Colchester

Situated on the river Colne, Colchester engaged in both coastal and overseas trade through its port of New Hythe, and its position on the road between London and the main east-coast ports ensured good inland communications. An administrative centre, its royal castle served as a base for the sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire but its location in the north-east corner of the county ensured that the smaller but more centrally situated Chelmsford fulfilled the role of county town. As it happened, the Crown took little immediate interest in the castle, which was of no military importance by this period.2 VCH Essex, ix. 1, 24.

Colchester recovered quickly from the effects of the Black Death. From probably below 3,000 in the immediate aftermath of the plague, its population jumped, perhaps to a medieval peak of over 8,000 inhabitants by about 1400 before falling away again in the second half of the fifteenth century. By the mid 1520s, it is unlikely to have had more than 5,300 residents, although in terms of taxable wealth it was then the 12th largest town in England. In national terms, Colchester remained relatively prosperous during the period under review but it appears to have fared less well than nearby Ipswich.3 Ibid. 24, 36; R.H. Britnell, Colchester in Early 15th Cent. 3; idem, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 262, 265; N.R. Amor, Late Med. Ipswich, 7, 8, 70, 227, 229.

During the second half of the fourteenth century, the merchants of Colchester increased their trade with Gascony and the Baltic and also came to use the services of Italian exporters based in London. By the later medieval period, the town had come to specialize in textiles and it was probably the largest centre of the cloth trade in eastern England in the early fifteenth century. Russet cloth, a material of medium quality that found customers at home and abroad, was its most important product, although a wide variety of raw materials, foodstuffs and luxury items also passed through the New Hythe. Rapid economic growth ended in the second decade of the fifteenth century when war and depopulation damaged its markets in Gascony and Prussia. Its cloth-makers adapted to the new situation by altering their production methods. They increased the size of their cloths from a traditional measurement of some 12 yards by two yards to one closer to the standard size used in England (24 yards by two yards) and improved the quality of the finished product. These changes achieved some temporary success, for the new styles attracted merchants from Cologne and cloth output reached a peak in the 1440s. Merchants from the Hanseatic League were particularly active in the town in this period. They imported the woad and other dye-stuffs used in cloth production and exported 80-90 per cent of its finished cloth. The second half of the century witnessed a decrease in exports and a contraction in cloth manufacture. Lesser enterprises began to withdraw from the industry, leaving it in the hands of a relatively small number of large-scale manufacturers. Colchester’s finances suffered as a result. Its rulers farmed out its houses, cranes and water tolls at the New Hythe for £56 p.a. in the late 1430s, but for only £35 in 1484-5. The farm of its land tolls and wool market in the moot hall cellar sank from £22 p.a. in 1443-4 to £16 in 1484-5.4 Britnell, Growth and Decline, 159, 262; idem, Colchester in Early 15th Cent. 3, 6; VCH Essex, ix. 32-33, 37-38.

The largest single item of expenditure for the borough was its annual fee farm of £35. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, held the farm by grant of the Crown from 1404 until he died in 1447. After the duke’s death, Henry VI awarded £24 of the farm to John Hampton II*, an esquire for the King’s body, and his wife and the remaining £11 to another royal servant, Robert Manfeld*. The grants to the Hamptons and Manfeld were for life but proved short-lived, since in 1453 Parliament reassigned the whole farm to the queen (again for life). Another significant expense for the borough was the fees and wages of its officers. These amounted to some £27 at the end of the fifteenth century, of which each of the two bailiffs received £5 (along with livery robes worth 20s.) and the town clerk ten marks.5 VCH Essex, ix. 51, 243; SC6/1269/4.

