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HORNE, Henry, of Horne's Place in Appledore, Kent.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
m. ?1s. Robert†, 1da.
Offices Held
Commr. of array, Kent Jan. 1400, Nov. 1403, May 1406, Apr. 1418; sewers Jan. 1400, Kent, Suss. Dec. 1401, June 1407, Kent Oct. 1415, Kent, Suss. June 1421, May 1429; to survey Winchelsea, Suss. May 1400; raise royal loans, Kent Jan. 1420.
Tax collector, Kent Mar. 1404.
Sheriff, Kent 22 Nov. 1406-23 Nov. 1407.
Biography
This MP’s family had been settled for many generations at Horne’s Place in Appledore. He was the kinsman and heir of William Horne, a former j.p., who had once obtained permission from Archbishop Langham to hear mass privately in his oratory at Appledore; and, in 1401, following William’s death, which occurred some time in the previous decade, he appeared at the Exchequer as his relative’s executor and tenant of his lands, to swear an oath that the deceased had never received a certain royal commission addressed to him. The landed holdings Horne thus acquired were to provide him with an annual income of £40, as later assessed for the purposes of taxation. He had probably inherited Horne’s Place by 1392, for in that year he rode to New Romney for discussions with the town authorities respecting a bridge known as ‘Horne’s bridge’ across the once navigable channel linking Appledore to Romney, ten miles away. It would appear that the channel, long dried up, had recently been filled in, so rendering the bridge unnecessary, for in the following year the jurats and commonalty of the Port paid for it to be dismantled. Horne’s interest in waterways is further suggested by his appointment to a number of royal commissions whose task was to survey the ditches and streams of the region for the removal of obstructions.1
During the 1390s Horne became involved in a number of minor disputes in the locality. In February 1391 he acted as a surety for the parson of the nearby parish of Warehorne, but five months later he himself was bound over in £200 to conduct himself peaceably towards another neighbour, William Capel. His quarrel with Capel was soon patched up, to the extent that his adversary later asked him to witness certain of his transactions. Yet local unrest continued, for in 1393 two other inhabitants of Warehorne called on Horne to stand bail for them, and in 1396 the prior of Dover secured his arrest, on charges of having made threats against him, his servants and tenants. However, there is no hint of further trouble thereafter.2 At the parliamentary elections held in Kent in September 1399, Horne appeared as mainpernor for John Freningham, shortly to be made a member of the Council of the new King, Henry IV. It may not have been a coincidence that his earliest appointment to a royal commission occurred within two months of Freningham’s promotion. Following his single term as sheriff of Kent (in the course of which he conducted the elections to the Parliament of 1407), Horne’s career was uneventful save for his continued, albeit sporadic, service in shire administration. He is not recorded alive after the spring of 1434—having been then listed among the gentry of Kent required to take the general oath not to maintain malefactors—although in 1440 his name was mentioned in connexion with his one-time trusteeship of certain estates formerly belonging to Sir William Brenchesle, the judge.3
Horne evidently left issue in the persons of Robert Horne (d.1461), the distinguished soldier, and Joan, the wife of Sir William Haute (eldest son of William Haute* and Joan Wydeville).4