BOSS, Henry (d.1433), of Colchester, Essex.

A merchant from an established local family, Red Ppr. Bk. Colchester ed. Benham, 17. A namesake was bailiff of Colchester in 1365-6: Colchester Oath Bk. ed. Benham, 65. Boss followed his father’s footsteps by playing a prominent role in the administration of Colchester. He was not an only son since he had a brother, Thomas, who became a member of the borough council but also pursued a career as a London grocer. His father was involved in the cloth trade and owned a mill in the town, sometimes incurring fines for taking excessive tolls from those who had brought their grain there. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 303; ct. rolls, D/B 5Cr 39, m. 26; 43, m. 1; Mercers’ Co., London, St. Paul’s school, cart. ff. 220v-221; ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 78d; CPR, 1422-9, p. 311. Boss inherited the mill and the borough court amerced him for the same offence in October 1418. Ct. roll, D/B 5 Cr41, m. 2d. Apart from the mill, he owned property in East Street and elsewhere within the town walls and, perhaps, at Colchester’s port of New Hythe as well. Ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr50, m. 36; 53, m. 30d. In late 1427 his servant, John Grove, driving a horse and cart to the hythe, collided with another belonging to Nicholas Hayll. Boss subsequently sued Richard Cachehare, the driver of Hayll’s cart, for negligence in the borough court. He alleged that Cachehare had caused the accident (in which Boss’s horse was run over) but the latter blamed Grove for the collision. Whatever the truth of the matter, Boss was later amerced for failing to pursue his suit, which never progressed beyond these initial pleadings. Ct. roll, 1427-8, D/B 5 Cr48, mm. 13d, 19d.

Boss began his career as an office-holder in Henry IV’s reign. In his first term as bailiff he and his fellow, Thomas Godstone*, held an inquisition about the activities of another burgess, William Howard, whom the jury concerned found guilty of the treasonable offence of counterfeiting coinage. Red Ppr. Bk. 47-48. During his second, the borough authorities passed various ordinances, including one prohibiting local leather-workers from polluting the river and charging excessive prices. Ibid. 49-50. In the same term he and other burgesses arbitrated in a dispute between Robert Selby* and John Segrave, owners of two neighbouring tenements in North Street. Ct. roll 1424-5, D/B 5 Cr45, m. 22d. This was not the first occasion that he was called upon to play such a role, since he had arbitrated in a quarrel between John Trewe* and John Gosse a little over a year earlier. Ct. roll 1423-4, D/B 5 Cr44, m. 9d. During Boss’s fourth term as bailiff, the master and college of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, to which belonged the suppressed alien priory and manor of West Mersea, sued him and other burgesses, alleging that they had trespassed on land just south of Colchester belonging to the college and had imprisoned one of its local employees. KB27/687, rot. 62; VCH Northants. ii. 177. Boss died at some point between October 1433, when he was party to a conveyance made in accordance with the will of Thomas Godstone, and July 1434. At the latter date his daughter and heir, Helen, and her husband, John Drewe of Colchester, made a formal release of several of his properties in the town to his widow Agnes and John Clerk, whom he had appointed the executors of his no longer extant will. St. Paul’s school, cart. f. 211; ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr53, m. 30d; 55, m. 22. Agnes was still alive in the autumn of 1444, when she sued two men for debt in the borough court. Ct. roll 1444-5, D/B 5 Cr60, m. 8.