The bailiffs headed the government of the borough in association with eight aldermen and two chamberlains, all elected by a committee of 24 burgesses on the first Monday after 8 Sept. each year. Once appointed, the new bailiffs and aldermen chose 16 men to serve on the borough council. The bailiffs received royal writs directed to the borough, presided over its courts and had ultimate responsibility for its financial obligations. The aldermen were essentially a group of inner councillors. By 1447 they wore full robes to distinguish them from the ordinary councillors, but to a large extent their status was honorific. They had little in common with their counterparts in London, who served for life, performed a wide range of functions and were associated with particular wards. The chamberlains had the important responsibility of receiving the borough’s rents, farms and other income. They lacked the dignity of the bailiffs and aldermen, but their office was a first step to a higher position in the governing hierarchy. Although elected annually, they usually served two years in succession during the mid fifteenth century. A second group of officers, comprising four clavigers (who kept the keys of the town chest), two coroners, the town clerk and four serjeants (responsible for collecting fines imposed by the borough court), were elected on the Monday after Michaelmas every year.6 Britnell, Growth and Decline, 219, 223, 224, 229; VCH Essex, ix. 53-55; Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 103.

Although not a closed oligarchy, since its ranks were open to wealthy immigrants (an important source of fresh blood) or to natives of lesser status who had suddenly made money, the municipal elite that dominated the government of Colchester strengthened its control of the town over the course of Henry VI’s reign.7 Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 105. Citing disorders caused by the excessive number of people attending past elections, an ordinance promulgated in the 1430s or 1440s ruled that only resident freemen and taxpayers could take part in elections of headmen for the wards and that the electing committee of 24 should include at least six councillors. From 1437, the coroners were chosen from among the aldermen, a practice formally adopted for the elections of the bailiffs, clavigers and coroners after the reception of Henry VI’s charter of 1447. The charter granted the borough the right to appoint its own j.p.s, although it did not regularly hold annual elections for that office before the early 1460s. Four in number, the j.p.s sat with the bailiffs when they heard Crown pleas in the borough court. Like the bailiffs, clavigers and coroners, they were drawn from the pool of aldermen.8 Britnell, Growth and Decline, 221, 226; Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 104; VCH Essex, ix. 49, 54.

The charter of 1447 also defined the borough’s liberty, which covered the vills of Lexden, Greenstead, Mile End and Donyland as well as the walled town. The burgesses did not enjoy complete jurisdiction throughout the liberty because the abbey of St. John’s, Colchester (which owned the manors of Greenstead and West Donyland), the Fitzwalter family (lords of Lexden manor), and the priory of St. Botolph’s all enjoyed extensive legal privileges over their lands which lay within it. Inside the walls, the castle and the bishop of London’s soke in the parish of St. Mary-at the-Walls were also exempt from the authority of the borough. In Henry VI’s reign the castle was successively in the hands of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who held it from 1404 until his death, of John Hampton, who held it for two months in 1447, and finally of the queen, who appointed Hampton her constable. The existence of several jurisdictions within the liberty frequently caused conflict. Although the burgesses eschewed factionalism among themselves, they often quarrelled with St. John’s abbey, usually in connexion with rights in Greenstead and West Donyland.9 VCH Essex, ii. 95; ix. 49-50, 230, 243; Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 107; Essex RO, Colchester bor. recs., ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr. During the particularly acrimonious disputes between them and the abbey in the late 1420s and early 1430s, when the two sides were at loggerheads over a mill the burgesses had built on the Colne, the abbot accused some of the townsmen of lollardy. Lollardy certainly existed at Colchester, where at least three local adherents of the heresy suffered death at the stake in the late 1420s, but it had only a very small following there.10 Red Ppr. Bk. Colchester ed. Benham, 51-56. This assessment of the significance of lollardy in Colchester is based on Britnell, Colchester in Early 15th Cent. 33, rather than the VCH Essex, ix. 66, which asserts that the town was a centre for the heresy in the late 1420s. The burgesses also came into conflict with a prominent local lay landowner, John de Vere, 12th earl of Oxford, in the late 1440s. The earl, who was lord of the nearby manor of Wivenhoe, had designs on a valuable fishery on the Colne that Richard I had granted to the borough. Shortly before the burgesses received their charter of 1447, he persuaded the malleable Henry VI to grant it to him instead. In defence of their rights, the burgesses went to law, and they won their case before the end of the decade.11 Morant, 89-91; VCH Essex, ix. 36, 264; CPR, 1446-52, p. 33; C44/29, m. 15; KB27/748, rot. 35; 750, rot. 92.

