FRESPOND, William

A local man, Frespond was a cloth merchant with extensive commercial contacts throughout the south-west and beyond, including traders as prominent as the London mercer John Sturgeon*.2 E122/113/55, ff. 7, 8v; CP40/775, rot. 716; 779, rots. 305d, 456d, 575d; 781, rot. 75; 805, rots. 31, 33; CPR, 1452-61, p. 633. Like many other Tavistock merchants, he traded through the Channel port of Plymouth, and it was in conjunction with a group of merchants from that borough that in early 1444 he freighted a ship called La Katerine. Unfortunately for them La Katerine was driven by a storm onto the Breton coast and wrecked, and although the cargo was salvaged and sent on its way to England in a Breton vessel, this was overtaken on its voyage by a Plymouth pirate ship, taken to Saltash and spoiled of its freight.3 E122/113/55, ff. 7, 8v; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 287-8.

The extent of Frespond’s property cannot be established exactly, but he clearly fulfilled the statutory requirement for residence within the borough he represented, for he owned at least two tenements in Tavistock, and probably inhabited a house with a garden situated south of the royal highway and adjacent to the house of John Fitz*.4 Coode and French mss, CF2/215/59; Devon RO, Tavistock parish recs. 482A/PF48. It is not clear what motivated Frespond to seek election to Parliament in the turbulent summer of 1455, but it seems probable that private considerations played a part, for throughout that autumn he attended in person to various lawsuits in the court of common pleas.5 CP40/779, rots. 575d, 656. Among these suits was one against two local yeomen who were accused of breaking into his house at Tavistock and carrying off his goods, but it is unclear whether this incident was in any way related to the wider disorder sweeping the county around this time.6 CP40/779, rot. 656.

Little else is known of Frespond’s career. He survived into Edward IV’s reign, but appears to have died in late 1464 or early 1465.7 HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 356-7.