FROWYK, Henry I

The Frowyks had deep historical roots in the city of London and its hinterland, the county of Middlesex. From the thirteenth century onwards they were among London’s leading citizens, and their tenure of the manor of Old Ford in South Mimms can be traced back to the reign of Edward I. While retaining its prominence in London, over the course of the fourteenth century the family consolidated its position in Middlesex and elsewhere through advantageous marriages.10 Cass, 19-88. Henry was the younger of two sons of a Middlesex landowner and shire knight of the same name. His elder brother Thomas forged for himself a successful career in county society, increasing the family’s estates through marriage to a Hertfordshire heiress. Throughout their careers both Frowyks maintained close links with their half-brother Sir Thomas Charlton (d.1447), whose father Thomas† (d.1410) had married their widowed mother, and also with Sir Thomas’s son Thomas*, a future Speaker of the Commons.

As a younger son, Henry Frowyk stood to inherit no estates by right, although at a later point in his career he was to acquire from his brother some of the family’s holdings in London. He was thus designated for a career in the ranks of the city’s merchant elite, and in 1398-9 was apprenticed to the mercer John Otley. Otley’s death in 1404 initially dashed his hopes of rapid progression to the freedom, but he seems to have been swiftly reassigned to a new master, William Otes, and successfully issued from his apprenticeship in 1409-10. The following year he was admitted to the first of the three stages that led to membership of the livery of the Mercers’ Company, a process he completed in 1413.11 Mercers’ Co., Index Cards. Membership of the Company marked the beginning of a highly successful career, both as a London mercer and a leading figure within the city’s government. By the summer of 1421 Frowyk had risen through the ranks of the Company to be chosen one of its wardens, and he went on to serve as its master on no fewer than five subsequent occasions, a feat unmatched by any of his fellows in this period. In the meantime, following the death of William Otes, Frowyk had married his widow, Isabel, and in March 1422 he appeared before the chamberlain of the city to receive formal confirmation of the guardianship of his former master’s son. Two fellow mercers, William Estfield* and William Melreth*, stood surety.12 Cal. Letter Bk. London, I, 266. Frowyk had been married once before, but of his first wife, Joan, who had died young and apparently childless, nothing is known beyond a passing mention in his will. With Isabel Otes’s resources now at his disposal, over the next few years Frowyk continued the process of building up a successful business of his own. He took on apprentices for the first time in 1421-2, and the fact that he enrolled three that year suggests that he did not lack ambition. Over the course of his career he was to train no fewer than 16 apprentices, six of them enrolled in 1447-8 alone, providing an indication of the scale that Frowyk’s business had by then reached.13 Mercers’ Co., Index Cards. From an early point in his career he enjoyed good relations with his fellow mercers, particularly leading traders such as Estfield with whom he was frequently associated in transactions in London. These ties were exemplified by the arrangements made for the orphaned children of members of the Company: following the death in 1429 of John Coventre, a prominent mercer, the guardianship of the latter’s three youngest children were allocated by the chamberlain to Frowyk and Estfield along with Thomas Coventre.14 A.F. Sutton, A Merchant Fam. of Coventry, London and Calais, 10.

The early 1420s witnessed Frowyk’s first recorded forays into overseas trade, where he was to become one of the most active of London’s merchants. By 1423 he was exporting wool to the continent, and had probably already become a merchant of the Calais staple. The extent of his dealings in wool is difficult to assess, and he never became as prominent an advocate of the staplers’ interests as his associate Estfield. Yet as a wool exporter he undoubtedly had a stake in the survival of the staple, and showed his commitment to the port and his fellow staplers by acting as a feoffee of property in the town held by English merchants.15 E122/76/2; C1/16/495; 17/326. As was the case with many London mercers, however, dealings in wool were often of relatively minor importance when compared to the value of the export trade in cloth, in which Frowyk was especially active. In a period of just a few months from February 1433 he shipped no fewer than 12 consignments which together amounted to more than 500 short cloths.16 E122/161/1, m.10d; 203/1, ff. 7v-8, 18, 22-23v, 34-34v, 36. Like other mercers he also specialized in fine fabrics manufactured abroad, which he brought into the port of Southampton. Between December 1437 and June 1438 he imported three shipments which together were worth more than £200. The cargoes included large quantities of linen cloth from northern Europe and other items of napery. Similar consignments were brought into the port of London in the late 1440s.17 E122/76/11; 203/3, f. 9; 209/1, ff. 21, 30. This aside, he also dealt in other commodities, including alum for the cloth industry and foodstuffs like garlic, besides finished goods, such as cushions. In the course of his commercial activities Frowyk established networks of distributors both in London and further afield. While not apparently as active in the English shires as some members of the Grocers’ Company, his provincial contacts nevertheless included men from the Welsh marches and the East Midlands, Hertfordshire and Kent.18 CPR, 1436-41, p. 113; 1441-6, p. 19.