The burgesses’ willingness to stand up to the earl illustrates the de Veres’ inability to achieve the dominance they came to enjoy at Colchester by the mid Tudor period. During Henry VI’s reign, the borough generally avoided unnecessary entanglements with the earl or other local landowners and endeavoured to keep clear of national politics.12 The Commons 1504-1558, i. 89; Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 107. From time to time, the burgesses received important visitors, including Gloucester in 1423 and the King himself in August 1446,13 Britnell, Growth and Decline, 225; Colchester bor. recs., ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 92d. but they were usually left to themselves. While the duke of Gloucester did become involved in their quarrel with St. John’s abbey in 1429, he did so at the behest of the borough.14 Red Ppr. Bk. 51-52. A more immediate presence were the local gentry who owned property in Colchester, made use of its borough court and joined its guild of St. Helen, but they held no position in its administration until Edward IV’s charter of 1462 created the office of recorder.15 Colchester ct. rolls, 1425-7, 1432-3, 1447-8, 1451-2, 1459-60, D/B 5 Cr46, m. 23d; 47, mm. 10d, 18; 51, m. 19d; 62, m. 14d; 64, m. 18d; 70, acct. roll masters of St. Helen’s guild, 1441-2, D/B 5 Z2; VCH Essex, ix. 54.

Outside events most notably affected Colchester in 1450, during Cade’s rebellion and its aftermath. Cade derived significant support from Essex, where his representative, the Londoner John Gibbes, was active on his behalf. In Colchester the authorities struggled to keep order, for Gibbes was able to enter the town and, according to later indictments, helped to instigate a rising there on 1 July. One target of the disturbances was John Hampton, the constable of Colchester castle, but the main victim was his servant, Thomas Mayne*. Finding that Hampton was absent, the rebels contented themselves with looting his possessions and taking Mayne with them when they marched off to join Cade. They took the unfortunate servant to Southwark, where the rebels executed him on Cade’s orders. Mayne made a brief will there on 4 July, the eve of his execution. Of no particular interest for its contents, the will is of most significance for its list of witnesses. At the head of the list are one of the bailiffs of Colchester, William Lecche, and another burgess, Robert Selby, showing that Gigges had brought them to London with Mayne. Although Lecche and Selby did not suffer the deputy constable’s fate, it is very unlikely that they had come to London willingly; indeed, their witnessing of his will suggests that they had shared his confinement. There were further disturbances at Colchester on the following 10 Sept. when a mob, claiming that Cade was still alive, gathered in the town. The bailiffs arrested the ringleader, a brick-maker named Richard Tailor, but some of his fellow insurgents broke into the local gaol and released him a few days later.16 I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade, 94, 109, 143-4; Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 193; PCC 12 Rous (PROB11/1, f. 91); KB9/26/1/16, 17; 268/41a; 273/86; 279/92; KB27/765, rex rot. 1; 772, rex rot. 6; 778, rex rot. 8; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 415, 503.

In the four decades prior to 1422, the town had obtained almost continuous exemption from returning burgesses to the Commons, because of the expense it faced in rebuilding its walls. In practice, however, it appears it continued to send representatives to most, if not all, of the Parliaments of that period, with the MPs in question forgoing their wages to these repairs. 17The Commons 1386-1421, i. 395. It was apparently at the beginning of Henry VI’s reign that its burgesses attempted to gain a similar exemption. There survives a petition from them to the Lords, bearing no date but most likely of 1422, by which they sought to be excused from having to return one of their MPs to the Commons over the next 20 years. It bears no endorsement and was probably unsuccessful; although they did obtain another exemption in 1425, this time from having to return men to the Parliament of that year, because of the costs they faced in renovating their town hall. The borough nevertheless sent Henry Boss and John Godstone to that assembly while probably assigning their wages to that building work. 18SC10/101/5013; VCH Essex, ix. 57.

