CANTELOWE, William (d.1464), of London and Dunstable and Whipsnade, Beds. and Faversham, Kent.

Cantelowe rose to become one of London and England’s greatest merchants, during a long career in which he served as a prominent official under Henry VI, but was eventually knighted by his Yorkist successor, Edward IV. He was a member of a family which had become established in Bedfordshire by the early thirteenth century, when the Cantelowes (or Cantilupes) held the manors of Edworth and Eaton Bray. It appears, however, that much of their property in the county passed into the hands of the Zouches by 1275 and as a result little is recorded of the Cantelowes there in the fourteenth century. Indeed it was the subject of this biography who re-established the family in Bedfordshire with his acquisitions at Dunstable and Whipsnade. VCH Beds. ii. 224; iii. 359, 370, 374, 455-6. As a direct result of this apparent lull in the family’s fortunes, Cantelowe’s parentage is obscure, but it is possible that he was a younger brother of the John Cantelowe who was made a freeman of the city of London as a member of the Mercers’ Company in 1410, for two years later William himself was apprenticed to the four-times warden John Whatley†. The year of Cantelowe’s admission to the freedom is not recorded, although he certainly attained it before 1419 when, already a freeman, he was admitted to the first of the three stages which led to eventual membership of the livery of the craft, a process he duly completed in 1422. This suggests that Cantelowe had either served the minimum seven year term as an apprentice and had then been admitted to the freedom and livery simultaneously, or, more likely, that he had abandoned his apprenticeship a few years earlier and obtained the freedom by redemption. Mercers’ Co. Biog. Index Cards. Cantelowe enjoyed a highly successful career as a member of the Mercers’ Company, twice serving as a warden and three times as master between 1431 and 1461. He enrolled few apprentices, but one of these was his eldest son, Thomas, whom he took on in 1444-5. By 1449 Thomas, presumably with the help of his father, had probably also obtained the freedom by redemption and had joined William as a merchant of the Calais staple. The two men appear to have worked closely together in the 1450s and 1460s. In the meantime, by 1457, the father had also been chosen as a feoffee of quitrents in London which belonged to the Mercers. CPR, 1452-61, p. 226; CCR, 1454-61, p. 127; Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 150-1; Acts of Ct. Mercers’ Co. 1453-1527 ed. Lyell and Watney, 45, 47.

Much is recorded of Cantelowe’s trading activities, which saw him becoming a merchant of the staple and one of the largest exporters of wool of his day. Between May and August 1450 he and his and son Thomas between them exported over 300 sacks, more than any of the other staplers. Cantelowe used the profits of the wool trade to invest in a range of other goods both for shipment to the continent and for importation into England. E. Power and M.M. Postan, English Trade in 15th Cent. 16. His trading activities were frequently undertaken in partnership with foreign merchants: in September 1438 three Italians entered into a bond before the mayor of London for the payment of £196 13s. 4d. to Cantelowe in two instalments, probably representing the proceeds of a business venture. On a previous occasion he had offered mainprise in £1,000 for a group of Milanese merchants who were granted a royal licence to ship 300 sacks of wool to Antwerp, and then on to Lombardy. A great many transactions involved the extension of credit, often employing the device of a gift of goods and chattels as security. As early as December 1430 Cantelowe had made such a gift to his fellow mercers William Estfield*, Henry Frowyk I*, Robert Large* and William Melreth*, and others including John Carpenter II*, and it is possible that this was part of a transaction in which, still at a relatively early stage in his career, he was obtaining finance from more established merchants. Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 250.

As he built up his business Cantelowe began to finance his ventures with money obtained from alien merchants, including the Salviati of London and Bruges from whom he had borrowed more than £4,000 by 1451. Cantelowe himself extended credit to a number of other merchants, many of them also aliens. In 1445, for instance, a deed was drawn up between him and two Flemish merchants, Jean Bertout and Duic Florissen of Leiden, who were ‘bound to Cantelo merchant of the staple of Calais or to the bringer of this letter in £100 sterling which he paid for us [ie gave us credit] for the wool and fells which we bought at Calais and the money is to be paid at the Pinxstermaret [Synchon Mart] at Antwerp next coming’. Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 5; CPR, 1429-36, p. 414; G.A. Holmes, ‘Anglo-Florentine Trade’, EHR, cviii. 371-86; Power and Postan, 64. Much of Cantelowe’s wool was, it appears, purchased in the Cotswolds and then exported from the port of Southampton: shipments of his were recorded in the port books in April 1440, while other records note a large cargo destined for Florence in 1451. A 20 mark debt owed to Cantelowe by an Oxfordshire husbandman in 1454 may well have been the result of his purchases in that part of the country. Soton. Port Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Ser. v), 72, 78; Soton. Brokage Bk. 1443-4, ii (Soton Rec. Ser. vi), 207-8, 211, 214; CPR, 1452-61, p. 138. His dealings with Italian merchants in the capital also extended to the purchasing of cloth, and among those with whom he did business was a company of merchants that included the Lucchese Alessandro Palastrelli among its partners. E101/128/31, f. 1.

