BOWES, William I

More can be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 318-19. Bowes, who was one of the most senior aldermen of York during the period of Henry VI’s minority, attested the city’s parliamentary elections on no fewer than 14 recorded occasions, a number unmatched in the fifteenth century by any other of the city’s MPs. Unusually, in 1426 he witnessed the indenture which recorded his own fourth election to the Commons. C219/13/4.

A legal case of 1415 gives an impression of the scale of Bowes’s dealings in wool. In Hilary term the collectors of the wool custom in Kingston-upon-Hull sued the sheriffs of York in the Exchequer. They claimed that the sheriffs had returned false answers of ‘non sunt inventi’ to writs of capias requiring certain York merchants, including Bowes as well as Nicholas Blackburn* and his father and John Bolton* and his father, to answer for their non-payment of customs. Bowes owed the huge amount of £132 8s. 4d., a sum matched among the 14 named merchants only by the Boltons. E13/131, rot. 13. Bowes was also involved in the Hanseatic trade: in 1422 he was among a group of English merchants from York, Hull and Beverley who had their merchandise seized en route to Danzig by Hanseatic ships. Fourteen years later they were still demanding restitution from the Hansards. Hanserecesse, 1431-76 ed. van der Ropp, ii. 65. Much of his wealth may have remained tied up in working capital, and in 1435 he was assessed at only £18 p.a. towards the parliamentary subsidy charged on land. E179/217/42.

From at least 1428 Bowes rented a tenement in Cranegarth from the wardens of Ouse Bridge, almost certainly for commercial purposes. He held this until his death when it was transferred to his son. York Bridgemasters’ Accts. ed. Stell (York Arch. Trust, 2003), 138, 167. Indeed, it seems likely that the two operated closely together in business: around 1416 Nicholas, the nephew of Nicholas Blackburn, was apprenticed to them jointly. York City Archs., Liber Misc. viii. E.39, p. 96.