VEEL, John

Evidence of Veel’s mercantile activities dates from 1401 until 1439. He bought malt at Stockbridge, sold oil, cotton, black soap and spices, which he arranged to be carted to Winchester from the port at Southampton, hired out a furnace, and was engaged in the fulling of cloth, the city’s principal industry. Although once described as an ironmonger, his trade in spices suggests that he was also a grocer.6 D.J. Keene, Surv. Winchester (Winchester Studies, 2), ii. 1375; C145/305/15; Brokage Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1941), 42. Little is known about his suits against his debtors, although at some point before 1413 he sued William Esteney in the court of common pleas for a trespass. Esteney was outlawed for failing to pay him the awarded damages of £20 and to satisfy the King of his fine, but he surrendered to the Fleet prison, and made amends to Veel, thereby securing a royal pardon.7 CPR, 1413-16, p. 61.

Resident in Winchester from the very beginning of the century, Veel established himself as a property-owner of note by acquiring in 1413 from Joan, the widow of Richard Pachford†, all her lands and tenements in the city. These included property in the High Street at the junction with Calpe Street, where he lived in a building with its own cellar and adjacent cottages and stalls, from which he derived a rental income. Having agreed to act as an executor for his neighbour, the widow of Robert Baker, in 1415 he purchased a plot next to his home which she had bequeathed to his co-executor, her brother Thomas Gervays.8 Stowe 846, ff. 139-140; Keene, ii. nos. 203A, 204-5, 207-8, 294. In addition, Veel served as a feoffee of property in Minster Street, which in 1426 was conveyed to Sir William Sturmy* and his nephew Robert Erle*.9 Winchester Coll. muns. 1334A, 1335.

Veel was active in the affairs of Winchester for at least 17 years from 1406. In that year he was put in charge of supervising works on the city walls, and received wages of 19s. 6d. for doing this over a period of 13 weeks. The civic authorities, which owned La Starre Inn in the High Street, named him as its warden in 1409-10, and in 1416 he joined a committee of ten citizens undertaking to organize structural repairs to its fabric. He authorized expenditure of 59s. 2d. on renovating the west gate of the city two years later. Having officiated as a bagman and chamberlain, Veel progressed steadily up the civic heirarchy, through the two bailiffships and ultimately to the mayoralty.10 Winchester recs., W/E1/11, 12, 14; Black Bk. 45; Keene, ii. nos. 82/89. Much more out of the ordinary, on 2 Aug. 1415 he was a member of a Winchester jury summoned by the sheriff of Hampshire to make formal indictments of Richard, earl of Cambridge, Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey, then facing trial for treason at Southampton, where Henry V was making final preparations for his invasion of France.11 PROME, ix. 121.

While chamberlain of Winchester at Pentecost 1422, Veel served on a committee headed by the mayor which viewed the local streams and waterways (consuming three potells of wine as they did so). Election as mayor followed in September the same year, when his mayoral oath, recorded in Winchester’s ‘Black Book’, bound him to observe and keep the statutes and usages of the city, and to discharge no office, or change any officer, without the assent of the council of 24. In the event, he needed the full support of that body on the night of the feast of St. John the Baptist, for the two constables, Thomas Cutler† and Thomas Bole, incited a riot against his authority. They were subsequently fined £2 and £5, respectively. Near the beginning of his mayoral term, on 12 Nov. 1422, he made an agreement with Henry IV’s widow, Joan of Navarre, to pay her four marks a year for life in lieu of any other sums due to her from property in the city which formed part of her dower;12 Winchester recs., W/A2/7/1; E1/15; Black Bk. 54-55, 118-19. and at its end he was elected along with the former recorder and experienced parliamentarian, William Wood I*, to represent Winchester in the Parliament summoned to meet on 20 Oct. While still at Westminster two days after the adjournment of the first session, on 19 Dec., Veel offered mainprise in Chancery for Thomas Marlborough*, one of the MPs for Southampton, as guarantor, under pain of 40 marks, that he would do no harm to one Miranda Devecoke.13 CCR, 1422-9, p. 131.

A few days earlier Veel and Wood had been granted at the Exchequer the farm of the alnage collected in Hampshire and Winchester for the next ten years, at the annual rate of 48 marks.14 CFR, xv. 16. As alnager Veel conducted something of a vendetta against William Mathew*, the bailiff of 1424-5. He came before the barons of the Exchequer in October 1428 to make a number of serious allegations against him: that Mathew was wrongfully in possession of five seals belonging to the alnagers’ office, that he had over-stepped his position by confiscating cloth worth 50s. discovered in Le Bell Inn, and had breached the statutes prohibiting those responsible for holding assizes of victuals from trading on their own account.15 E159/205, recorda Mich. rots. 22, 23, 25. Following Wood’s death, on 16 June 1431 Veel alone was re-granted the farm of alnage for a further seven years, provided that no-one else was prepared to pay more.16 CFR, xvi. 6. Just a week later he appeared in the Exchequer of pleas to allege that in December 1428 five prominent citizens of Winchester (among them Richard Turnaunt*, Thomas Dunster* and Thomas Cutler – his earlier adversary), had assaulted him and held him prisoner until they had exacted from him four bonds each worth 20 marks, in an attempt to replace him in office by Walter Hore and John Bye*, although this intimidation had proved unsuccessful. Those accused defended themselves in court on 29 Oct., and when a jury eventually met on 22 May 1432 it found against Veel, who was fined for contempt. He was promptly replaced as alnager, with Hore and John Wryther* taking over the farm.17 E159/207, recorda Trin. rot. 11; CFR, xvi. 73. Veel was still under a cloud in July 1434 when a local jury dredged up an accusation against him dating back 17 years, by accusing him of having wrongfully arrested and imprisoned a local spinster named Agatha Kant, on suspecting her to be a thief.18 C145/305/15. He is not mentioned in the records after 1439.