Cantelowe’s business dealings enabled him to acquire a good deal of property in London and elsewhere. His earliest known residence was, however, a rented property in the parish of St. Martin Pomary which was owned by the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s. This was a substantial building, for which he paid an annual rent of £6 6s. 8d., and during the first year of his tenancy he himself contributed more than £5 to the £8 11s. 10½d. that was spent on rebuilding one of the tenements. Later accounts show that the main part of the property included a wine cellar, a hall and at least two chambers, as well as a kitchen, parlour and stable. Cantelowe rented the property until at least 1433, but had ceased to hold it by 1445. Historical Gazeteer Cheapside ed. Keene and Harding, nos. 95/2, 95/5G; Guildhall Lib. London, St. Paul’s mss, 25498, 25630/1, ff. 260v-1, 25636-8. In the meantime, however, other holdings had come his way as a result of his first marriage to Margaret, the daughter and heiress of a fellow citizen. These probably included the lands in the parish of St. Christopher le Stocks which they jointly conveyed to feoffees in the summer of 1429. The most substantial property acquired through this marriage was, however, located outside the city in the parish of St. Clement Danes. This, ‘Clements Inn’, later became established as one of the inns of Chancery, perhaps indirectly through the agency of Cantelowe, who let it out to a group of lawyers. They, in their turn, appointed a body of trustees that included (Sir) John Fortescue*, the future chief justice. By the early 1460s, with Fortescue in exile abroad, the property was held directly from Cantelowe, who paid quitrents to the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s and to St. Giles’ hospital. Also acquired by him was Angel Inn near Aldwych, which may also have acted as an inn of Chancery before becoming a public hostelry in the early sixteenth century. This was the subject of a demise made in 1440 by Fortescue, Sir Robert Hungerford and others to Cantelowe and his close associates Estfield, Frowyk, Melreth, Thomas Gloucester of Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, and Laurence Pigot, a wool merchant from Dunstable. Early Holborn, nos. 1466-7, 1469, 1475, 1498, 1504; CAD, vi. C6188.

The locations of Cantelowe’s other holdings in London is not recorded, although in the autumn of 1430 he made a single conveyance of his landed possessions in the capital to a group of prominent feoffees who included Estfield, Frowyk and Melreth. Among these properties was probably Le Crowne in the parish of St. Mary Colechurch which he and Gloucester held in 1444. Corp. London RO, hr 157/53, 159/38; Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 204; Historical Gazeteer, no. 105/13. At some point after 1441 he also began to rent three newly-built houses in the parish of St. Mary Milk Street which the rector and wardens decided to lease out in order to pay off a large debt. Royal 17 B xlvii, f. 65. Cantelowe himself was active as a trustee of property acquired by others, including that in All Hallows Barking which seems to have belonged to his fellow stapler Alan Johnson, and more in the parish of St. Mary at Hill which he and his co-feoffees subsequently settled on Stephen Brown*. London hr 169/33, 179/9, 11, 186/5-6, 191/9.

Outside London Cantelowe expended much of his energies in building up holdings in Bedfordshire. The ‘manor’ of Whipsnade, which was normally treated as part of Eaton Bray, was acquired by Laurence Pigot of Dunstable in 1443, but in the summer of 1453 it and lands nearby were conveyed to Cantelowe, with whom Pigot had evidently established a connexion in London some years before. By 1490, when it was held by Cantelowe’s son Henry, it was worth some four marks p.a. VCH Beds. iii. 455-6; CCR, 1447-54, p. 446. In August 1453 Edward Boner of Weston Inge conveyed a messuage and three acres of arable land at Whipsnade to Cantelowe, with reversionary interests being granted to his second wife Elizabeth for her lifetime and to their two sons William and Henry. By the late 1450s he was looking to acquire property in nearby Dunstable, including a tenement in North Street, while in 1461 John Pigot of Abindon in Cambridgeshire, a relative of Laurence, conveyed property in the vills of Dunstable, Houghton Regis and elsewhere in Bedfordshire to him and Elizabeth. The couple also acquired arable land at Kensworth in 1455 which Cantelowe subsequently leased out to a local man. C146/51, 291, 489; CAD, i. C706, 1056. It is likely that William himself acquired the bulk of the 20 messuages and 20 acres of land in Dunstable which were afterwards held by his son Henry. CIPM Hen. VII, i. 629.

