FREEMAN, Thomas (c.1393-c.1472), of Salisbury, Wilts.

Of obscure background, Freeman established himself as one of the leading merchants of Salisbury in the fifteenth century. Evidence of his extensive trading activities dates from the early 1420s, and their diversity and geographical range placed him in the forefront of his contemporaries. Principally a mercer, he used the port of Southampton to bring into the country the raw materials such as madder and woad needed for finishing cloth, and to ship his products overseas. Increasing quantities of cloth were exported in his name (for example, 14 whole cloths in the Cogge John of Bristol, which left Southampton in late 1422, and 85 loaded on a carrack in May 1427). Yet at the same time he also traded in wine from Gascony, and dabbled in the potentially lucrative business of helping those held captive in continental gaols to raise their ransoms. Among the foreign merchants with whom he had dealings was one Bonoche de Pyere of Pisa, who on his behalf sold wine in Brittany to secure the ransom of a Florentine youth, only to be arrested in Southampton (unjustly, or so the Italian claimed) by the mayor’s lieutenant, Peter James*. E122/184/3, pt. 1, f. 36d; pt. 3, f. 26d; pt. 5, m. 43; C1/69/127. From the Mediterranean and Zeeland came shipments for Freeman of fruit, iron, soap and tiles. Port Bk. 1427-30 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1913), 58, 78, 82; Port Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Ser. v), 28. Such cargoes were sometimes of considerable value. On a vessel which docked in January 1438 a consignment of madder and salt bought by the MP was worth £63 10s; another ship entering port in June contained madder valued at nearly £100, and this was followed a month later by one carrying fustian and skins worth £35 10s. They were balanced in September by the export of a cargo of 69 cloths. E122/209/1, ff. 30, 37d, 56, 62, 80d. Freeman’s imports, notably many bales of madder, were conveyed overland from Southampton to Salisbury by cart, Brokage Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1941), 99, 100, 104, 108-9, 114, 118, 123. and from there he built up a network of trading contacts around the country.

An argumentative and fiercely litigious man, Freeman frequently initiated lawsuits against less successful entrepreneurs. John Aylesby*, having no recourse against him in common law, petitioned the chancellor in an attempt to recover money he had himself raised to pay the ransom of certain English prisoners at St. Malo in Brittany, only for Freeman to retaliate with an action in the court of common pleas alleging breach of the Statute of Labourers, since Aylesby had employed his servant Ralph Somer as a factor. The unfortunate Aylesby was outlawed for failing to make an answer. C1/7/160; CPR, 1436-41, p. 210. Freeman single-mindedly pursued his debtors in the Westminster courts, CP40/657, rot. 372d. and by obtaining writs to the sheriffs to secure their arrest and imprisonment. A Bristol merchant, Henry Frere, who owed him £22 for a debt contracted at the staple at Salisbury in 1429, was still being hassled ten years later, as also was John Dyer, a merchant of Warminster, who owed him over £53. C241/228/32A, 60. Yet Freeman might occasionally find himself on the receiving end. He was listed as a defendant in a suit brought by William Lord, Salisbury’s town clerk, over a bag of muniments, CP40/669, rot. 213. and in 1431 in another initiated by the landowner William Whaplode* and his wife Joan for failing to render account as receiver of Joan’s money. At the same time he was a co-defendant with John Danbury, a Southampton draper, in a plea for debt, even though concurrently suing Danbury for £8. His other debtors, who came from as far north as Yorkshire, as well as closer to home in London, Somerset, Dorset and his home city, were alleged to owe him sums amounting to more than £135. CP40/680, rots. 18d, 52, 71, 191d, 268d, 470. The Whaplodes’ suit resulted in Freeman being outlawed for failing to appear in court, although he successfully sued for a pardon of outlawry in 1434: CPR, 1429-36, p. 320. Similarly, two years later his pleas were aimed against men living as far apart as Devon and Suffolk. CP40/688, rots. 386d, 405.

In 1434, sentence was given against Freeman in a maritime cause arising out of the arrest of a ship called Le Marie of Lymington and the removal of her cargo and tackle, but in October that year he managed to secure the appointment of commissioners to hear his appeal on the grounds that the admiral’s lieutenant had shown undue favour to Walter Veer* of Lyndhurst and his co-plaintiffs. CPR, 1429-36, pp. 441-2. In another long-running dispute he had the temerity to challenge Master Stephen Wilton, the King’s emissary, for restitution of goods Wilton had confiscated from one John Darker at Nieuport in Flanders, after the Congress of Arras. Freeman, claiming that Darker owed him 110 marks, persuaded the keeper of Ludgate prison (where Darker was incarcerated) to accompany him to a meeting with Wilton in October 1440 to recover his money, and obtained Wilton’s promise that he would be paid, and Darker released. After Darker died while still a prisoner, his confessor came down on Freeman’s side, saying that the deceased had instructed him to deliver to Freeman all his possessions in Ludgate, and that the sum owing to the merchant amounted to £134. However, when testimony was given to this effect in December 1445 Wilton asserted that Darker had beseeched him ‘on goddes behalve’ not to pay his creditor a single penny. C1/9/225-30. This followed on from attempts made in the previous July by Robert Warmington of London to recover the goods from Wilton, on the grounds that Darker had been his factor.