Frowyk’s property in London and Middlesex was estimated in 1436 to be worth some £54 p.a., and centred on his main residence, a building known as Ypres Inn in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, at the south end of Cordwainer Street, which was later inherited by his son.19 Ricardian, x. 90. Identifying his other holdings in the city is more difficult, for although he was party to a very large number of transactions in the vast majority of cases he was acting as a feoffee. However, he did own properties in the parish of All Hallows Honey Lane, some of which had been in the hands of the Frowyks since the end of the thirteenth century. These Henry’s father had bequeathed to his widow, Alice, in order to fund a chantry for ten years, and after Alice’s death they passed to Henry himself. They were among the holdings which in 1438 became subject to a full reorganization of the family’s estates: on 7 Jan. that year Frowyk’s brother Thomas conveyed to him two tenements in the parishes of All Hallows and St. Mary Milk Street, as well as a quit-rent of 20 marks from Thomas’s lands at South Mimms, payable in the event that Henry did not take possession of the London tenements.20 Hististorical Gazeteer London ed. Keene and Harding, 11/4; Corp. London RO, hr 166/24-25. Henry evidently took possession of the London property which remained in the hands of his branch of the family for at least two further generations. Other properties were situated in Soper Lane, in the parish of St. Benet Sherhog, where Frowyk had first acquired an interest in 1424, after the death of the mercer William Waldern†.21 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 141; London hr 154/3, 5, 71, 74-75; 163/60; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 438, 534. This he was able to augment in 1439, following the death of Richard Osbarn, a clerk of the city chamber, from whom he had earlier acquired other shops and tenements in the near-by parish of St. Antonin.22 London hr 161/43, 52; 167/28; 168/18; 197/4; 201/13; jnl. 6, ff. 80, 209. By the time of his death, he also held property in the parishes of St. Stephen Walbrook, St. Michael Wood Street and All Hallows Bread Street. Outside the city his lands were concentrated at Gunnersbury and Ealing in Middlesex. The manor of Gunnersbury, which had been held by his mother and her second husband Thomas Charlton, passed to Henry after her death in 1416, and would remain with his branch of the family until the sixteenth century, while at Ealing and Brentford he acquired by 1458 an estate known as ‘Elmgrove’, and he also seems to have held the manor of East Twyford, which had also belonged to his mother’s family.23 VCH Mdx. vii. 126, 130, 213; Ricardian x. 101.

Although Henry’s career was centred on the city of London, he maintained close links among the Middlesex gentry, and in the mid 1440s his standing in the county was sufficient to allow for his temporary appointment to the county bench. His activities in Middlesex were to some degree shaped by his close relations with his brother and with their Charlton relatives. Frowyk family ties found their expression in the foundation of a chantry at the family seat of South Mimms, to be known as ‘Frowykes chaunterye’, in 1446,24 C143/450/30. while the Frowyk brothers were associated with the Charltons in numerous property transactions, Henry himself being employed as a feoffee of his half-brother’s substantial inheritance.25 London hr 154/52, 60; 163/46; VCH Mdx. iv. 124; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 124, 346; CP25(1)/152/89/40. Among his other close associates were John Sturgeon*, the mercer, and his brother Richard, a clerk in the Chancery whose daughter Joan went on to marry Frowyk’s son.26 Cart. St. Bartholomew’s Hosp. ed. Kerling, nos. 65, 1139-43, 1150, 1159-63; London hr 183/4. In London, he was among the feoffees of the extensive lands and tenements of the grocer William Oliver†, as well as taking on similar responsibilities for several lesser citizens, but primarily he offered assistance to his fellow mercers such as William Cantelowe*, and his friendship with William Estfield led him be involved in the settlements whereby Estfield acquired the Pope’s Head from the earl of Suffolk.27 London hr 158/79; 159/38; 161/15; 169/1, 28-29. Nevertheless, Frowyk did not enjoy universal popularity, a situation hardly improved by open displays of his power, as when in May 1440 the court of aldermen condemned one Robert Marchall, who had accused Frowyk of insulting him, to beg forgiveness on his knees.28 Jnl. 3, ff. 34, 53. In the 1440s Frowyk occasionally came into contact with such members of the royal court as the King’s secretary, Richard Andrew, and Walter Sheryngton, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; and he joined Master John Somerset*, the King’s physician and chancellor of the Exchequer, as a founder-member of the exclusive fraternity of the Virgin established in the church of All Hallows Barking in 1441.29 CCR, 1441-7, p. 187; Sutton, Merchant Fam., 60; Surv. London: All Hallows Barking, i. 13. Yet he never moved in such exalted circles as his colleague Estfield.