Cantelowe’s association with Thomas Gloucester saw him drawn into affairs in neighbouring Hertfordshire, where in 1431 the two men were among those enfeoffed of the manor of Geddings by Edmund Chertsey*, the son and heir of John Chertsey of Broxbourne. CCR, 1429-35, pp. 126, 128. In May 1433 they were granted for ten years the keeping of a third part of the manor of Le Hyde, as well as other lands in Hertfordshire which were in the hands of the Crown following the death of the countess of Salisbury. CFR, xvi. 38, 147-8. Relations between Cantelowe and Gloucester appear to have been as important to him as those with Laurence Pigot in Bedfordshire, for in March 1458 he drew up two separate indentures with the Dominican friary at Dunstable and the Franciscan friary in London for the foundation of chantries for the souls of Laurence and Alice Pigot and for Thomas and Anne Gloucester respectively. Both agreements referred to donations which Cantelowe had made in return: he gave £200 to the Franciscans in London and lead for the repair of the nave of the priory church in Dunstable. CAD, v. A11314; C147/111. Late in his career Cantelowe also acquired property at Faversham in Kent, the extent of which is not recorded. Like a number of other Londoners he appears to have donated money to Rochester bridge and his name came to be inscribed on a table of benefactors there. J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, iv. 44.

Cantelowe’s activities as a merchant and a landowner were helped considerably by a longstanding connexion with the Crown, an attachment that was unusually strong for someone who remained active on the civic stage in London and continued to deal extensively as a merchant. The link was established by 1422 when Cantelowe was listed among the suppliers of luxury goods to the great wardrobe along with other mercers such as William Estfield, in his case supplying satin worth £17 11s. 9d. E101/407/13, f. 9v. More significant, however, was a connexion which he established with the King’s uncle, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. In May 1423 Gloucester sent a warrant to the treasurer, John Stafford, dean of Wells, informing him that he had nominated ‘our good friend’ Cantelowe to receive on his behalf the sum of £137 14s. 3d., part of the duke’s annuity from the Exchequer. Two years later Cantelowe performed a similar task, this time specifically described as a servant of the duke. E404/39/354; E403/669, m. 17. He also had dealings with the next treasurer, Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, and in 1428 he and Thomas Gloucester entered into recognizances with him in Chancery in the sum of 200 marks. CCR, 1422-9, p. 451. More importantly, when, during the Parliament of 1433, a bill was put forward by the long-suffering creditors of the late Edmund, earl of March, who had died intestate, Cantelowe was chosen to be one of just two administrators of the earl’s estate. SC8/26/1296; RP, iv. 471 (cf. PROME, xi. 156). The creditors were not named in the petition, but it would seem that Duke Humphrey, who was owed substantial sums, was behind Cantelowe’s appointment. The administrators were to be supervised by a group headed by the duke’s retainer (Sir) John Tyrell*. CFR, xv. 103-4, 249-50; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 207-8. Cantelowe was still acting as administrator in 1447: CP40/745, rot. 473 (where the parlty. petition is rehearsed).

In the meantime Cantelowe had been able to make good use of his links with the Crown. In March 1432 he and Thomas Chynnore were appointed as collectors of customs in the port of London, a post which Cantelowe held until August the following year. In April 1433 assignment was made in respect of a loan of £100 which they had made to the Crown. Two years later, in February 1435, Cantelowe was granted a licence enabling him to export grain to Calais, where he was already well established as a merchant of the staple. E403/709, m. 1; DKR, xlviii. 303. The importance of Cantelowe’s dealings in this commodity, and indeed his growing experience as a merchant in general, was not to become apparent until the following summer when, with an attack on Calais by the forces of the duke of Burgundy believed to be imminent, the Crown made a series of appointments to offices connected with the defence of the town. On 30 June 1436 Cantelowe was appointed to the vital post of victualler of Calais, a move designed to place the provisioning of the town on a sounder footing. He was also charged with the provision of much-needed materials for fortifications. During his tenure of the post he worked closely with the treasurer of Calais, Robert Whittingham I* who had been appointed earlier in the year. Cantelowe served as victualler probably until late November 1439 when an account was drawn up covering the three and a quarter years since his appointment. This account indicated that Cantelowe himself had contributed large sums of money to the defence of Calais, and in recompense in August 1442 he received a royal grant which allowed him to ship wool and woolfells from Sandwich, Ipswich and London free of customs to the value of £1,506 15s. 8¼d., a sum which was owed to him because of his ‘various bodily travails and great payments of his own goods’. CCR, 1441-7, pp. 27-28. Some of the difficulties experienced by Cantelowe were revealed in a petition which he submitted to Chancery while he was still victualler in which he accused two burgesses of Bishop’s Lynn, Richard Frank* and John Holdernesse, of refusing to co-operate when the Crown commandeered one of their ships to take malt and wheat to Calais. Instead of allowing the ship to sail to Calais with two others, they dispatched it to Newcastle on their own business. Cantelowe was clearly worried about the dangers of taking vessels across the Channel, and ended his petition by warning of ‘þe troblous world þat now is of enemyes up on þe see’. To help in his administration of the town’s stores and provisions Cantelowe drew upon the help of certain of his fellow Londoners, who dealt in some of the commodities he needed. In the autumn of 1437, for instance, royal protection was granted to William Wyche, a London fishmonger, who subsequently went to Picardy in Cantelowe’s service the following summer. R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 202; DKR, xlviii. 313, 324; E101/192/10; C1/70/128; CPR, 1436-41, p. 203.