A suit which came before the justices of common pleas in Easter term 1441 held wider ramifications than Freeman’s private trading concerns, in that it may well have been linked to the attempts of the mayor and citizens of Salisbury to assert their independence from their lord. In the suit, he, Bishop Aiscough of Salisbury, alleged that in the course of two years from September 1438 Freeman, using posts, piles and pales and 200 cartloads of soil, had built bridges on the bishop’s land and across his waterways. In his defence the MP said that he held six messuages by the waterside connected by a bridge 12 feet long and four feet wide, and he had put in the piles and posts to repair it. In October he was bound over in £100 to accept the arbitration of John Fortescue*, serjeant-at-law, and Robert Long*, the bishop’s bailiff of Salisbury, in this matter, but at the assizes held at Devizes the following Easter he was found guilty of the trespass and damages of as much as 100 marks were awarded against him. CP40/721, rot. 115; 723, cart. rot. d.

All this litigation may provide one explanation for Freeman’s eagerness to seek election to Parliament – namely, to pursue his suits at Westminster – while at the same time gaining the parliamentary privilege of freedom from arrest during the sessions. e.g. suits during the Parliament of 1442 for debts owing by men of Suff., Som. and Dorset, amounting to £30: CP40/724, rot. 192d. He first entered the Commons as a representative for his home city of Salisbury. There, he had begun acquiring real estate before 1420 and became a property-owner of considerable substance, with shops in ‘Potrewe’ and tenements in Castle Street, opposite the market, near the cemetery of St. Edmund’s church, in ‘Nuggeston’, and at the end of Drakehall Street. Salisbury Domesday bk. 2, ff. 52, 52v, 57, 67v, 75v, Tropenell Cart. i. 225; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 71, 82. One of his many lawsuits concerned ten messuages in Castle Street, which he leased in 1428 to Walter Rich* of Bath (a cloth-maker whom he supplied with alum and madder), allegedly for a rent of £62 10s. payable over an eight-year period. Rich, sued for rental arrears in 1432, denied that the lease had ever been finalized. CP40/686, rot. 407. From the mayor and commonalty Freeman acquired in 1442 a 98-year lease of a ditch with running water and the land on its banks in ‘Bogemor’ meadow, connected to the waterway leading to his property in Drakehall Street, for which he agreed to pay 1s. a year. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury acct. rolls, G23/1/44, nos. 1, 2, 4, 5; reg. of leases, G23/1/238, ff. 5v, 6. He purchased other messuages and shops in the city from the widow of John Becket†. Surprisingly, he does not appear to have invested much in land outside Salisbury, although by the Avon to the north he bought a small estate at Great Durnford. Wilts. Feet of Fines, 450, 492. Even so, the fact that he was distrained for failing to take up knighthood indicates that he was thought to have holdings worth at least £40 p.a., E159/216, recorda Hil. rot. 49d. although a more precise estimate cannot be made as he failed to turn up to declare his revenues to the Wiltshire assessors of the income tax of 1450-1. E179/196/118.

