BISHOP, John IV

A clerk in Chancery who necessarily spent much of his time at Westminster, Bishop came to Colchester to augment his income by trading there as a clothier.10 R. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 210. He appears to have settled in the town in the first half of the 1450s. A royal pardon of November 1452 refers to him as of St. Andrew’s Holborn, Middlesex, and ‘late of Westminster’,11 C67/40, m. 4. while it was as ‘of Colchester’ and ‘lately of’ St. Andrew’s Holborn and London that he received another such pardon in May 1456.12 C67/41, m. 2. Given the wording and dates of these pardons, it seems safe to assume that he was the John Bishop admitted to the freedom of the borough in 1453-4. If so, he was from southern England, for this John was a native of Southbourne, a name shared by two parishes, one in Hampshire the other in Sussex.13 Colchester bor. recs., ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 95d.

We can only speculate why Bishop chose to settle in Colchester, although an urban environment offered more opportunities to live as a ‘gentleman’,14 Britnell, 210. and no doubt it was easier to establish himself in trade there than in London. It is also likely that marriage and, possibly, family connexions played a part. Joan, the first wife mooted for him in the cursus above, was probably a Colchester woman. She features in the will that Katherine, daughter and heir of John Christian† of Colchester and widow of Nicholas Peek* of that town, made in 1465, as does her husband, John Bishop, presumably the MP, whom Katherine referred to as her ‘cousin’ and appointed to oversee the work of her executors.15 PCC 12 Godyn. Depending on how one interprets the term ‘cousin’, Bishop may have chosen to take up residence at Colchester because he had relatives there. If Joan was indeed the MP’s wife, she predeceased her husband, for late in life Bishop married Margaret, widow of John Noke. In either 1484 or 1485, the couple, then man and wife, began a Chancery suit in association with Richard Christmas of Colchester, she in her capacity as Noke’s widow and executrix. The purpose of their bill was to secure reimbursement of a sum that Christmas and Noke had put up on behalf of the defendant, John Denham, during a lawsuit in the borough court at Colchester in which Denham had likewise been the defendant. According to the Bishops and Christmas, the bailiffs at the time of the Colchester suit were Richard Markes† and Thomas Smith. Markes and Smith were joint bailiffs in 1479-80, so Bishop must have married Margaret at some stage after that date.16 C1/59/79.

The records of a lawsuit heard in the court of common pleas at Westminster in the later 1460s indicate that Bishop continued to work in the Chancery after moving to Colchester, for over another decade if not for the rest of his life. In pleadings of Trinity term 1467, the plaintiff, a London mercer named Thomas Hurst, claimed that Bishop had entered into a couple of bonds with him, securities for the payment of 64s. 1d., as far back as March 1448. According to Hurst, Bishop had failed to honour his undertaking to pay this sum, save for a derisory penny, on the days given to him, and that 64s. was still due almost two decades later. Bishop responded by claiming that he had not put his name to any bonds. He and Hurst agreed to refer the matter to a jury but a marginal note on the plea roll indicates that (for whatever reason) the case never came to trial. The roll refers to Bishop as a clerk of Chancery (but without making it clear whether he already held that office in March 1448) and as ‘lately of Colchester’, even though he was very much of that town, as a councillor and alderman, when the case came to pleadings. As for the bonds, the pleadings do not explain the reason for them. Assuming they arose from a commercial transaction, and given that Hurst was a mercer, it may be that Bishop had begun to dabble in the cloth trade before becoming a burgess of Colchester.17 CP40/824, rot. 338.

It would appear that Bishop was an attorney-at-law as well as a Chancery clerk when Hurst brought his suit, since a John Bishop was an attorney at Westminster, for parties in suits emanating from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex, in both the common pleas and King’s bench in the later 1460s and first half of the following decade.18 CP40/819, rot. 332; KB27/850, rot. 45, att. rots. 1, 2; 858, att. rot. 1d; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 3. There is good reason to suppose this was the MP, since the household books of (Sir) John Howard*, constable of Colchester castle and a property owner in the borough, show that he employed ‘Byshop’ as an attorney in the mid 1460s.19 Howard Household Bks. ed. Crawford, i. 469-70.