In September 1440 Cantelowe was granted a royal licence enabling him to ship wool to Calais, which he was to sell and then keep the profits as his reward for his service as victualler. This grant did not, it appears, go down well with some of his fellow staplers who recognized this as a breach of the ‘partition’ rules by which wool sales had been regulated since 1429. These rules meant that profits arising from wool of the same type, sold at a fixed price, were pooled and the distributed according to the amount of wool each merchant had brought to the staple, whether they had actually sold all of it or not. Licences granted to men such as Cantelowe, often as a means to repay loans, thus breached these rules and had been the subject of a petition put forward during the Parliament of 1435. In the autumn of 1441 the staplers secured a temporary victory by promising a substantial loan to the Crown, and on 29 Nov. a warrant was sent to the mayor of the staple revoking all licences that had been issued ‘notwithstanding any letters patent of licence granted to the said Cantelowe by the which he may ship certain wools to Calais and from thence to have or sell from Calais any wools that he shall ship thither by virtue of the said licence unto the time that King give him other in commandment’. DKR, xlviii. 349; Power and Postan, 83, 86-87; PPC, v. 168. This exemption reflected the important position that Cantelowe had come to occupy among the suppliers and administrators who were responsible for maintaining the Crown’s possessions in France. He continued to serve in this capacity even after relinquishing the post of victualler: in August 1442, for example, assignment was made to him in respect of eight barrels of gunpowder which he had supplied for ships under the command of Sir Stephen Popham* and John Heron*. E403/745, m. 14. By the mid 1440s hopes of peace had become linked with the cession of the province of Maine, and the marriage of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou. To assist with the costs of the journey of Margaret to England Cantelowe lent the Crown the sum of 200 marks, which his servant William Bukton delivered to John Brecknock* of the Household at Rouen. The loan was made the subject of an order authorizing repayment by assignment in April 1445. Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, i. 446; E 403/757, m. 1. From this point onwards Cantelowe began lending money to the Crown on a more regular basis. These loans, covering the years from 1446 to 1452, were made in a personal capacity and were thus distinct from those which he made with his fellow merchants of the staple. They varied in size from the two loans of 100 marks each which he lent in September 1449 and February 1450, to one of 500 marks which he advanced in May 1448. On at least three occasions, however, the assignments which were made for the purposes of repaying the loans were not honoured and by the early 1450s these bad tallies amounted to more than £520. E 403/765, mm. 12, 15; 771, m. 11; 777, mm. 1, 11; 785, m. 14; 786, m. 10; 788, m. 4; 791, mm. 4, 8; 793, m. 8; 796, mm. 9, 12; A. Steel, Receipt of Exchequer 263-4.

At some point in 1447 or early 1448 Cantelowe seems to have been reappointed as victualler of Calais, although the surviving evidence does not record the date of his appointment or the period for which he served. Nor is there any evidence that the incumbent, Robert Manfeld*, lost his post. It was, however, probably during his time in office that in March 1449 he advanced the sum of 500 marks to the Bastard of St. Paul in compensation for losses suffered at the hands of the English garrison at Le Crotoy. This was to be repaid to him from the first half of the subsidy granted by Parliament that July. By this time the situation in Normandy was deteriorating rapidly, and in a last ditch effort supplies were sent to the garrisons at Calais, Cherbourg and Caen. Cantelowe played a direct part, and in the early autumn supplied 1,800 lb of gunpowder and 200 lb of saltpetre to Thomas Gower I*, captain of Cherbourg, at a cost of 100 marks. It may have been around this time that two men from Rouen were captured, perhaps during the English retreat, and taken to England as Cantelowe’s prisoners. They were eventually returned to Normandy in May 1453, presumably in exchange for English prisoners or a ransom. PPC, vi. 73-74; E404/64/73; Wars of English, i. 502; E 403/777, m. 5; DKR, xlviii. 394. Cantelowe’s role during the ignominious loss of Normandy may not have been especially prominent, but in the popular imagination he was closely identified with the unpopular regime blamed for the military disaster. Thus, in the summer of 1450, during the revolt of Jack Cade, he was one of more than 50 men who were included in a ‘dyrge made by the comons of Kent’, composed as a parody of the office of the dead sung for the soul of the disgraced and murdered duke of Suffolk:

A-rys up thorp and cantelowe & stond ye togeder,

and synge ‘dies illa, dies ire’. Political, Religious and Love Songs ed. Furnivall (EETS, orig. ser. xv), 11; Griffiths, 639. ‘Thorp’ was Thomas Thorpe*, who was to be Speaker in Cantelowe’s first Parliament.

