Person Page - 687

William Saket, of Southborough, St Peter in Thanet, Kent, was born presumably in the late 1200s. He appears in records dating from 1317, 1318, and 1327.
     William is the earliest Sackett so far discovered. In 1317, he was one of a number of tenants of the Abbot of St Augustine. The tenants refused to recognize a court convened by the abbot on 8 October 1317 to hear charges of lawbreaking. Each of the men was fined ten shillings and each was to supply a horse or cow as surety for payment.
     A regular biannual court of the King’s lathe of St Augustine had been held for centuries and, although the abbot had the right to convene a special court, this was not approved by the tenants. Their action in refusing to recognize the court was vindicated when Ralph, Abbot of St Augustine, and his bailiff Michael Baskerville were summoned before the Justices of Eyre to answer for unlawfully distraining from each of several tenants of the abbot either a horse or a cow as surety for fines imposed upon them.
     The Justices determined that the horses and cows must be returned to their owners and the fines were cancelled.¹
     In the following year, 1318, William Saket was included in a list of borsholders of Southborough.²
     The duties of a borsholder, or constable, included:

• ensuring the upkeep of means of punishment such as stocks and a cage
• inspecting alehouses and suppressing gaming-houses
• apprenticing pauper children
• supervising the settlement or removal of itinerant strangers and beggars
• seeing to the welfare of the poor
• collecting the county rate and acting as agent for the collection of special national taxes
• managing the parish economy
• supervising the military arms supply and the provision of training for the local militia
• convening parish meetings
• assisting the churchwarden in presenting those parishioners who did not attend church regularly
• caring for the parish bull
• helping at shipwrecks

     Not surprisingly, in view of the wide-ranging and onerous nature of these duties, the position of constable was not welcomed by parishioners whose turn it was to be appointed and there was a widespread practice of paying someone else to do the job.
     In 1327, William Saket (presumably the same William) and John Saket were "assessed for considerable sums" on the subsidy roll of the Ringslow Hundred.^3,4

John Saket, of Thanet, Kent, was born presumably in the late 1200s. He was listed in the 1327 Subsidy Roll of the Hundred of Ringslow when William Saket and John Saket were "assessed for considerable sums."¹

John Sakett, of Sandwich, Kent, was born presumably in the late 1300s. In his will made on St Thomas's Day (21 December) 1444, he left £5 to buy three ornamental altar cloths for the side altars in St Peter's Church, Sandwich.¹

Thomas Sakett, of Minster in Thanet, Kent, was born in the early 1400s. He died after 14 January 1473/74 when he made his will at Minster. The will was proved at the Archdeaconry Court, Canterbury, but the probate date is not recorded. The will names his wife, Alice.
     Thomas left his lands and tenement to his wife Alice until his children had attained the age of 20. The will mentions his eldest son Thomas and two other sons, William and John. Also mentioned are two brothers: John Sakett and Helbe Sakett. Thomas's wife Alice and Hugo Sakett were appointed executors of the will.¹
     An Alice Sakett made her will at St Peter in Thanet on 13 July 1476. She died before 6 November 1476, when the will was proved at the Archdeaconry Court.²
     She was presumably the widow of a Sakett, but whether this was Thomas Sakett is not clear. They made their wills at different places, he at Minster in Thanet, and she at St Peter in Thanet. However, there is mention of St Peter in Thanet in Thomas's will, and he may have had lands there. Although he made his will at Minster, and requested to be buried there, he had a tenement at "Nich", taken to be St Nicholas at Wade, and had other scattered land holdings, the whereabouts of which have not been identified. His will provided that, should reversion to his brothers John and Helbe become effective, they were to make payments to the churches of Minster, St Nicholas at Wade, and St Peter in Thanet, thus establishing a connection with St Peter, where Alice made her will. Thomas's appointment of Hugo Sakett as an executor with Alice provides a further link with St Peter in Thanet as Hugo made his will there a few years later.
     There is a mismatch in the wills in the names of the beneficiaries. Thomas's will named his sons, Thomas, William, and John. Alice's will named John and Solomon, but it is not clear whether these were her sons. The John in Alice's will may have been the same as Thomas's son or Thomas's brother, or another John Sakett.

