BERMYNGEHAM, Henry

A royal pardon that Henry received in 1462 shows that he was a native of Birmingham, Warwickshire.12 C67/45, m. 21. It is likely that he adopted the surname ‘Bermyngeham’ after taking up residence in Norfolk, since it was as ‘Henry Sporyour’ that he became a burgess of Lynn in 1431-2, having served an apprenticeship under John Mariot.13 Cal. Freemen Lynn, 39. A merchant, he had trading interests in northern Europe: in the early 1440s he was one of 24 merchants from Lynn who complained about illegal charges and extortions imposed on them by the king of Denmark’s officials, prompting the corporation to appoint envoys to negotiate with that king.14 KL/C 7/3, f. 153v. Customs accounts of the late 1460s and early 1470s show that he imported considerable quantities of fish and exported woollen cloth,15 E122/97/8, mm. 1d, 3; 9, m. 1; 13, m. 2. but it is likely that he dealt in other commodities as well.

Bermyngeham began his career as a local office-holder a few years after becoming a freeman of Lynn, where he served as a chamberlain, council member and mayor. Throughout his career as a burgess, Bermyngeham also performed numerous tasks not necessarily connected with any particular office. For example, in 1437 he was among those assigned to supervise building work at Lynn’s south gates, in the late 1440s he took part in negotiations with the borough’s feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich, and on several occasions in the 1450s and 1460s he arbitrated in disputes connected with property in the town.16 KL/C 7/3, ff. 78, 224, 260; KL/C 7/4, pp. 82-83, 131, 229; deed, KL/C 50/224. He also helped to site guns for Lynn’s defence in January 1461, a measure deemed necessary by the corporation in the disordered final months of Henry VI’s reign. In the same month, he helped to raise money from the borough’s inhabitants to pay for troops that the King had demanded from their community, a local tax to which he himself was obliged to contribute 10s. Eight years later, he was among the burgesses whom the mayor, William Pilton*, consulted about how to receive Edward IV, should he visit Lynn.17 KL/C 7/4, pp. 145, 146-7, 264.

Bermyngeham was probably of greatest service to his borough as an MP, since he represented it in the Commons on no fewer than seven occasions. After sitting in three Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign, including the dramatic assemblies of November 1449 and 1460, he next gained election in 1461. Initially the electors of Lynn had chosen Henry Thoresby* and William Caus† to represent them, but the Parliament, which was to have opened in the summer of that year, was postponed to allow the new King to deal with his Lancastrian opponents in northern England. The borough held a fresh election in September 1461, electing Bermyngeham and Walter Cony*, but the assembly was postponed yet again and Bermyngeham and Simon Pygot* were returned at a third election held the following month. The corporation entrusted its charters to the two men before they set out for Parliament, instructing them to obtain a confirmation of the borough’s liberties.18 Ibid. pp. 159, 162, 167, 168. Bermyngeham also sat in three later Parliaments, and he was the mayor when elected to those of 1467 and 1472.

Apart from serving in Parliament, Bermyngeham represented his borough in at least two meetings of the King’s council in 1458, called to discuss naval and mercantile affairs. The Crown must have respected his advice, since eight years earlier it had sent him to Prussia as one of its envoys to treat with the Hanseatic League. The object of the embassy, to which Master Thomas Kent, a lawyer and clerk of the council, and the London merchant, John Stokker, were also appointed, was to restore friendly relations with the League following the seizure by English ships of the huge Hanseatic salt fleet the previous year. Before departing, Bermyngeham and Stokker joined with several other English merchants in advancing £400 towards the costs of the mission. To repay the loan, the Crown excused them and their fellow lenders from paying customs or subsidies for merchandise they shipped to Prussia from several English ports, although the Crown afterwards repaid Bermyngeham the £42 he had lent from customs and subsidies collected in Southampton and London. He departed for Prussia on 16 July 1450, ahead of his fellows who delayed in London while Kent searched for relevant correspondence from the Grand Master of Prussia. By the time Kent and Stokker finally departed a safe conduct which Lübeck, one of the Hanseatic towns, had issued to them had expired. Consequently, when privateers from Bergen captured the ship conveying them and took it to Lübeck, the authorities in that city (which had suffered heavy losses in the English attack on the salt fleet) had a valid excuse for imprisoning them. There is no record of Bermyngeham’s whereabouts in the meantime, but he arrived back at the English court on 10 Mar. 1451 to report on his mission. He had been away for 238 days and was allowed daily wages of 10s., meaning that his total wage bill came to £119. He had received an advance of £26 15s. 6d. before leaving England, so he was owed £92 4s. 6d., which the Exchequer paid to him in June 1453.19 Ibid. pp. 107, 116; E101/324/18; E364/86, rot. F; J. Ferguson, English Diplomacy, 100, 102; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 330, 419; CCR, 1447-54, p. 148; E403/793, m. 8. Ferguson mistakenly states that Bermyngeham arrived home in 1452 and that he received the balance of his wages in June the same year. Bermyngeham also took part in a diplomatic mission in Edward IV’s reign, for in April 1464 he, Richard Caunton, archdeacon of Salisbury, Dr. Henry Sharp and Walter Cony, received a commission to negotiate a treaty with the League and to treat with the king of Denmark. The intended meeting or diet was to have taken place at Hamburg the following midsummer, but an outbreak of plague there and political problems in the Baltic led to a postponement. By that stage, the English envoys had travelled as far as Utrecht, where they waited for several weeks before returning home. For their services Caunton and Sharp, the leaders of the mission, received daily expenses of 20s.; Bermyngeham and Cony were paid at half that rate. A new diet was called for July the following year, and on 11 June 1465 Bermyngeham and two other members of the previous embassy, Sharp and Cony, were commissioned to travel to Hamburg with James Goldwell, dean of Salisbury, and (Sir) John Cheyne II*. As with the previous embassy, they had the authority to treat with the king of Denmark, although the Crown also gave them the power to conclude a treaty with the king of Poland as well. Again, things did not go entirely to plan since the envoys were still in England on 13 July and difficulties between them and the League’s representatives soon arose when they finally reached Hamburg in September. A committee of learned men who could converse in Latin helped to solve the first of these, the language barrier, but the second, namely the demands of Lübeck and Bremen for immediate compensation for injuries that their merchants had suffered at the hands of the English, proved insurmountable. This was because Bermyngeham and his fellows lacked the authority to discuss that matter, even though they were empowered to sign a peace treaty. All attempts at compromise failed and the diet broke up in early October, although the English party did not return home completely empty handed, since they did manage to conclude a treaty of alliance with representatives of the king of Denmark.20 Scofield, i. 327-83, 390-2; C76/148, m. 11; 149, m. 18; P. Chaplais, English Med. Diplomatic Practice, ii. nos. 56-58.

As his Membership of his last three Parliaments testifies, Bermyngeham remained active in his later years. Still on the 24 at Michaelmas 1475, he was no longer on this council (whose members normally served for life) a year later, suggesting that he had died in the meantime. There is no record of any wife or children, and the only evidence for his property interests are some accounts of Lynn’s Holy Trinity guild, which show that from the 1460s he paid it a small annual quit rent for a tenement in Chequer Street.21 King’s Lynn bor. recs., accts. scabins Trin. guild 1463-4, 1467-9, 1474-5, KL/C 38/20-23. He was probably a member of the guild, which in 1458 conveyed (no doubt in trust) to him and other burgesses a mill at South Lynn that the borough had acquired from Thomas, Lord Scales.22 King’s Lynn deeds, KL/C 50/573-4.