Besides his qualification by residence, as a property-owner and as a merchant of consequence, Freemen’s credentials as an MP included his record of active involvement in the government of Salisbury for well over a decade prior to his first election to Parliament. Indeed, as a member of the superior council of 24, he assiduously attended meetings of the convocation for over 50 years. First General Entry Bk. nos. 216-457; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, passim. His duties as a councillor occasionally included collecting parliamentary subsidies, and early on in his career he served terms in the lesser offices of chamberlain and reeve. First General Entry Bk. nos. 225, 229-30. When the city was periodically asked for loans by the Crown, Freeman duly contributed sums ranging from 10s. to £1 13s. 4d. for each levy. Ibid. nos. 254, 273, 297, 345B, 360a, 391; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 3v. Yet, as the record of his unrelenting litigation reveals, he was a difficult, outspoken character, who frequently alienated his fellow citizens. In September 1426 he was found to have been spreading falsehoods about the mayor, William Warwick*, whose conduct in office he had severely criticised. Arbiters ruled that he should secure Warwick’s forgiveness for his offensive remarks with the gift of a pipe of red wine, and to pay 20s. for a breakfast for his fellow councillors, who decided that henceforth anyone of their number who maliciously defamed the mayor should incur as a penalty a cask of wine worth £5. The 24 were further discomfited by Freeman’s actions while in office as a constable in 1429. He feigned a plea of debt in the town court at Bristol against William Hamelyn of Salisbury, so that Hamelyn was arrested and held prisoner there for three days; rode around Somerset exciting various persons to bring false actions against his victim, and persuaded others to empanel him as a juror in a Salisbury court so that he might accuse Hamelyn of a trumped-up charge of breach of the peace. Despite all this, Freeman’s friends intervened on his behalf, so that he was received back into the fellowship (though warned that if he re-offended he would be expelled permanently). First General Entry Bk. nos. 256, 266.

Freeman was re-appointed constable on 16 Apr. 1432, at the same assembly meeting during which he was elected to represent the city in the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 12 May. Seemingly, he himself participated in the election. The writ issued at the close of the Parliament authorized payment to him and his fellow MP of expenses at the standard rate of 2s. per day in coming, staying 72 days and returning – a total of £14 8s. Freeman was again party to the election to the next Parliament, in 1433. In the spring of 1436 he acted as an auditor of debts due to the city and as one of five men who assisted the mayor to muster horsemen and bowmen in response to a royal request for a force to relieve Calais. Ibid. nos. 282, 284, 289, 311. This was followed at the end of the year by his election as mayor. Yet almost immediately he offended his fellows: the 24 insisted that he should pay £3 to the two chamberlains as recompense for his unpleasant behaviour (ingrata gubernacione) towards them, although pardoned him the fine on 5 Jan. 1437. In fact, he turned out to be a popular mayor, for, unusually, at the end of his term he was re-elected to serve another. When he accounted in October 1438 for his two years in office the auditors agreed that he might enjoy the revenues from the hospice called Georges Inn until he had been paid the £10 6s. 8d. owing to him. Ibid. nos. 326, 341. Arising from Freeman’s mayoralty was a suit in Chancery against Richard Balteswell of Salisbury, for bringing an action of false imprisonment against him. Freeman’s view was that Balteswell’s arrest had been justified because of his ‘mysgovernance and ryotous reule’, and that his suit was vexatious, for the ‘King’s officers’ ought not to be troubled in this way. C1/45/230.

Freeman’s first appointment to office by the Crown came in February 1439 when he was made controller of customs and subsidies in Southampton, the letters patent specifying that he might hold the post by deputy, in consideration of his ‘good service’. Yet despite this provision he was removed from the controllership before 28 Jan. 1440 and fined as much as £100 for having delegated his duties and failed to write the rolls in person, contrary to statute, as well as for having disobeyed royal commands to resign. Perhaps after protesting at this injustice, he obtained a pardon on the following 2 May, and was then exonerated payment of his fine at the Exchequer. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 224, 242, 393; E159/216, recorda Easter rots. 10, 10d. Other matters were also troubling him at this time. In July following he was seeking to prosecute a Somerset esquire, John Beauchamp of Lillesdon, in the court of the constable and marshal, with whom he had quarrelled, perhaps over transactions regarding a ransom. As there was currently no one with the authority of constable to hear his suit, the King assigned the influential Wiltshire landowner (Sir) John Stourton II* to hear the case, and then appointed a commission (with (Sir) William Estfield* at its head) to adjudicate. By agreement between the parties at Salisbury in January 1442 the matter went to arbitration in London, with Freeman nominating the lawyer Thomas Haydock* and London mercer Hugh Wyche* as part of his team. However Beauchamp defaulted, and the suit remained unresolved for several years. In 1445 William Hore II* had to be brought to the court of common pleas after Freeman claimed that he had failed to relinquish the bonds entered into by him and Beauchamp. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 450, 550; CP40/737, rot. 435; 756, rot. 90d.