Thomas's will
Alice's will

Solomon Sakett, of St Peter in Thanet, Kent, was born in the mid-1400s. He died between November 1490 when he made his will and February 1490/91 when the will was proved. He married Joane ___.
     Solomon was named as a beneficiary in the will of 1476 of Alice Sakett of St Peter in Thanet (see Thomas Sakett.) He was also named as a beneficiary in the will of 1479 of Hugo Sakett of St Peter in Thanet, and was named in the will of the same year of John Sakett, smith of St Peter in Thanet.
     Solomon made his will at St Peter in Thanet^G in November 1490.¹
     His will gives an interesting insight into the feudal system of land tenure in the late middle ages.
     The will refers to feoffees, effectively trustees, who held the land in their names for the benefit of the landholder appointing them. This legal device allowed the avoidance of some feudal dues, particularly on inheritance, and allowed a landholder to leave his land to anyone, not only to his eldest son.
     Solomon's feoffees were required to sell land at Solys Hill, paying the money to his executors to cover his debts and bequests, and also to enfeoff (transfer ownership of) two acres of land at Solys Hill to Thomas Spraclyng.
     At this period, transfers of tangible property, i.e. land and buildings, had to take place not by a document but by an act representing the passing of property. A key in the case of buildings or a turf in the case of land would be handed over in the presence of witnesses. This handing over would then be documented in a feoffment, this document being not the instrument of transfer itself but merely a record that the transfer had taken place.
     He left his tenement and the bulk of his lands to his wife, but ordered his executors to sell land at Solys Hill to cover his debts and bequests and to transfer two acres to Thomas Sprakling. The only Sackett mentioned in Solomon's will is Robert Sakett of St Peter in Thanet, who witnessed the will. A Margaret Sprakling, a minor, was evidently living with Solomon and Joane in 1490 and she is named as a beneficiary in the wills of both Solomon and Joane.
     Solomon's widow Joane made her will at St Peter in Thanet^G on 31 March 1501.² Her will is noteworthy for the care with which she distributed her household and personal effects. She made bequests to several Spraklings, including Thomas who was one of her executors and was to receive "a brasse pott, a ketill", other household items and "iii shepe", and Margaret to whom she willed, amongst other things, "a nother brasse pott" and her "best clok".
     From their wills, Solomon and Joane would appear to have been childless.

Solomon's will
Joane's will

Richard Sackett, of St Peter in Thanet, Kent, son of Robert Sakett of St Peter in Thanet and Joan ___, was born probably before 1477.² He died between October 1548 (when he made his will) and March 1549 (will proved.) He married Margaret ___.
     Richard was named as a beneficiary in his father's will made at St Peter in Thanet on 22 November 1498. Richard is assumed to have been Robert’s eldest son as he was left his land and tenement, subject to the use of half being retained by Richard's mother Joan while she remained unmarried. Richard's inheritance was also conditional upon his paying to his brother John £1 each year for five years.¹
     Richard made his will at St Peter in Thanet^G on 12 October 1548, naming as beneficiaries his wife Margaret and a cousin John Sackett.³ The will was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury, Kent^G, on 21 March 1549.³ Margaret was left half his lands for her lifetime, with reversion to cousin John Sackett, and the residue of his goods after bequests of barley to unnamed godchildren, £1 in money or goods to his servant Joan Bennet, and sums of 3s 4d to Katherine Allyne and 12d to each of John Walter and John Spracklyne. It is presumed that Katherine Allyne was Richard’s sister. John Walter may have been his brother-in-law, married to his sister Alice (she was named as Alice Walter in her father’s will), or he may have been a son of Alice's. Cousin John Sackett was probably John Sakett, son of William Sakett of the 1498 will.⁴
     A "Richard Sackete the elder" is named as a witness to the will, made in 1545, of Richard Saket, husbandman of St Peter's. On that scant evidence it is deduced that this Richard and the Richard of the 1545 will were father and son, the son predeceasing the father by three years. This would explain the omission of a son Richard from the father's will. (Against this deduction, however, is the fact that the elder Richard did not provide in his will for John and Margery, the children of Richard the younger—an unlikely omission had these indeed been his young grandchildren who had lost their father just three years earlier.)
     Richard's widow Margaret made her wiill at St Peter in Thanet^G on 28 December 1551.⁵ She made a number of bequests to godchildren (it is not known whether these were family members) and left the residue of her estate to John Sackett who she also appointed as her executor. This would have been the same John Sackett who was described as "cousin John Sackett" in her husband Richard's will.

Richard's will
Margaret's will