This adverse publicity did not, however, prevent the Crown from appointing him to several royal commissions in 1450 and 1451, some of which were specifically directed against the more prominent individuals, men such as John Trevelyan, who had been targeted by the rebels and whose indictment was hastily ordered in the aftermath of the disturbances.

Cantelowe’s links with the Crown were doubtless an important factor in some of the other connexions he forged during these years. In the spring of 1449 he was drawn into arrangements that were made for the repayment of substantial debts which were owed by the Crown to Richard, duke of York. The duke had managed to secure the help of the under-treasurer, Thomas Brown II*, and as an inducement he and his duchess conveyed manors in south-east England as well as several knights’ fees in Essex to Brown and a number of other men, including Cantelowe and William Baron*, one of the tellers of the Exchequer. Relations between Brown and the duke began to deteriorate soon afterwards and it is likely that York recovered at least some of the holdings by force before the dispute was settled by arbitration in the winter of 1451-2. CP25(1)/116/322/715, 293/71/343-4; J.M.W. Bean, ‘Financial Position of Richard, Duke of York’, in War and Govt. in the Middle Ages ed. Gillingham and Holt, 194-5. In the meantime it appears that Cantelowe advanced sums of money to a number of the leading men in the kingdom. In August 1451 he received reassignments for bad tallies that had been issued on behalf of the duke of York and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. The sums owed by Percy were substantial and in the summer of 1452 Cantelowe brought a suit against him in the court of common pleas for a debt of £1,010, followed by another for £505 15s. which he brought with his son Thomas. E403/785, m. 12; CP40/766, rot. 155. Similarly, in early 1455 Cantelowe was pursuing the executors of Cardinal John Kemp for the sum of £515 16s. 5d. which he had lent to the prelate in the summer of 1453. CP40/776, rot. 462d.

The scale of Cantelowe’s activities in London was greatly affected by his service as victualler of Calais. Before his appointment as he had served as a tax collector in the capital, attested the parliamentary election in 1432 and been chosen as one of the collectors of customs in the port of London. From 1436 until the early 1440s, however, he did not spend much time in the capital and indeed was not a party to any transactions involving property in the city from 1433 until 1441. Likewise, although he was chosen as warden of the Mercers in 1431, he was not to serve as such again until 1445-6. Once he had relinquished his duties at Calais, however, he was in a better position to further his career in the capital. His service to the Crown stood him in good stead, and despite not having served on any civic committees or having held any of the annually elected offices, he was chosen as an alderman for the ward of Cripplegate in May 1446. The following month he obtained a royal pardon, and this may have been prompted by suits brought by fellow merchants for in September he brought a plea before the mayor and aldermen after being accused of perjury by one Richard Whetell. Whetell may have been a fellow stapler, for he denied the charge of slander and offered to bring proof under the seal of the mayor of Calais. C67/39, m.41; jnl. 4, f. 40. A more serious controversy arose three years later, after Cantelowe had been elected as one of the city’s sheriffs. In a petition submitted to Chancery, Thomas Tuddenham*, the keeper of the great wardrobe, protested that Cantelowe had infringed the liberties of tenants dwelling in houses belonging to the wardrobe who by custom had enjoyed freedom from arrest, unless the mayor of London or his deputy were personally present. Cantelowe, he alleged, had ignored this custom in his attempt to arrest one of the tenants and had arrived with a great number of people and then beaten and wounded their suspect. C1/1489/76. No action appears to have been taken against Cantelowe, and over the next few years he consolidated his position on the court of aldermen with service on a number of city committees, particularly those which dealt with the market at Billingsgate. Jnl. 5, ff. 14, 17, 25-25v, 31v, 45. His standing in the city by 1450 was clearly high, although he must have regarded the events of the summer of that year with some trepidation, given his association with the court in the popular mind. The attack on the house of Philip Malpas* during Cade’s revolt was a clear sign that aldermen with links to the Crown were vulnerable. Yet Cantelowe appears to have emerged from these turbulent months relatively unscathed. He served on a number of commissions in London both before and after the revolt, including two which dealt with the affairs of the city’s Milanese and Lucchese merchants. In the autumn of 1450 he was elected as one of the auditors of London, a position he would not have attained unless he had the confidence of his fellow aldermen.

