CHURCH, John II

Church was a fuller by trade and one who, according to a petition made on his behalf by the fellow burgesses of his native borough, ended his life in penury. The petitioners put his age at over 80 in 1453 but here they were probably guilty of striving for effect. Since the parliamentary representation of Northampton and the office of bailiff there were the virtual monopoly of the younger townsmen, Church is most unlikely to have been approaching 50 when he served, in quick succession, in both capacities. His term as bailiff led him into litigation in Chancery. John Mounsews accused him and his fellow bailiff, John Makesey*, of a serious abuse of office. After arresting him at the suit of the mayor, John Spriggy†, they allegedly took not only a ‘graund fyn’ to release him to mainprise but also surety in £40 with a verbal condition that he would keep his day in court. Further, although he duly appeared in King’s bench, they threatened to arrest him and his sureties. Since one of these was the town’s former MP, John Baldeswell*, and William Tresham* stood as pledge for the prosecution of the petition, Mounsews appears too well connected to be treated with impunity in this cavalier fashion, but there is nothing to show if he gained redress.2 C1/7/34.

Church makes only few other appearances in the records. In Trinity term 1428 he offered surety for a chaplain of Coventry indicted for felony; in 1430 he sued a husbandman for taking his trees and depasturing his grass at Hardingstone, just south of Northampton; and in 1439 he is recorded as holding a tenement near the bridge at Northampton’s south gate.3 KB27/669, rex rot. 9d; CP40/677, rot. 73; Northants. RO, Northampton bor. recs., private chs. 48. Much more interestingly, on 14 Aug. 1453 the mayor of Northampton, Thomas Braunfeld*, William Rushden*, Gilbert Lyster*, John Baldeswell and William Syward* presented a petition on his behalf to the fraternity of the guild of the Holy Trinity in Coventry. This shows that Church in his prosperous younger days, some 30 years before, had paid ten marks 5s. to join that large and important guild. Now, however, he was in need of its charity since, for many years passed, he had been too infirm to trade as a fuller and consequently his goods were exhausted. The petitioners successfully asked that the fraternity follow its own custom and come to his relief: Church was rewarded with an annual pension of two marks payable by the quarter.4 Recs. Holy Trinity Coventry (Dugdale Soc. xix), 47-48.