His private affairs aside, Frowyk enjoyed a long and highly distinguished civic career as a member of London’s governing elite. He first came to prominence in September 1421 when, having only recently been elected as one of the wardens of the Mercers, he was chosen by the commonalty as one of the city’s four auditors. He served for three years, during which time he attested London’s elections to Parliament for the first time, and was himself returned to the Commons on two successive occasions, in October 1422 and again almost exactly a year later. Indeed, the 1422 Parliament saw the return not just of Henry but also of his brother Thomas and half-brother Thomas Charlton, who were elected as the Members for Middlesex. Shortly after the dissolution of the Parliament of 1423, Frowyk continued his rapid rise within the city by being chosen as alderman for the ward of Bassishaw, although his admission that summer seems to have been delayed slightly by the illness of the mayor.30 Jnl. 2, f. 20v. Over the next few years he consolidated his place within the city’s hierarchy by acting on several occasions as an arbiter in disputes. He had by now established cordial relations with the city’s alien community, and in the petition presented in the Leicester Parliament of 1426 on behalf of the merchants of the Hanse he was one of the three London aldermen (the others being William Cromer† and John Welles II*), named as their preferred choice as their ‘alderman and justice’.31 Ibid. ff. 47, 56v, 94, 96v; Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, pp. 206, 216, 246, 249; PROME, x. 301. On this occasion, the still relatively young Frowyk lost out to the more experienced Cromer, and had to wait for another 16 years before he was finally appointed.

Frowyk’s progess through the civic cursus honorum nevertheless continued apace. In the autumn of 1427 he was pricked sheriff of London and Middlesex, and two years later he assumed the auditorship once more. He attested the election of the city’s MPs on two further occasions in the 1430s, the second of which took place a matter of a few weeks before he was chosen as London’s mayor for the first time. The start of his mayoralty was beset by controversy. When he came to take his oath of office before the barons of the Exchequer at Westminster, he, like his predecessor, Robert Otley, refused to swear a supplementary oath, which would commit him to the enforcement of a statute passed in the Parliament of 1433 concerning weights and measures, specifying that only those designated by the Exchequer were to be used. The city’s case against the overturning of its customs had been presented by Otley the previous year, but had not been resolved by the end of his mayoralty. With the election of Frowyk the matter arose again, and the recorder, Alexander Anne*, was asked to rehearse once more the arguments against the new oath.32 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 195. Eventually, Frowyk was admitted to office. Foreign affairs loomed large during his year in post and beyond. Following the duke of Burgundy’s unsuccessful siege of Calais, London agreed to raise a contingent of soldiers to join a force led by the duke of Gloucester that was to assemble at Sandwich in July 1436. As an active merchant and wool exporter Frowyk probably felt strongly about this cause, and this may have led him to commission the ‘Libelle of English Policy’, a poem which celebrated England’s mercantile trade and spoke bitterly of the actions of the duke of Burgundy.33 For this suggestion see Ricardian x. 89. On completion of his term, Frowyk was among the commissioners appointed to treat with the merchants of the Hanse, his first foray into negotiations that would occupy him for several years to come and which would, in the mid 1440s, be followed by diplomatic activity abroad, at the Burgundian court.34 CPR, 1436-41, p. 45; Ferguson, 189, 207.

Shortly after the end of his mayoralty Frowyk was returned to Parliament for a third time. His importance in civic life continued to grow. In March 1440 he was one of three aldermen appointed to supervise the substantial new building work that was taking place in the chapel at the Guildhall (where in Henry V’s reign a chantry for the souls of his father and his uncle by marriage, Sir Adam Francis†, had been established).35 Jnl. 3, f. 39; C.M. Barron, Med. Guildhall London, 36. More committee work followed later that year, before in October 1442 he was finally appointed as alderman for the Hanseatic merchants, a post he would retain until his death. It is a mark of Frowyk’s exceptional standing in the city that in October 1444 he was chosen mayor for a second time, one of only a very few men in this period who held the office more than once. Moreover, his election went against the express wishes of the King, who had written to the civic authorities to ask that William Estfield be elected. Estfield had been mayor at the time of Henry’s coronation, and it seems to have been the King’s wish that he should also be the one to attend that of Margaret of Anjou. Whatever the King’s motives, the court of aldermen and the outgoing mayor, Thomas Catworth*, were not impressed, and in refusing they cited an ordinance of 1424 which specified that no one should serve again within seven years of being elected and another of 1435 which forbade anyone from serving more than twice in the office.36 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 301-2. On his return from his embassy to Burgundy, Frowyk had the added satisfaction of succeeding the recently deceased Estfield in the mayoralty of the Westminster staple. He had gained early experience in the staple in the 1420s, serving as constable, and was to occupy the position of mayor for 11 years, finally relinquishing his responsibilities in the summer of 1457.