Yet for Cantelowe the events of 1450, or more precisely the increasingly tarnished image of the Lancastrian monarchy, was to result in a change in his attitude. The roots of this can be found in the dealings between the merchants of the staple, of whom Cantelowe was one of the most prominent, and the Crown, to which he and his fellow merchants had advanced large sums of money. Even so, until the early 1450s Cantelowe probably had little reason to complain about his treatment at the hands of Henry VI’s government. His own generosity to the Crown was amply rewarded: in January 1445 he had been granted another licence enabling him to ship wool to Calais, this time in repayment for money he had lent for the building of Eton College. A similar grant was made in November 1449, while in November 1450 the King acknowledged that he had advanced £800 for the college, and in return allowed him to ship 300 sacks of wool from Southampton through the straits of Gibraltar free of customs. DKR, xlviii. 364, 382. By this time Cantelowe was closely involved in the often tortuous negotiations and settlements made between the staplers and the Crown over the loans which the merchants had advanced to the government in the late 1440s. A key stage in the negotiations was reached in the autumn of 1449 when, shortly before Parliament assembled, an agreement was reached for the repayment of £10,700. This debt had been accumulated over a number of years, and in fact 10,000 marks of it had been contracted by December 1447. Out of the total Cantelowe, together with his son Thomas and the grocer Alan Johnson, had lent £832 18s. 10d. The close links which Cantelowe enjoyed with the Crown meant that he was an ideal person to act as a go-between in the discussions, and it was reported by one of his fellow staplers that Cantelowe ‘at the specyall request of the seid marchauntes was solictour to sue for assignement to be hadde for theire repayement’. His efforts were clearly successful for on 20 Oct. 1449 grants were made to allow 79 merchants to recoup their loans by exporting wool free of customs for four years. The Cantelowes and Johnson received a licence enabling them to ship wool and fells through London, with no customs being payable up to £208 4s. 8½d. each year. Over the next few years Cantelowe took a number of shipments of wool to Calais. Not all the arrangements went smoothly, however, for he was alleged to have been misled by Robert Horne into assigning the latter some £65 19s. 10d. which should have been assigned to John, son of John Leving*. Power and Postan, 296-8; CPR, 1446-52, p. 315; E122/73/26. In the meantime Cantelowe was at the forefront of efforts by the staplers to secure short-term finance for the garrison, pending repayment of their loans. To this end in 1450-1 an interest-bearing loan of £477 was secured from the Grocers’ Company in London, for which Cantelowe along with a number of his fellow staplers entered into obligations with the Grocers. In the autumn of 1452 it was recorded that they had repaid the £477 in March that year. Ms. Archs. Grocers’ Co. ed. Kingdon, 315, 317.

By the spring of 1451, therefore, Cantelowe had benefited from a number of royal licences enabling him to export wool free of customs duties, of which the most recent was the grant of November 1450. This seems to have provided him with the incentive to go into business with the Salviati family in an effort to clear the debt of £4,277 9s. 9d. which he had run up with them. A book of accounts kept by the Salviati contains a record, made by Cantelowe’s factor, John Balmayn, of the arrival in Italy on 24 June 1451 of a shipment of 466 pokes of wool belonging to Cantelowe on board a Genoese carrack from Southampton. Another 104 pokes belonging to Cantelowe and Jacopo Salviati were also on board. The wool was delivered to Francesco and Giovanni Salviati and then sold at Florence on 28 Sept. and, after the payment of customs duties at Florence and Pisa, and transport costs, the profit was some 22,359 florins 6s. 8d. The money from the sale was credited to Jacopo Salviati and Company of London, and arrangements were set in motion for the transfer of the funds from Florence to Venice, and from there using letters of exchange to men in Bruges and London. Cantelowe eventually received his share in July 1452 when the accounts of the London Salviati recorded payments of £3,728 4s. 1d. and two previous payments of £122 10s., and £426 14s. 8d. which balanced Cantelowe’s debt. The ease with which Cantelowe’s wool was sold in Florence was commented upon by Balmayn who passed on Salviati’s advice that he should send another 100 or 200 sacks of the same quality as it was of a higher quality than wool recently supplied by the Strozzi and Medici. Holmes, 371-86.

By this time Cantelowe, together with his son Thomas, Johnson and John Harowe* had provided additional loans totalling £309 6s. 9 ½d. out of the 1,000 marks which the staplers provided for the maintenance of the Household. CPR, 1452-61, p. 315. From this point onwards, however, relations between the staplers and the Crown began to deteriorate rapidly, as complaints about the granting of licences to alien merchants and royal servants to avoid the Calais staple mounted, and repayment of subsequent loans advanced by the merchants faltered. Cantelowe himself advanced no further sums of money to Crown, either personally or as a stapler, after 1452. In February 1453 he was elected as one of the two representatives of the aldermen of London who were to attend the Parliament summoned to meet at Reading the following month. His election, like that of fellow staplers John Walden* and John Middleton*, may well have been directly related to the continuing complaints of the staplers about the granting of licences to bypass Calais. Formal proposals were presented, probably at the instigation of the Londoners, to deal with breaches of an earlier Act and to annul all existing licences; these were, unsurprisingly, rejected by the Crown. In the summer of 1453 the political climate changed dramatically following the lapse into incapacity of Henry VI. Parliament reassembled in November but was swiftly prorogued until February 1454. The new session, held at Westminster, was evidently viewed with some concern by the mayor and aldermen in London, for on no fewer than six occasions while it was in progress in February and March Cantelowe attended meetings of the court of aldermen. This may well have been to brief the aldermen on the proceedings in Parliament and, in particular, on the appointment of Richard, duke of York, as Protector on 27 Mar. C.M. Barron, ‘London and Parlt.’, Parlty. Hist. ix. 367. From that moment onwards Calais assumed an even greater political importance. York’s longstanding rivalry with Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and the strategic importance of Calais, meant that control of the town and its garrison became an important dimension of the struggle between Lancaster and York. Soon after being made Protector York made a formal bid for the captaincy of Calais in Parliament, but he was thwarted when, following Henry VI’s recovery at Christmas that year, he was promptly dismissed. PROME, xii. 289-91; G.L. Harriss, ‘The Struggle for Calais’, EHR lxxv. 35.