The surviving returns for Colchester supply the names of 24 of its MPs of Henry VI’s reign but those of its Members in the Parliaments of 1439 and 1445 and of one of its burgesses in that of 1460 are unknown. Only one of the 24 was not a resident burgess at the time of his election, another sign of the borough’s ability to maintain its independence in this period.19 Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 106. Furthermore, the sole exception, John Godstone, was by no means a complete outsider, since he was the younger brother of a prominent townsman and he himself became a freeman in due course. Yet more than half of the MPs were not native to the borough. The Godstones were from Surrey; Nicholas Peek, Robert Priour, John Rouge and William Saxe came from Suffolk; William Nottingham, Thomas Oskyn and John Trewe were all from elsewhere in Essex; Walter Bonfay came from Wimpole in Cambridgeshire; Lecche was a native of Aynho, Northamptonshire; and William Petworth took his surname from his birthplace in Sussex. Colchester also attracted immigrants from further afield. Selby was a Gloucester man and Thomas Wood was probably from Blackawton in Devon. The overwhelming preponderance of resident townsmen among the MPs represents a continuing pattern, since all of the 14 known Members for the borough in the period 1386-1421 (including four of the 24, Thomas Godstone, Simon Mate, Nottingham and John Sumpter) were freemen and residents of Colchester when elected.20 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 395. Not least because so many of the 24 were non-natives, there was scarcely any family tradition of parliamentary service among the 24. Only Henry Boss was certainly the son of a former MP for the borough, although Peek was the son-in-law of another of its former parliamentary burgesses.

All of the 24 were of the borough’s oligarchy or, in the case of John Godstone, soon to join it. A majority were ‘merchants’, although some of those so described pursued particular occupations as well: Priour was additionally known as a mercer, Selby as a dyer, William Foorde as a draper and Rouge as a tailor. John Trewe and Bonfay also participated in the cloth trade. Several of them had business dealings abroad. Rouge, for example, was the co-owner of a ship impounded at Bergen in Norway on one ill-fated trading venture of unknown date. Thomas Godstone was another ship-owner, and he obtained a royal licence to carry pilgrims to the shrine of St. James at Compostela in his own vessels.London loomed large in the lives of several of the 24. John Godstone was a citizen and mercer there long before he settled in Colchester, and John Bishop, who spent part of his career as a clerk in Chancery, likewise resided in the city before moving to the borough. Boss had a brother who was a London grocer while William Foorde likewise became a freeman of the City, although not until after his time in Parliament was over, and others of the MPs had business dealings there. Bishop engaged in trade after moving to Colchester but he was also a lawyer, as perhaps were Sumpter and John Wright. Bishop and Wright enjoyed the status of ‘gentlemen’ but Sumpter (whose father-in-law was a knight), and the Godstones were of armigerous rank. The Godstones and Peek, who was born into minor gentry from Suffolk, were landowners of some substance, although their holdings could not match the estates in Essex, Hertfordshire and Warwickshire that Sumpter enjoyed in the right of his wife.

It appears that experience of local government was usually a criterion of some importance in the choice of Colchester’s MPs in this period, since they all held borough office, the great majority beginning to do so before entering Parliament. It is therefore unlikely that any of them joined the Commons at a particularly early age.21 Only William Foorde, John Godstone and Mate, appear to have gained election before taking up bor. office of any sort. Each of the 24 became aldermen, with exactly two thirds (16) attaining that status prior to gaining election to their first (or only) Parliaments and several of them exercising it for many years. Save for John Godstone and John Saveyn, all of them held the office of bailiff, of whom a dozen attained the office prior to entering Parliament. Most of the bailiffs served multiple terms as such, sometimes combining the position with a seat in the Commons. The borough returned bailiffs to the Commons in 1422 (Sumpter), 1425 (Boss), 1429 and 1432 (John Beche), and it appointed serving MPs as bailiffs in 1433 (Beche), 1453 (Petworth) and 1455 (Saxe).

Several of the 24 also received appointments to royal commissions for Colchester, although only Beche appears to have done so before entering the Commons, and some of them served the Crown on such commissions or in other positions in Essex and beyond, a reflection of their external origins or interests, in most cases only after they had entered Parliament. Uniquely, Thomas Godstone held office under the Crown in Picardy, meaning that he was potentially well qualified to participate in parliamentary debates concerning matters in France. Save for Bishop, none of the 24 served in central government and there is no way of telling whether Bishop’s work as a Chancery clerk had any bearing on his career as an MP.