While this was going on, Freeman had sat in his second Parliament, in early 1442. Since his previous election he had continued to take an active role in the government of Salisbury, having been named as an assessor for a loan to the Crown, and a member of the panel chosen to supervise the construction and funding of the ‘great ditch’. First General Entry Bk. nos. 345, 358. As we have seen, the lawsuit Bishop Aiscough was currently pursuing against our MP may have placed him in the role of figurehead for the citizens’ growing opposition to episcopal rule. No record of the electoral process survives, yet its outcome suggests that the Aiscough or his officers took an unprecedented interest in the choice of representatives, and may even have interfered, for the man elected as Freeman’s colleague was the bailiff of the episcopal liberties in the city, Robert Long. Furthermore, only a few days after the dissolution Aiscough was to win his case against Freeman at the Wiltshire assizes. The Parliament lasted 62 days (25 Jan. to 27 Mar.), but both MPs claimed for 72 days’ service, so it looks as though they were engaged in other business while up at Westminster. There were delays over payment of their wages. Long sued out a writ de expensis from Chancery on 1 May, but Freeman neglected to do so until 20 Nov., and on 10 Jan. 1443 he agreed to take just half the sum owing to him. Ibid. 375-6, 378. That year, on the following 19 June, he took out royal letters of protection to cover his service as victualler to the army sailing to Normandy under the command of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, only for the letters to be revoked just a few weeks later as he had failed to depart. CPR, 1441-6, p. 187. Perhaps he had never intended to do so, rather intending to acquire temporary immunity from prosecution in the courts.

Instead of representing his home city in the Parliament which met briefly in Bury St. Edmunds in 1447, Freeeman sat for the Wiltshire borough of Calne. Perhaps his candidature had been rejected by the citizens of Salisbury, for reasons unknown. They certainly displayed ambivalence in making their choice, only after some indecision finally plumping for two ‘gentlemen’, John Mone* and Thomas Temys*, neither of whom was a member of the council of 24. Perhaps the MPs’ agreement to serve for half the normal wages proved to be a deciding factor. First General Entry Bk. nos. 408-9. In the following summer Freeman again contracted to help with the war-effort, this time as a member of the retinue of Henry, Viscount Bourgchier, the captain of Le Crotoy, although as had happened previously his letters of protection were revoked quite soon after their issue. In his fourth recorded Parliament, summoned to meet in February 1449, he represented the newly-enfranchised Wiltshire borough of Westbury, as one of its very first MPs. How this election came about is unclear, although he it is likely that he had trading interests in the town, a growing centre of cloth production, and his links with the Stourtons, over-lords of part of the borough, may have proved advantageous. The Parliament learned of the escalating crisis in Normandy, as the English garrisons faced the threat of attack from the French, and at the dissolution in July he agreed to assist the forces led by the new duke of Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, lieutenant-general in France and governor of the duchy, DKR, xlviii. 374, 380; C76/129, m. 4; CPR, 1446-52, p. 62. although whether he himself crossed the Channel is not recorded. Beaufort surrendered Rouen in October, and when a new Parliament assembled on 6 Nov. the disastrous events abroad fuelled rising criticism of the King’s ministers. On this occasion, although he participated in the election held at Salisbury, Freeman represented the barely-inhabited borough of Old Sarum close by. As his fellow MP was John Wylly*, who was also actively engaged in the administration of Salisbury, the city might be seen in effect to have four representatives in the Commons. First General Entry Bk. no. 434.

The Parliament met for three sessions, the last, held at Leicester, ending in June 1450 in disarray as news arrived of the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion. Wiltshire did not escape the turmoil and on the 29th the unpopular Bishop Aiscough was murdered. Freeman himself suffered an illegal entry into his property in Salisbury, although he managed to survive unscathed as order collapsed. KB9/133/31. On 14 Oct. the citizens elected him to the Parliament due to assemble on 6 Nov., but only on condition that he and Edmund Penston* would serve for half wages. First General Entry Bk. no. 438. They were not paid until Oct. 1451, five months after the Parliament was dissolved: ibid. no. 449. As usual, while up at Westminster he had private business to deal with in the law-courts: John Wryther* of Winchester was suing him and William Hore for a debt of 20 marks. CP40/759, rot. 54; and Freeman brought many suits for debt in Trin. term 1451: CP40/762, rot. 113. Yet, if his affairs were troubled Freeman knew that he could call on powerful contacts close to the centre of government when in need. With the intention of protecting his estate from confiscation, in December 1452 he entrusted his goods and chattels to none other than the duke of Somerset and Lord Stourton (the treasurer of the Household), in association with his two sons. CCR, 1447-54, p. 437. However, whether his links with the two magnates had influenced his political sympathies while attending the three consecutive Parliaments of 1449-51 cannot now be determined.

