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an evil man and needy, having foolishly wasted the goods which were his, so that he is become overwhelmed in poverty and debts to many men and goes about any means of gaining goods, caring not how or from whom so long as he gets them.[63]The historian must of course be wary of such statements, yet this one seems to have some foundation, judging from other evidence as to Philip's financial difficulties. He had, at the time of the legal battle, a heavy financial commitment in the £112 he had contracted to pay the king annually for the farm of Lynn petty customs; and in 1391 he persuaded his father, who was retired, to reduce the rent that Philip paid him for various properties. Philip was allowed no role in local government after losing the custody case, and in 1385 was imprisoned for unspecified trespasses and disobediences, resisting arrest, and bending the town sergeant's mace. His sole surviving son became a cleric, and his daughter married a London man and was subsequently defrauded of her inheritance by Philip's widow.[64] As in the case of Philip Wyth and Richard Robert, political or other misdemeanours could end the careers of prominent families in their towns. Lynn's powerful Swerdestone dynasty ended with the disappearance of John junior about the time of the recurrence of the plague in 1361, and the disfranchisement and social excommunication of his brother Nicholas "sine aliqua gracia reconciliacionis imposterum" in 1380 for intriguing to obtain sacramental rites for St. Nicholas' chapel; the family is not heard of again. Jurat Walter de Dunton was similarly punished as an accomplice of Swerdestone; although reconciled in 1386, he was not permitted back into the council and his son never held more than a minor bureaucratic post.[65] John James and John Sudbury, former Ipswich office-holders, were disfranchised together in 1459, for breaking town ordinances and their freeman's oaths; we have no further specification, although both had been in various troubles in recent years, including James having been accused of minor embezzlement when chamberlain (1447/8) and Sudbury being ordered arrested and brought before the King's Council in 1453 (although he became coroner at Ipswich later that year).[66] The former appeared no more in the records, the latter only in death; neither's descendants had any role in borough government. Adam de Brandeston, once M.P. and deputy butler in Ipswich, was outlawed for felony about the time of his death (c.1362) and his lands escheated,[67] after which the surname is not seen in the town records. More often, however, personal fortunes were subject to the dangers of commerce: loss of merchandise through storms at sea, piracy, or confiscation by foreign governments, unprofitable ventures, or simply bad management. Ipswich bailiff Thomas Andrew mercer left no long will; it was necessary only to state that all his goods and chattels should be sold to pay his debts.[68] At Lynn the Merchant Gild allotted £30 annually to alms for members who had fallen into poverty, and even ran a crude insurance scheme. Edmund de Fransham, mayor 1374/5, was one recipient of such alms in 1386, his career possibly damaged by his participation in the violent attack on Bishop Despenser in 1377. Merchant and jurat William de Snoryng was another; he survived the Black Death only to be ruined by £100 damages awarded against him in a suit brought by Sir John de Gannok. A third was draper Philip de Staunford, chamberlain and jurat in the 1380s, who in 1396 was pardoned for failing to appear in suits of debt, totalling £43.6.8d, brought by various parties; he is not seen again until 1411, when receiving alms.[69] Grain-merchant Thomas Bubbe (jurat 1372-80) lost goods worth £73.6.8d in the general seizure of English merchandise in Prussia in 1385; in the following year the Merchant Gild paid out £20 to aid his release from debtor's prison, but too late to save his life.[70] James atte Brigge, twice chamberlain, does not appear in borough government after 1412 (despite his election as jurat in 1411) in which year he lost one shipment of merchandise to pirates and another to the raging sea.[71] The above were all individual misfortunes. At Yarmouth we see how the general economic environment damaged the ranks of the ruling families. At various times in the fifteenth century the king granted aid to the townsmen, in the shape of reduction of the fee farm and grants of money towards building a new, navigable port. This was the consequence of repeated complaints (1378, 1397, 1409, 1442, 1463, 1471, 1502) that the town's commerce had declined considerably from its level in the early fourteenth century, so that the financial obligations of the community could not be met, and some of the more substantial burgesses had left or were threatening to leave - even going so far as to pull down their houses to rebuild elsewhere - with the result that Yarmouth was considerably weakened as a coastal defence.