In the meantime there was further evidence of the problems being experienced by the staplers, for on 16 Oct. new licences to export wool were issued, after it transpired that earlier letters patent of June 1451 had failed to provide Cantelowe and his fellow merchants with repayment of the 1,000 marks they had provided for the Household. CPR, 1452-61, p. 226. A better opportunity for York arose in 1455 when, following his victory at the battle of St. Albans, and Henry VI’s second lapse into illness, he and his supporters controlled the government. Warwick was immediately appointed as captain of Calais, but in order to secure his admission an immediate offer had to be made to the staplers. A Parliament was summoned to meet on 9 July and once again Cantelowe was elected, with the staplers’ interests also being represented by Harowe, Geoffrey Feldyng* and John Young*. An agreement was reached on 27 Oct. that year, but the staplers, wary of committing themselves to York, made sure that the sums they advanced could be recovered through the Calais customs. Further difficulties arose because of the fraught relationship between the staplers and the garrison, and by the end of the year York had made concessions to both parties. These included the payment of 26,500 marks by the staplers, representing the value of wool which had been sold by the garrison to fund their wages, and the delivery of obligations to staplers in respect of subsidies on wool. The six obligations delivered to Cantelowe and his servant Bukton amounted to £191 11s. 10d. In all the agreement meant that the staplers could expect to recover some £39,000 from the customs at Calais. Parliament was informed of these arrangements during the third session which met from 14 Jan. to 12 Mar. 1456. Once again Cantelowe, this time with Feldyng, left the Parliament to attend two meetings of the court of aldermen in February, shortly before the King appeared in Parliament to dismiss York from post as Protector. By this time, however, it was too late, and in May York’s ally Warwick finally took up his post as captain. PROME, xii. 370-7; Barron, 367; Harriss, 41-51.

The outcome of these negotiations meant that the staplers had now invested heavily in Yorkist control of the town of Calais. It was the outcome of several years of dissatisfaction with the Lancastrian government’s approach to their grievances. In London the effect was to create a constituency of opinion within the court of aldermen which, while not disloyal to the Crown, was nevertheless not convinced that it had the interests of its foremost merchants at heart. Cantelowe’s attitude appears to have exemplified this growing disillusionment, in particular the anger at the continued generosity of the Crown towards Italian merchants who were frequently granted licences enabling them to ship wool by routes other than through Calais. In the spring of 1456 Cantelowe’s name was linked to the outbreak of serious anti-alien violence in the capital. For what follows see J.L. Bolton, ‘London and the Crown’, London Jnl. xii. It began on 28 Apr. when three mercers’ servants assaulted Alesssandro Palastrelli, in Cheapside. One of the culprits was imprisoned, a move which incensed a large mob of young mercers and others who accosted the mayor, William Marowe*, and the sheriffs and then ‘by fforce delivered theyr ffelaw oute of prison’. On the following night an attack was made on the houses of Italian merchants, particularly that of Lodovico Strozzi, before the mayor and sheriffs were able to disperse the rioters. The next day a powerful commission of oyer and terminer was appointed by the Crown, and on 3 May the mayor and aldermen began their own proceedings by summoning Cantelowe and his fellow wardens of the Mercers who swore on behalf of the craft that they and their servants would keep the peace. They were followed by the wardens of several other crafts, including the Grocers, Skinners and Armourers. There was then a lull as investigations continued into the events of 28-29 Apr. and on 16 May, despite his growing difficulties, Cantelowe was appointed to another royal commission, this time one which was to inquire into ways of increasing the money supply. By the end of June the investigators had required a number of prominent London mercers to answer for the conduct of their servants, and a servant of John Harowe was specifically named as one of those who had been involved. Special treatment was, however, reserved for Cantelowe who, as the most senior official of the Mercers’ Company, was summoned before the King’s council in October and then placed in the custody of Lord Dudley, who imprisoned him in Dudley castle. Letters were sent on 29 Oct. and in November from the mayor and aldermen petitioning members of the council and to the duke of Buckingham, the earls of Devon and Wiltshire and Lords Beaumont, Sudeley, Beauchamp and Stanley* for Cantelowe’s release, and a suggestion was even made in one of these that payment could be arranged to expedite matters. Griffiths, 793; jnl. 6, ff. 85-85v; R.R. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, i. 292. Although these did not have any immediate effect, Cantelowe was eventually to be released in time to attend a meeting of the court of aldermen on 16 Dec. Three days earlier, in preparation for his return to London, Cantelowe had bound himself in 1,000 marks to appear before the King and council early the next year. On 27 Jan. 1457 the recognizance was renewed in order to secure his appearance before the council on 9 May. CCR, 1454-61, p. 189.

