ELLIS, Nicholas

Of unknown antecedents, Ellis was admitted to the freedom of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1432-3, upon completing an apprenticeship under Robert Shackles (d.1446), a wool merchant and former mayor of the borough.8 Bench bk. 2, BRE 1, p. 265; York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 119v. By the later 1430s he and Shackles were business partners, co-owning a ship called The Antonye. In April 1439 the vessel was leased to a group of other English merchants at Danzig in Prussia, although the parties subsequently fell out over the lessees’ plan to send it to Bordeaux.9 C1/43/19. Nearly three decades later, Ellis and Edward Gower† received a royal licence permitting them to trade with Iceland for 12 months with Le Antony of Hull, presumably the vessel that the former had previously co-owned with Shackles.10 C76/150, m. 3. The Antonye was not the only vessel in which Ellis possessed an interest, since he also acquired a fifth share of La Marie of Hull.11 Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 11. Ellis was a merchant of the Calais staple, in which capacity he received a pardon of all trade offences in June 1449.12 CPR, 1446-52, p. 256. His exports included saltfish, woad, wine, beer, rye and cloth, and he counted among his business associates Richard Anson*, William Eland* and Edmund Copendale†. He was also active in domestic trade and in the early 1470s he paid alnage on cloth sold in the town.13 Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. cxliv), 22, 28, 33, 49, 113, 124, 131, 142, 152, 170; Early Yorks. Woollen Trade (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. lxiv), 295; Kermode, app. 4. There is little doubt that he was one of the wealthiest burgesses of Hull, as evidenced by the loan of 100 marks he afforded the Crown in the spring of 1452.14 E403/788, m. 2. Royal pardons he obtained in the 1450s and 1460s show that he enjoyed the style of a ‘gentleman’ as well as those of ‘merchant’ and ‘mercer’,15 C67/40, m. 3; 42, m. 19; 45, m. 32; 46, m. 3. and he may invested significantly in land. He possessed property interests outside Hull, for in 1469 he settled all of his holdings there and in Cottingham on a powerful group of feoffees including Eland and (Sir) Robert Constable*.16 Kermode, app. 4.

It was not until nearly a decade after becoming a freeman of Hull that Ellis became a chamberlain of the town, typically the first step on a career in municipal administration. While chamberlain, he was elected to his first Parliament alongside Richard Anson. On their return home, they promptly received wages of £7 12s. each for 76 days’ service and they were jointly allowed a further a 16s. 8d. for obtaining copies of Acts made during the Parliament.17 Chamberlains’ acct. 1441-2, BRF 2/358. Two and a half years after the dissolution of the Parliament of 1442, Ellis took up office as sheriff of Hull. Following the expiry of his term, the executors of John Priour of Ipswich complained about his conduct in that office. They alleged he had made a false return to a writ of certiorari, so allowing Godfrey Williamson of Hull to go at liberty without satisfying a plea of debt to Priour in the town’s court.18 C1/16/273.

Leading Hull merchants had long played an important role in the administration and collection of the royal customs in their town, and Ellis was no exception. Initially a searcher of ships, he subsequently served a series of short-term appointments as a customs collector and held the offices of surveyor and controller. He exercised his responsibilities as surveyor with Philip Wentworth of the royal household. In their letters of appointment he was referred to as a ‘King’s serjeant’,19 CPR, 1446-52, p. 60. although he does not feature in any of the extant Household accounts of this period. It is likely that Ellis profited handsomely from his customs offices. In March 1449, for example, he, the then collectors at Hull, Richard Anson and Richard Bille, and Richard Malory arrested the Marie Knyght of Dordrecht, a vessel from the Low Countries. They were allowed a customary half-share of its cargo of wool and other goods, worth £62 16s. 6d., with the remainder going to the Crown.20 E159/225, recorda Easter rot. 7. In 1453, during one of his own periods of office as a collector of customs, Ellis and his fellow customer, Anson, seized Le Anne Bote, a vessel from Hull carrying 100 un-customed fells of wool. A local jury appraised the ship and its cargo, subsequently sold to other townsmen, at a mere 14s. 2d., meaning that Ellis and Anson had only to answer for this unfeasibly low sum at the Exchequer.21 E159/229, recorda Hil. rot. 9.

While pursuing his career as a customs official, Ellis assumed further responsibilities at Hull, both in the municipal administration and as a commissioner for the Crown. By the summer of 1449 he had joined the ranks of Hull’s aldermen, in 1453 he began his first terms as a coroner and an auditor of the chamberlains’ accounts and from the spring of 1454 he served on ad hoc commissions. The mid 1450s were a particularly busy time for him, since in this period he was also elected to his second Parliament and his first term as mayor. He was returned to the Commons alongside his old associate Anson. It is likely they were at Westminster for the entirety of the first parliamentary session, which ran from 9 July 1455 until the end of the month, and for which they received wages for 28 days covering their attendance and time spent travelling to and from Westminster. Ellis assumed the mayoralty during the recess between the first and second sessions but remained active as an MP, receiving a further 95 days’ wages for the rest of the Parliament.22 Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 43; chamberlains’ accts. 1454-6, BRF 2/367-8. His election as mayor did not pass without incident, since just two days after he took up the office the aldermen banished three townsmen for disrupting the proceedings and rebellious behaviour. It is not known whether the miscreants had a personal quarrel with Ellis in particular or had objections about the conduct of the election in general.23 Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 45.

After the following Parliament was summoned in the autumn of 1459, Ellis was again among those nominated for election to the Commons, but in the event he was not returned (although he did witness the election of those who were). A year later he was active in supporting the measures put in place by the town’s authorities for its defence. With John Spencer I* and Hugh Clitheroe* he oversaw works on the North Gate, and he was among the many townsmen who contributed towards the cost of laying an iron chain across the entrance to the harbour. His own political sympathies are unknown, but, in May 1461, he was among the four aldermen who rode to York to submit themselves to the new King, Edward IV. Two years later, he answered a call from the warden of the East March, John Neville, Lord Montagu, for troops to serve against the Lancastrian rebels in northern England. He, Spencer and Robert Auncell* undertook to equip and pay for one man fully armed and arrayed between them. A few months after completing his second term as mayor in 1465, Ellis quarrelled with a mariner named Richard Wantford. In January 1466 Wantford was brought before the mayor and aldermen to face charges of having insulted Ellis in the town court, although in what circumstances is unknown. In the following two years Ellis was placed on his last two ad hoc commissions; and in September 1469 he was among those deputed to assess a local tax, a levy imposed to pay for the troops that Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, had demanded from the town in the then captive King’s name. Three years later, he was nominated for – but not elected – to the Parliament of 1472.24 Ibid. ff. 67v, 74, 74v, 76v, 77, 92, 93, 105v, 112v, 115v.

Ellis made his will on 5 July 1478, a short document in which he asked to be buried wherever his wife, Elizabeth, might choose. He left her all of his estate remaining after the settlement of his debts and named her as his executor. The will was witnessed by William Eland and William Bower, chaplain, and probate was granted on the following 5 Dec. Ellis fathered at least two sons, of whom Robert, mentioned in the will of his former master, Robert Shackles, may have predeceased him. Another son, a namesake of his, was admitted to the freedom of Hull in 1462.25 York registry wills, prob. regs. 2, f. 119v; 5, f. 132; Kermode, app 4.