[72] In the post-medieval period the decline was said to have begun with the Black Death, but in fact the plague had only worsened the situation, for the first plea for assistance was made in 1347. This petition blamed the French war - long periods of arrest and impressment of the ships of local merchants in peak trading seasons, and the losses of ships in royal service - and inclement weather for the depletion of its mercantile fleet.[73] Only a small portion of the once-proud fleet that proved itself at Sluys remained seaworthy, while other ships lay damaged on the beach, their owners too poor to repair them, it was claimed. Several named merchants, impoverished, had left town, including former bailiff Richard de Walsham, who had lost his ship and £200 in merchandise. Others of the the formerly leading townsmen were now much reduced in means, including members of the office-holding families of Child, Rose, and Catfield. John Perbroun, arguably the major figure in Yarmouth history in the first half of the fourteenth century, lost one of his ships in royal service; of his three sons, one entered the church, one was among those listed in 1347 as impoverished, and the third is seen only in the act of selling his father's property.[74] At Lynn the commercial opportunities of purveying and victualling royal forces were a factor in the rise of financiers John de Wesenham and Thomas de Melcheburn, but at Yarmouth these 'benefits' of the war were outweighed by the loss of shipping on which that town was more dependent. Yet even great wealth was no guarantee of the establishment of a powerful urban dynasty. Melcheburn's son Peter inherited his father's wealth but lived only three years longer than his father. Wesenham's son Hugh married into a Midlands gentry family and was himself knighted.[75] Neither family is found in borough government in the second half of the fourteenth century. Lynn merchant-mayors John de Burghard (d.1339) and Adam de Walsoken (d.1349) both left substantial property in Lynn, but the latter had only a daughter to inherit, whilst of the former's three sons one became a cleric, one had died by 1352, and of the third we hear nothing.[76] Available evidence suggests it to hold true for all towns studied here, with the possible exception of Yarmouth, that, as Martin concluded regarding Ipswich, "it seems to have been rare for a son to succeed his father in his interests in the town."[77] On the other hand, whilst Power's declaration that, in mid-fourteenth century conditions, "great men rose like meteors and, like meteors, disappeared into the night"[78] may hold true for men like Melcheburn and Wesenham, for most leading townsmen such a conclusion could only be the result of inadequate records or insufficient research. Old soldiers never die, they only fade away. Lynn jurat William Brycham left four adult sons, but they show no signs of their father's administrative and mercantile activities and, indeed, are barely visible in the records at all.[79] John de Couteshale was five times mayor of Lynn, frequently jurat 1342-71, grain-merchant and ship-owner, and personally owned much of the Jews Lane ward of which he was constable. His son Thomas inherited some of this property and also rose to the mayoralty, although he shows no signs of commercial activities; of Thomas' sons, one disappears entirely and another was a skinner who played no role in Lynn's administration.[80] John Pod, sometime bailiff, son of bailiff Alexander Pod, and veteran of Colchester's council (1398-1437) was one of the more prominent merchants of the town, dealing in a variety of goods. His son John junior, although tolerably wealthy, held no borough office and described himself in his will as a weaver; there is no sign that he added at all to the property left him by his father.[81] Thomas Stace, one of the most powerful of Ipswich's rulers,[82] was the son of a humble tailor and is known to have had 5 sons of his own. Of these: John was murdered in 1321 in the course of the political struggles focusing around his father; Thomas junior moved to Yarmouth (sitting as M.P. for that town in 1332) and his branch of the family gradually severed its ties with Ipswich and sank into relative obscurity in its new home; Henry disappears from the records; Nicholas remained in Ipswich and himself produced sons, but this branch was only of moderate means; Geoffrey served as bailiff and M.P. (but on nowhere near the scale of his father), spent more of his time getting into mischief and debt than trying to restore the family's fortunes, and left no known heirs.[83]
Created: July 30, 1998 | © Stephen Alsford, 1998-2003 |
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