When Frowyk was elected to Parliament for a fourth time, in 1447, he was in a position to set his own terms of service. Thus, he refused to accept the nomination unless he was assured of sufficient lodging and heating for himself and his servants during their stay at Bury St. Edmunds. Other concessions required persistent negotiation: it was not until three years after the event that, in the autumn of 1448, he received £20 for his expenses at the coronation of Queen Margaret, although early in the following year he received a similar sum for a visit he had made to Eton, perhaps as part of a delegation sent to see the King.37 Jnl. 4, ff. 155v, 227. Frowyk attested the elections to both the Parliaments summoned in the course of 1449, and was himself returned to Parliament for the fifth and final time as a Member of the assembly which met in the autumn of 1450. In the interim, London had been shaken by the violence of Jack Cade’s rebellion, and Frowyk was among the prominent citizens appointed to the commissions of oyer and terminer charged with investigating treason and rebellion in the capital.38 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 141-2; Cass, 86-88.

During the 1450s, Frowyk gradually scaled down his public duties. He was now the most senior alderman in London and thus was listed in order of precedence immediately after the mayor and the recorder. He attested parliamentary elections in the city in 1453 and 1455, but not long afterwards he seems to have taken the decision to retire completely from public life, and on 17 Nov. 1457 an election was held for his ward of Bassishaw, suggesting that he had been granted exoneration from his position on the court of aldermen.39 Jnl. 6, f. 184v.

In April 1459 Frowyk drew up a will, requesting burial in the church of St. Thomas of Acre, while leaving bequests of cash to other parish churches, including St. Benet Sherehog in London and those of Yilling and Acton in Middlesex. Like his father he established a ten-year chantry, the arrangements for which were to be overseen by his widow Isabel. She was left moveable goods to the value of £1,000, her legal share of his possessions, and was to have all her tools, materials and debts relating to her work as a silkwoman, as well as ornaments, jewels, several books and items of plate. Thomas Frowyk was bequeathed 50 marks in cash, his father’s second-best missal, psalters and vestments from the family’s chapel, and the contents of the manor-house at Gunnersbury. The testator’s daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband Roger Appleton†, were left items of plate, as were his nephews, Henry Frowyk II and Sir Thomas Charlton, while £20 was set aside for the marriage of his grand-daughter, Isabel. The sum of £10 was left to the alms of the Mercers’ Company, while another £5 was bequeathed to the brothers and sisters of St. Bartholmew’s hospital. Other bequests included £20 for Master William Fenton ‘scolari meo’ to pay for his education for a period of four years, almost certainly at Oxford. As his executors Frowyk named his widow, his son, John Neel, master of St. Thomas of Acre, and Richard Bernes.40 PCC 20 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 155-156v); Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, ii. 677-8. Frowyk’s principal will was supplemented by two additional sets of provisions, by which he disposed of some of his property in London. He bequeathed to the rector and churchwardens of St. Mary le Bow his tenements in Watling Street and in Walbrook which were to be used to fund a perpetual chantry for his soul and that of John Coventre. He also left to the church an iron-bound chest, in which the deeds and other documents were to be kept. In a third bill of provisions, drawn up some six years earlier in September 1453, he had left an annual quit-rent of ten marks from his tenements in Bread Street to his friend John Neel who was to establish a chantry at St. Thomas of Acre in memory of the testator and his wife and William Oliver and the latter’s first wife, Maud. Part of the money was to be used for the education of two choir-boys who were to be chosen for their good voices and characters, and who were respectively to be known as ‘Frowykes querester’ and ‘Oliveres querester’.41 Cal. Wills Ct. Husting ed. Sharpe, 541-2; London hr 188/36, 38. The descent of the remainder of Frowyk’s estates is uncertain: many of the holdings doubtless passed to Thomas, although Isabel may well have retained a life interest in Ypres Inn and perhaps in the manor of Gunnersbury. Frowyk was dead by 8 Mar. 1460 when the will dealing with his moveable goods was proved. Isabel survived him for five years.42 Her will, made on 26 Nov. 1464 was proved on 8 Aug. 1465: PCC 10 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 74-75).