There is likewise next to no evidence linking any of the 24 with great magnates, whether lay or spiritual. While Bishop may have counted John Mowbray, 4th duke of Norfolk, as a customer for his cloth, his dealings with that lord were not necessarily cordial and, in any case, post-dated his time as an MP. It nevertheless seems that Saxe did have some sort of connexion or dealings with the Mowbrays. As Colchester’s ‘Oath book’ records, at some stage in 1450-1, while Saxe was one of the bailiffs, the 3rd duke of Norfolk wrote a letter to the borough authorities on his behalf (‘pro Willelmi Saxe’). Tantalizingly, this brief entry in the oath book does not reveal the contents of the letter. It is worth noting that Saxe would afterwards sit in the Parliament of 1455, an assembly for which, in East Anglia at least, the duke actively sought the return of his followers. Yet, even if he was a Mowbray retainer, his election does not alter the overall picture of corporate independence in this period: by 1455 he was a fully-fledged burgess of over two decades’ standing who had held office at Colchester since the early 1440s.

There is no evidence that Saxe sat in any other Parliaments apart from that of 1455, but at least 11 of the other MPs gained election to the Commons on more than one occasion, if not just within the period under review. Thomas Godstone represented the borough in no fewer than 13 Parliaments spanning nearly three decades, all but a couple of them before 1422. It is arguable that he alone of the 24 truly had a parliamentary career, but the borough must also have benefited from the continuity and accumulation of experience arising from the concentrated service in Parliament that it received from some of the others. For example, Beche sat in four Parliaments of the late 1420s and first half of the 1430s, three of them alongside Oskyn, his fellow in 1442. In most of Henry VI’s Parliaments, at least one of Colchester’s MPs had sat previously, indicating that the borough valued experienced Members, as it had in the three and a half decades before 1422, although the election together of two apparent newcomers became more common in the later years of the reign.22 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 395. Both MPs were newcomers in the Parls. of 1425 and 1431. The same is the case for those of 1447, Nov. 1449, 1450, 1453 and 1459, assuming that none of them had sat in the assemblies of 1439 and 1445. Whether this development reflected a desire to spread the duty of attending Parliament more widely, or a growing unwillingness among the borough oligarchy to sit at all, is impossible to determine. It appears that it still allowed its representatives 2s. per day, the customary rate for parliamentary burgesses, at the end of the fifteenth century, even though by then other boroughs had cut their MPs’ wages.23 VCH Essex, ix. 57; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 395; Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxi. 106; KB27/858, rot. 36d; Red Ppr. Bk. 124-5.

Drawn up in the county court for Essex, the formal returns to the Commons of the MPs for Colchester recorded the results of the actual elections, previously held in the borough, the mechanics of which are unknown. Just two election indentures, those for the Parliaments of 1455 and 1459, have survived. Both bear the same date as the corresponding indentures for the election of Essex’s knights of the shire. In 1455 the parties were the sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire on the one hand and the two bailiffs, ten named attestors and ‘many other burgesses’ on the other; in 1459 they were the sheriff, bailiffs and ten other attestors identified by name. Two later indentures from Edward IV’s reign, those for the Parliaments of 1472 and 1478, suggest that the choice of MPs lay with Colchester’s oligarchy. The parties to these returns are the sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire and the bailiffs of the borough. Neither lists any attestors by name, and both simply state that a majority of the resident burgesses of ‘greatest substance’ had elected the men returned.

As with most other boroughs, there is no direct evidence of the activities of the 24 once they had reached Parliament. While Colchester’s MPs in that of 1485 went to the trouble of keeping a journal of its proceedings for the benefit of their fellow townsmen,24 Parlty. Texts of the Later Middle Ages ed. Pronay and Taylor, 177-93. no such record survives from Henry VI’s reign. It is nevertheless likely that Wood and William Foorde had a role in securing their borough’s exemption from the Act of Resumption passed in the Parliament of 1450.25 PROME, xii. 138.