BYGONE SUSSEX - online book

Essays, Sketches and Illustrations of bygone Sussex

	T HE records of the Corporation of Rye contain some interesting items as to the social and municipal life of that "ancient town" of the Cinque Ports. These records have not been printed in full, but a good calendar has been made for the historical MSS. Commission (XIIIth Report, Appendix, part IV). In the sixteenth century it was a place of commercial importance, though it was then complaining of decay. The Huguenots had a church there, but the refugees were not always of a desirable kind, although the majority of them made excellent citizens of the land to which they had fled in search of liberty of conscience. In 1569, John Pilfort, a Frenchman, who had been forbidden the town, ventured to return, and was thereupon placed in the pillory, and had "one of his ears nailed thereto." What his offence was, is not stated, but in the same year, James Fryes, glazier of Harlingen, in West