PURCHASE, Henry

Purchase was one of several London grocers who lived in Southwark in this period and who came to represent that borough in Parliament. He had evidently established a reasonably successful business by 1423-4, when the fee he paid to enrol his first apprentice was recorded in the Grocers’ Company accounts. By 1427, the year in which he was returned to Parliament, he had been admitted to the livery of his Company and the same year he contributed the sum of £4 to a levy raised by the wardens to buy a property. His prospects within the guild do not seem to have been harmed by instances of sharp business practices for which he was fined at least twice by the wardens: on one occasion for trading on a Sunday and on another 6s. 8d. for ‘coloryng off Greynys with powdyr’, perhaps an attempt to improve the appearance of some spices prior to selling them on to an unsuspecting customer. Over the next 25 years Purchase played an active role in the life of the Grocers’ Company, and in 1450 he received due recognition of this when he was appointed as one of the two wardens for the ensuing year. He also enrolled eight more apprentices during this period and was among the more substantial contributors to levies and collections, the last of which was raised shortly before his death in 1456.3 Archs. Grocers’ Co. ed. Kingdon, i. 128, 146-7, 164, 175, 182, 184; ii. 199, 201-2, 240, 248, 256, 264, 279, 311, 328; Guildhall Lib. London, Grocers’ Co. Wardens’ accts., 11571/1, ff. 3v, 5, 34-36.

All this suggests that Purchase’s business was flourishing, a view confirmed by the evidence for his activities in London and elsewhere. His commercial connexions extended north into Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, but were, it seems, particularly focused south on Sussex and Kent. While he appears to have traded with mercers and dyers, drapers and tallow-chandlers, he was most often engaged in litigation for debt with the lesser tradesmen known as chapmen, perhaps suggesting that it was the distribution of his wares that caused Purchase the most trouble. While few of the debts owing to him from individuals were substantial in broader terms, they did often run to several pounds, and the totals outstanding were commensurately large.4 C88/105/101; CPR, 1422-9, p. 314; CP40/651, rot. 385; 657, rot. 382; 677, rots. 41, 230d, 385d; 717, rots. 251d, 380d, 436d; 720, rot. 47d; 738, rots. 37d, 38, 54, 395; 758, rot. 28d; 768, rot. 367d; 779, rot. 13. Something of the nature of his trading activities can be discovered from the records of the goods purchased by Londoners from Venetian merchants visiting the City in this period. Thus, in November 1441 he bought a variety of goods typical of those retailed by grocers, including large quantities of pepper and sugar, as well as cloves, dates, mace and ginger, at a total cost of over £100.5 E101/128/30, mm. 1, 4, 7, 10, 14; 31, mm. 27, 29, 51. Through such dealings and his standing within the Company itself, Purchase established connexions with other grocers in the capital. As early as 1417, he had been entrusted with the guardianship of the young son of Robert Odyam (among his sureties on that occasion was William Sevenoak†), and in February 1444 (on securities proffered by John Tingleden* and others) he was assigned the custody of the four children of Robert Hulle. As one of Hulle’s executors Purchase had handed over £5 owed to their Company for the building works at the Hall between 1439 and 1441.6 Archs. Grocers’ Co. ii. 257.

From at least 1428 Purchase was described in the Grocers’ Company records as resident in Southwark, where like his fellow grocers Nicholas Preest* and John Tingleden he became well known in the borough community. By 1430 he had taken on the executorship of the will of Robert William†, a former MP for Southwark,7 CP40/677, rot. 230. and he was occasionally called upon to be a feoffee of property in the borough and across the Thames. He was enfeoffed of a tenement in St. Olave’s parish by John Tingleden in 1437, and the same year he and two others took possession of the Helme on the Hoop in St. Margaret’s parish,8 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 132, 261. while in London he was among those entrusted in 1441 with a building in the parish of St. Botolph Billingsgate, by the executors of a mercer, John Lane.9 Corp. London RO, hr 170/45. Purchase’s standing in Southwark is indicated by his presence as a witness to a number of transactions.10 Corp. London RO, Misc. Deeds 138.2-4; Bridge House recs., deeds E.44, H.37, 42, 53, 71; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 368, 439, 481. Perhaps the most important was Sir John Fastolf’s charter of his lands in Southwark, which he attested in July 1449, and two years later he performed a similar service for John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester.11 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 229, 255.

Of Purchase’s own property in Southwark, little is known for certain, although when in March 1441 he needed to make a ‘gift’ of his goods and chattels it was to inhabitants of the borough, notably William Godyng*, a clerk of the Chancery, and Thomas Couper, a local scrivener, that he turned.12 CCR, 1435-41, p. 467. Profits from trade had enabled him to invest in land elsewhere. In 1434 he and Couper had acquired a messuage and other property at Carshalton in Surrey from the wax-chandler John Crosse, with reversion to Purchase’s heirs,13 CP25(1)/232/71/61. and he subsequently held three messuages, 320 acres of land and 12 acres of wood in Kent, at Chelsfield, Orpington and St. Mary Cray, which came to him through his second marriage to Joan, the widow of the Southwark esquire Robert Myrfyn, a landowner in that county. Joan retained these properties after Purchase’s death.14 C146/10108, 10117, 10196.

Despite his interests in London and Kent, Purchase remained a resident of Southwark until he died. In his will, dated 17 Mar. 1456, he requested burial in St. Olave’s church, next to his first wife, Christine, and left £20 for a chaplain to pray by their tomb over a three-year period. A bequest of £5 to the church at Little Hadham, in Hertfordshire, suggests that he or one of his wives may have had family there. He left sums of money to his executors, John Rokesley* and John Kypping, his fellow grocers, and the lawyer Richard Jay*, as well as to the supervisor of the will, Edward Warburton, another grocer. The residue of his estate was left to Joan, and the will was proved on 5 May.15 PCC 6 Stokton. The executors pursued his debtors in the court of common pleas: CP40/814, rot. 385d. The widowed Joan disposed of some his goods to pay for masses in St. Olave’s church and for other works of piety.16 CCR, 1461-8, p. 375. From about Michaelmas 1460 she rented two tenements belonging to the Bridge House in London, at a cost of 66s. 8d. p.a. Still living in 1466, she may have died before 1468 when the property was leased by Richard Tingleden†.17 Bridge House recs., rental 3, ff. 1, 114, 145.