The disturbances in London, which continued, albeit on a much smaller scale, into 1457, prompted the King and his household to leave the capital for Coventry. The effect upon Cantelowe’s career is difficult to gauge. He maintained a presence on the court of aldermen and was once more chosen as a member of city committees in the late 1450s, but there are indications that his prominence was not seen as being particularly helpful to the city during what was becoming a very sensitive time politically. Indeed in January 1458 Cantelowe felt it prudent to obtain another royal pardon. C67/42, m. 44. In October 1459, shortly after the city sent a delegation to the King to assure him of its support, he was one of the candidates for the mayoralty, but was rejected in favour of the less distinguished William Hulyn. The impending Parliament at Coventry, summoned to proceed with the attainders of the Yorkist lords, was another good reason for not appointing Cantelowe, and it is striking that the MPs who were chosen by the Londoners, with the possible exception of Thomas Canynges*, could not be seen in any way as representing the interests of York or the staplers. Jnl. 6, ff. 120, 141v, 163, 234. The invasion of the Yorkist lords the following summer, using Calais as a springboard, culminated in their victory at the battle of Northampton, an event which changed the political landscape entirely. There was now less need for caution, although in the run-up to the dramatic Parliament of October 1460, during which York claimed the throne, Cantelowe was one of a number of distinguished aldermen who were appointed to a committee which was to decide how best the city’s interests could be secured. Ibid. f. 272. Shortly after Parliament assembled the city’s aldermen met once again to decide on a new mayor. Cantelowe was again a candidate, and according to custom should probably have been elected, since he was one of the two chosen the previous year. Yet he was again rejected, a decision that effectively marked the end of his career in London’s government. A belated reward came the following year when, following the accession of Edward IV and the consolidation of the Yorkist victory, Cantelowe was knighted on the eve of the new King’s coronation. By October, probably suffering from ill health, he had decided to retire from public life and successfully petitioned the mayor and aldermen to be exonerated from his aldermanry. Ibid. f. 81v.

Cantelowe made the first of his two wills on 21 Feb. 1463, in which he asked to be buried in the church of St. Mary Magdalen in Milk Street. As well as his wife Elizabeth his executors included his longstanding associate and attorney, William Bukton. He left his property in St. Clement’s parish to Elizabeth for her lifetime, after which it was to pass to their son William with remainders to Henry and to the MP’s three daughters in tail. Property at Faversham was disposed of in a similar manner, although in this case Henry was the first-named beneficiary. Only in the event of their deaths without issue were these holdings to pass to his eldest son Thomas Cantelowe. The place allotted to Thomas almost certainly reflected his position as Cantelowe’s eldest son by his first marriage. In his second will, dated 18 Apr., Cantelowe left rents from property in St. Mary’s parish to his executors, to be held in trust until his son Henry had finished his apprenticeship. The wills were proved and enrolled together on 11 May 1464, and Cantelowe’s executors included Henry Merland†. PCC 4 Godyn. Cantelowe originally intended his son Henry to enter the church, and to this end had secured a papal dispensation in the latter’s favour in 1455: CPL, x. 703. The extent of the property inherited by Cantelowe’s eldest son, Thomas, remains unclear, as these arrangements were directed primarily at his sons by Elizabeth, who subsequently married Sir Robert Conyers*. It is possible that Cantelowe had conveyed property to him at an earlier juncture, possibly in the late 1450s when Thomas made a gift of all his goods and chattels in London and Calais to his father, Alan Johnson and others. Thomas in fact survived his younger brothers, for shortly after Henry’s death in 1490 he petitioned Chancery complaining that he had been imprisoned for debt as a result of false plaints instigated by this half-brother, and pursued since by his executors who were also trying to gain possession of property in St. Clement’s parish. C1/126/4. The matter appears to have been resolved, however, for in June 1492, as the son and heir of Cantelowe, and the grandson and heir of Richard Barre, Thomas and his son Geoffrey quitclaimed their right in Clement’s Inn to Henry’s son and heir, Richard. The inn was to remain in the family’s hands until Richard’s death in 1517. Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 150-1; CCR, 1454-61, p. 127; Early Holborn, no. 1509.