SPICER, John

Although it is possible that the same John Spicer represented Derby in the Parliaments of December 1421 and February 1449, it is more likely that two men were involved, not improbably father and son, both following the trade of spicer. An indication of where the two careers are to be divided is provided by the parliamentary election returns. The MP of 1421 is named as an attestor or mainpernor to every election between 1425 and 1429, but the name does not occur again in the indentures until 18 Jan. 1449 when John Spicer appears as an attestor to his own election. This John then attested the four following elections between October 1449 and July 1455 before himself disappearing from the returns.1 C219/13/3-5; 14/1; 15/6, 7; 16/1-3. Thus, it is probable that the elder John died in the mid 1430s and the younger John began his career in the 1440s.2 There are too many contemporary John Spicers safely to identify our MP or his putative father with the victualler of Calais who had a pardon in July 1440 for non-payment of customs: CPR, 1436-41, p. 441.

Aside from his appearances as an attestor, almost all that is known of the younger John’s career concerns his role as one of the leaders, alongside Thomas Bradshaw* and Elias Tyldesley*, of a confederacy of townsmen against the town’s neighbour, the abbey of Darley. According to bills laid before the justices of oyer and terminer in September 1454, Spicer was involved in three separate offences. On 24 May 1452 he was among a riotous assembly of 200 townsmen who broke the closes of the abbey at Little Darley and Little Chester, and by threatening he monks and servants of the abbey prevented the holding of divine services there for four days. Later, on 12 Nov. 1453, he was one of a smaller group of 30 townsmen, who, despite receiving writs of subpoena to appear before King and council at Westminster (presumably to answer for the earlier offence) broke a close of the abbot in Derby and assaulted three of his servants. More interestingly, on the following day, he and others rang the bells of the church of All Saints, ‘discordie videlicet Awkewardly’, as a signal for the gathering of an armed band of 300 men which then went to throw down the close and hedges of the abbey at Little Darley. A petition presented by the abbot to Richard, duke of York, as Lord Protector, shortly before these bills were laid before the visiting justices, suggests that these incidents were merely the most notable in a continuing campaign of intimidation. The abbot complained of ‘the grete thretes and manasses hadde dayly’ which his house was suffering, particularly since the visitation of the duke to Derby early in July 1454, and asked for surety of the peace against 21 townsmen, the most notable of whom was Spicer. None the less, despite the apparent seriousness of the conflict between abbey and town, Spicer and his confederates were able to put themselves back on the right side of the law on payment of a small fine. Spicer also had other legal difficulties at this time: in Trinity term 1453 a writ for his outlawry was issued at the suit of John Strelley* for close-breaking in Derby.3 KB9/12/1/1-3; 2/186-7; KB27/766, rot. 59d; 769, rot. 19.

Little is known of Spicer’s trading interests, but they extended beyond the confines of his native borough. On 27 May 1449, for example, he acknowledged a debt of £120 before the mayor of the staple of Westminster to a London grocer; and in 1452 he was defending actions of debt sued against him by the wealthy London draper, Ralph Josselyn, and a leading merchant of Nottingham, John Ilkeston.4 C131/235/22; CP40/765, rots. 276d, 399. He was clearly a man of standing. Indeed, he was one of the few residents of Derby who contributed to the subsidy of 1450-1: he was assessed on an income of £4 p.a., which, although modest, was sufficient to make him one of the more substantial townsmen. It is probable that he died without legitimate issue, for a later deed (recorded for an unknown reason in one of the mayor’s books of Nottingham) shows that part at least of his landed property was sold to the Bryddes, one of the leading families of Derby. On 2 Aug. 1479 Henry Chamberlain quitclaimed to John†, son and heir of John Brydde*, and Isabel, his wife, all his right in a granary and house on ‘le Nayland’ in Derby and in arable land in the fields of Derby and Litchurch, described as formerly the property of John Spicer. It is likely that the elder Brydde had purchased it from either Spicer himself or feoffees seised for the execution of his will. Alternatively, if less likely, the alienation of the property may have been occasioned by debt rather than failure of issue. In the early 1450s Brydde sued a plea of debt for the considerable sum of £60 each against Spicer, Robert Daweson, vicar of Melbourne (Derbyshire), later one of our MP’s feoffees, and an ironmonger from Mountsorrel (Leicestershire). The outcome of this action has not been traced, but in Trinity term 1457 Brydde appeared in person in the court of common pleas to sue Spicer alone for a debt of £40. Soon after, the latter disappears from the records.5 E179/91/73; Notts. Archs. Nottingham recs., mayors’ bks. CA3350, p. 24; CP40/768, rot. 67; 786, rot. 298d; 790, rot. 363.