TOLLER, John I

Apparently lacking any connexion with Bedford before 1442, Toller is difficult to identify with absolute certainty but he was probably the Londoner of that name who pursued a career as an attorney and clerk of the Chancery. The Chancery officer was the son and namesake of a tailor from the City who died at an unknown date before November 1442. For quite some time after the tailor’s death, his widow and executrix Alice, occasionally in association with their son, took recognizances in various sums from John Savage esquire and others, including members of the Tyrell family. It is likely that the recognizances were securities for money owed to the deceased, since Alice is known to have gone to law against several of her late husband’s debtors, some of whom she evidently long pursued.6 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 122, 306-7, 393, 405; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 217, 310; 1477-85, p. 232. Presumably the elder John is to be identified with the tailor of London of that name who made a will on 20 Apr. 1436. The younger John is not mentioned in this document, in which the testator, a parishioner of St. Dunstan in the West, appointed his wife Alice, John Bery and Thomas Kellowes as his executors. However, the will lacks a date of probate, raising the possibility that it was not his last will and may have been superseded by a later one: Guildhall Lib. London, commissary ct. wills, 9171/3, f. 514.

On 30 Apr. 1449 Alice Toller and her son received a gift of goods and chattels from William Holgill esquire. Three days later Holgill, evidently a relative, named them as his attorneys to sue for, levy and recover all farms, rents, annuities and debts due to him and to prosecute and defend all actions in the courts. Associated with the Tollers in this gift was Thomas Kirkby, master of the rolls, and John appears to have begun his career in the Chancery by this date.7 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 133, 142. From then until 1481 (possibly the year of his death) he was a recipient in many similar assignments of moveable goods, transactions that nearly always involved other Londoners, and on one occasion in November 1453 his uncle Nicholas, a skinner from the City. Although acknowledged elsewhere as ‘esquire’, the records of these transactions referred to him as a ‘gentleman’ or occasionally as a ‘clerk of Chancery’ and as a resident of London. In July 1458, when he and others received a gift of goods and chattels from a Genoese merchant, he was ‘abiding with the master of the rolls of Chancery’.8 CCR, 1441-7, p. 122; 1447-54, pp. 241, 266, 325, 491; 1454-61, pp. 28, 251, 261, 275, 393, 435; 1461-8, pp. 71-72; 1468-76, nos. 254, 513, 654, 744, 847, 1468, 1501; 1476-85, no. 975; Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 151, 160.

Apart from his Chancery work, Toller was occasionally a mainpernor in the Exchequer, most notably on behalf of Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, and others when the King granted the keeping of substantial estates in Somerset, Dorset and Cambridgeshire to them in September 1451.9 CFR, xviii. 238; xix. 266, 272; xx. 68, 91, 205. His connexion with the Holands appears to predate 1451 although it is unclear whether he was the John Toller (perhaps an older man) whom the duke’s father John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, made bailiff for life of his demesne at Bovey Tracy, with a daily fee of 4d.10 E152/10/544, m. 2. Whatever the case, in 1446 John Holand, by then duke of Exeter, appointed John Toller, probably the Chancery officer, as a feoffee of lands in Arlsey, Bedfordshire, and in May 1451 Toller and his co-feoffees were licensed to grant these holdings to (Sir) John Wenlock* and others. A decade later, Toller and Wenlock (who had served under John Holand in France) were among those to whom Walter Aumner, a Household servant of Edward IV, assigned his goods and chattels.11 CCR, 1447-54, p. 98; 1461-8, p. 72; CPR, 1446-52, p. 426; E101/53/22. There are good reasons for believing that Toller owed his brief parliamentary career to the Holands, since it is otherwise hard to understand how he came to represent Bedford. The family enjoyed some influence in Bedfordshire, and Henry Holand secured the return of two of his retainers as the county’s knights of the shire in 1453.12 S.J. Payling, ‘Ampthill Dispute’, EHR, civ. 895. While there is no evidence that the Holands directly intervened in elections at Bedford as well, it is worth noting that Thomas Kempston*, Toller’s fellow MP in 1442, was a client of John Holand’s stepfather, John Cornwall, Lord Fanhope.

Conceivably, the dissolution of the Parliament of 1442 did not mark the end of Toller’s parliamentary career, since a John Toller sat for the borough of New Windsor in 1460. The Chancery man did have a connexion with Windsor, in that Thomas Manning, the dean of the chapel royal there, was among those for whom he stood surety at the Exchequer in September 1451.13 CFR, xviii. 238. Yet the MP of 1460 was probably a namesake, a tailor of the same name who afterwards served as bailiff and mayor of New Windsor, and who should therefore be identified as John Toller II*.

Given that the Chancery official was a Londoner, there is a strong possibility that he was the John Toller who served as under sheriff of Middlesex in 1461-2, and who clashed with John Yerman*, clerk of the estreats at the Exchequer, while holding that office. On 14 Oct. 1462, shortly after both men had relinquished their respective positions of under sheriff and clerk of the estreats, Yerman appeared in person before the barons of the Exchequer at Westminster to lay an information against Toller. He said that on the previous 21 July he had delivered various summons of green wax to John Morgan, clerk of the chancellor of the Exchequer, who on the same day had delivered them to Hugh Fraunceys, a gatekeeper of the Exchequer, for delivery to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. According to the information, the summons were the cause of an assault that Yerman suffered at the hands of the under sheriff on the following 3 Aug. It claimed that Toller, baring a drawn dagger and accompanied by ‘other malefactors and peacebreakers’ had assaulted him in ‘le cheker chaumbre’, before taking him to the Counter and placing him in shackles. The next morning, his assailants had brought him to Le Castell, an inn in the parish of St. Brigid, Fleet Street, where they told him that they would keep him bound in irons in the Newgate prison unless he destroyed the seals of the summons he had delivered to Morgan. Faced with these threats, he had sent for Fraunceys who brought the seals to the inn where he destroyed them at his captors’ behest. Yerman concluded his information by placing himself at the mercy of the barons for the destruction of the seals and seeking a ruling about what he had told them. Rather than immediately accepting Yerman’s claims at face value, they returned him to prison, this time the Fleet, pending further enquiries. While in the Fleet, Yerman submitted a petition to the treasurer, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester. In substance, this repeated, although more dramatically than the information, what he had already told the barons. It also stated that Toller and his accomplices had brought their prisoner to the Savoy where John Langley, evidently an official there, had rearrested him, before taking him to the Counter.14 E207/18/4/29, 50.

Toller and Gebons appeared in person at the Exchequer to respond to Yerman’s information in Michaelmas term 1462. Gebons pleaded not guilty to everything that the latter had laid against him, while Toller pleaded not guilty to all save arresting Yerman and imprisoning him in the Counter. As for the allegation of assault, he stated that he had in fact acted in self-defence, after Yerman had attacked him. Toller’s answer, while failing to mention the alleged destruction of the seals, also shows that the whole controversy related to a debt of £28 he claimed from his opponent. He said that he had brought a suit relating to that sum in the sheriffs’ court at London and, after the sheriffs had ordered Yerman’s arrest, he had helped one of their officers, a serjeant of the keys, to take him into custody. The outcome of this affair is unknown. There must have been more to it than meets the eye, not least because Toller’s answer reveals that the serjeant was one James Toller.15 E207/18/4/23.