After moving to Colchester, Bishop became one of the town’s leading clothiers, occurring as a major seller of cloth in alnage accounts of the 1460s and 1470s.20 Britnell, 210; E101/343/4-6, 9-11. As such, he had dealings with John Mowbray, 4th duke of Norfolk, presumably a customer, although these were not without their difficulties. In 1473 the duke and two of his retainers, Sir William† and Sir Robert Brandon†, began separate actions of trespass in King’s bench against him and several cloth-makers from Colchester. The cause of this litigation is unknown, since these suits, which do not feature in subsequent plea rolls, appear not to have progressed to pleading.21 KB27/848, rot. 2. Few of Colchester’s merchants dealt in just one commodity, and it is possible that Bishop traded in wine as well as cloth, since John Howard, by then Lord Howard, bought wine from ‘Jhon Bischopp’ and his wife in the early 1480s.22 VCH Essex, ix. 243; Howard Household Bks. ii. 143, 371.

There is very little evidence for Bishop’s real property at Colchester, although he did hold a tenement in East Street that had once belonged to William Stokes. Elsewhere in the town, he appears to have encroached on land not belonging to him. In 1455, a local jury charged him with having enclosed a field (‘Netherkellefeld’) and keeping too many sheep on a common pasture, and he was to face like accusations of overgrazing on subsequent occasions. He may have acquired property elsewhere in Essex, for in 1453 William Abell conveyed certain lands in Ardleigh and Elmstead, both parishes near Colchester, to John Bishop and several associates, among them the lawyers Thomas Urswyk II* and John Green III*, to hold to them and Bishop’s heirs.23 Ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr66, mm. 1, 2d, 11d; 73, m. 27; 74, m. 24d; 80, mm. 10, 19d; 81, m. 21; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 48.

Bishop began his career as an office-holder in Colchester upon becoming a councillor there in 1458. He gained election to his first Parliament in the following year, and he was re-elected in 1460. His inside knowledge of Westminster must have recommended him as a useful representative to have in the Commons in such politically troubled times. The name of his fellow MP in the Parliament of 1460 is unrecorded, and it is possible that he himself sat in more than two assemblies, since the names of the borough’s representatives in several Parliaments between 1460 and 1484 have not survived. In all, Bishop served five terms as bailiff of Colchester. On 1 Aug. 1469, late in his second term in the office, he and his fellow bailiff, William Foorde*, received a letter from one or more noblemen ‘for their thanke after Banbery felde’ (the battle of Edgcote fought on 26 July that year), although the service the two bailiffs or the borough had performed is unknown. It was probably also during this second term that another burgess, Peter Berwyk, took action against Bishop for abuse of office. In a bill submitted to the Chancery, Berwyk claimed that a one-time servant of his had entered service with the MP, who had then prompted the man to sue his former master for debt in the borough court. He complained that he could expect no justice, since Bishop was hearing the suit in his capacity as bailiff. Bishop completed his last term as bailiff in 1483 and was still an administrator in the borough when Henry VII came to the throne. He may have continued to hold office there after 1485, although the loss of Colchester’s court rolls for Henry VII’s reign makes this impossible to establish.24 Ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr66, m. 1; 67, m. 1; Red Ppr. Bk. Colchester ed. Benham, 4; C1/11/530. Presumably, John Bishop ‘alias Sadeler’, a man active in Colchester in Hen. VII’s reign, was a namesake. He was probably the John Bishop who lived in St. Runwald’s parish: ‘Oath bk.’, f. 113d; Mercers’ Co., London, St. Paul’s school cart., ff. 233v-234; Stowe 828, f. 101v.