BURTON, John II

A grocer, Burton appears to have numbered the well-known Paston family among his customers.2 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 368. He became a freeman of Norwich on 24 Aug. 1453, having served an apprenticeship under Thomas Catworth*, who appointed him one of his executors the following year.3 Norwich city recs., ‘Old Free bk.’, NCR 17c, f. 59; Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Kempe, f. 318v. He registered initially as a mercer, but this entry was altered and thereafter he features in the records as a grocer. Rising swiftly up the civic hierarchy, within the next ten years he served as constable, chamberlain and sheriff and became a common councillor and alderman.

Burton’s fellow citizens elected him to his only Parliament and to the office of chamberlain on the same day, 22 Sept. 1460. The Parliament was a dramatic one, since Richard, duke of York, used the occasion to assert his claim to the Crown of England. Shortly before Parliament opened Burton and his fellow MP, Edward Cutler*, sent a letter to Norwich, to ask the mayor to send them the city’s common seal. The reason for their request is unknown and it was not readily apparent to those citizens who considered it: they decided to discuss the matter further but to send the two men the mayor’s seal in the meantime.4 NCR 16d, f. 46v.

Burton began his term as one of the sheriffs of Norwich some 19 months after leaving Parliament. During his term in that office he and his associate, Richard Host†, became embroiled in a controversy with Thomas Pytte, a hatter from London, who alleged that they had wrongfully seized a quantity of worsted cloth from him, although they countered with the claim that their seizure was lawful, since it had taken place within their bailiwick. Later, in 1464, Burton was obliged to travel to London to defend a suit which Pytte had brought against him in the sheriffs’ court there, although he had the support of his fellow citizens, who undertook to cover the costs of his defence.5 Ibid. f. 59v.

There is some confusion as to Burton’s service as an alderman. According to the city’s assembly book, he attained that position in two wards, Wymer and Ultra Aquam, in March 1463 but this is evidently a scribal error.6 Ibid. f. 55v. As far as can be ascertained, in that year he was elected for Wymer, where he had served as a constable and common councillor, and where in 1457 he had helped to assess an aid intended to finance a force which the city was sending to the assistance of Great Yarmouth, then under threat from enemy naval attacks.7 Recs. Norwich ed. Hudson and Tingey, i. 404. In the following year, however, he was elected in place of the deceased Geoffrey Quincy as an alderman for Ultra Aquam, for which ward he was re-elected in 1465 but never again subsequently.8 NCR 16d, ff. 59v, 62, 66. The reason for the change of wards is not known, although it was possible for an alderman to represent a ward other than that in which he resided.9 Frost, 30. It is also puzzling that he was not re-elected after 1465, since the freemen of each ward nearly always endorsed the existing aldermen at the annual elections for that office.

Death is not an explanation, for Burton lived for several more years. He attended at least one assembly of the city’s St. George’s guild in 1468,10 Recs. Gild St. George, Norwich (Norf. Rec. Soc. ix), 59. and his fellow citizens selected him to arrange ‘stations’ (presumably tableaux) at Norwich’s Westwick and Friars Preachers’ gates in July 1469, as part of the preparations for a visit by the queen.11 NCR 16d, f. 78. By that date, Edward IV was in serious political trouble and the earl of Warwick took him prisoner in the following month. In East Anglia John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, took advantage of the political weakness of the Crown to lay claim to Caister castle near Great Yarmouth, then in the hands of the Pastons but once part of Sir John Fastolf’s estate. Raising a force of gentry, retainers and tenants, the duke put Caister under siege and sent a message to Norwich, requesting as many citizens as possible to come, out of their ‘own benevolence’, to his assistance. The civic authorities met on 20 Aug. to discuss the duke’s request. Perhaps temporizing, they decided to send Burton and William Henstead junior to Yarmouth to speak to him, and it is unclear whether any men from the city subsequently joined the siege.12 Ibid. f. 82. Burton was still alive in September 1471, but there is no evidence for his activities after this date.13 Norwich city recs., ct. roll 1461-83, NCR 1/19, m. 1. An Agnes Burton, widow, made her will in 1520, but it is unlikely that she had been the MP’s wife. He does not feature in the will, which in any case gives the impression that she was of insufficient substance to have married an alderman: Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct. Reg. Alblaster, ff. 45-46.