s repeated demands for the money.2 By this marriage Halle may have had a daughter, Joan, who married Thomas Horne, for when he sold Horne a tenement in 1431, 20 marks of the purchase price were assigned to Joan ‘ad suum maritagium’; and Halle later declined payment of the remaining sum—£22 6s.8d.3

In January 1435 Halle had to give a bond to two jurats of Sandwich, to pay his share of the expenses (incurred during his mayoralty several years earlier) of the town’s suit to have its mayors discharged from accounting at the Exchequer for the forfeited goods of felons and fugitives. He represented the Port at Brodhulls in July 1439 and April 1442.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: A. P.M. Wright

Notes

• 1. Kent AO, St. John’s hosp. reg. ff. 10, 14, 18, 21; Sandwich deeds Sa/TB1/20; Sandwich Black bk. ff. 38, 46, 50, 52, 56, 59d, 63, 66, 69, 73d.
• 2. E368/202 m. 5.
• 3. Sandwich Black bk. f. 17.
• 4. Ibid. f. 21d; White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 12, 15.