Although Freeman continued his close involvement in the government of Salisbury, He was among those named to supervise the paving of the streets and the cleansing of the sewers in May 1452: First General Entry Bk. no. 453. it was once more for Old Sarum that he was elected to the Parliament which met at Reading in March 1453. How he responded to the events which followed (the King’s collapse into mental illness, the duke of York’s first protectorate and the battle of St. Albans in May 1455) is not known, although it is perhaps surprising that only a few days after the battle, where his former patron the duke of Somerset lost his life, he was appointed collector of customs and subsidies at Poole; a continued link with Viscount Bourgchier, newly-appointed treasurer of England (by whose bill he received appointment), must have lain behind it. While in office he was probably returned for Old Sarum to the Parliament which met on 9 July. During its final session, on 26 Jan. 1456, he was accorded at the Exchequer the customary reward given to customs officials. CFR, xix. 106, 108, 109; E122/113/57, no. 7; E403/805, m. 6.

Freeman had encouraged his elder son, Walter, to join him in the mercery trade, but also promoted his interests as a landowner in Middlesex. Allegedly, in 1447 the two of them broke the closes of Robert Aubrey* at Dawley in the parish of Harlington, KB27/756, rot. 24d. In 1450 Aubrey claimed damages against them of £100. and Thomas may well have secured for Walter his potentially lucrative marriage to Alice, the daughter and heiress of a Middlesex esquire, Robert Oliver. Alice inherited ‘Olyvores Place’, and lands and tenements in Sandon, Hertfordshire, as well as other holdings in Berkshire, but was widowed before November 1459, when she named her ‘dear’ father-in-law (our MP) and her brother-in-law Richard Freeman as her attorneys to administer her property. Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, G23/1/215, f. 4. Walter’s income was assessed at £9 p.a. in 1451: E179/196/118. Thomas and Walter had long been at odds with Robert Warmwell, the Salisbury draper to whom they had earlier been bound in a statute staple for £60. The debt was still unpaid when Warmwell died, and one of his executors, John Wylly (Freeman’s former companion in the Commons) attempted to recover it, initially by obtaining an award by Bishop Beauchamp of Salisbury. When Freeman brought a bill in Chancery against Wylly over his alleged failure to implement the award, Wylly countered that our MP had failed to carry out the bishop’s oral instructions of November 1456 to pay him £2 every year for 15 years. Wylly’s fellow executor, William Ludlow II*, also pursued Freeman in the law-courts over bonds he had failed to honour. A writ was sent to the sheriff of Wiltshire on 28 Apr. 1460 for his arrest under the terms of the statute staple of long before. CP40/738, rot. 82; C241/243/34; C1/26/497-8. Freeman was growing old. According to his own testimony (given at Salisbury in August 1462 when providing evidence regarding the descent of the former Romsey estates) he was then aged 69. C1/29/31-33. Even so, he continued his active participation in Salisbury affairs, for instance agreeing to be an arbiter in the disputes between the irascible mayor William Swayn* and two members of the 24: Edmund Penston and Richard Hayne II*. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 13v. Although he was never elected to Parliament for Salisbury again, he continued to have his say at elections conducted in the city: that is, at all seven of those held between 1453 and April 1463, including that of January 1463 when his son Richard was chosen to represent Salisbury in the Parliament summoned to meet at York on 5 Feb. Ibid. ff. 4, 12, 38, 41, 51v, 59v, 64. The two men elected on that occasion, Richard Freeman and Henry Swayn†, from a younger generation, were no doubt selected for their ability to lead the city’s armed contingent sent north to assist Edward IV to combat the Lancastrian diehards; the elderly Thomas Freeman would not have been suitable for that role. In the event, however, the Parliament was cancelled and a new one called to meet instead at Westminster on 29 Apr. This journey was not so demanding: Thomas was prepared to ride there as a representative for Old Sarum. The first session lasted until 17 June, when it was prorogued until 4 Nov., and in the meantime Freeman was arrested in a suit for trespass brought by one Thomas Walrede. On the day Parliament reassembled he sued out a writ of privilege ordering his release to perform his function as a Member of the Commons. KB145/7/3, no. 7; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 58. During the first session Edward IV had announced his intention to lead an army against the Scots, and asked the Commons to grant him an aid of £37,000. Widespread resentment at this levy was mollified when Parliament met on 4 Nov. (for one day only, and in the absence of the King), and the conditions of the grant were altered, converting it to a normal fifteenth and tenth, raising just £31,000. The same day Freeman was appointed a collector of the subsidy, albeit only in the city of Salisbury (not in the place he was currently representing). CFR, xx. 112. An extraordinary sequence of prorogations followed, with Members being expected to meet at York in February, May and November 1464, but there is no evidence that Freeman travelled north on any of these occasions. At home in Salisbury in April he was named on a body of 22 men (11 each from the councils of 24 and 48) who were delegated to wait on Bishop Beauchamp in July, optimistically to bring an end to the long-drawn-out disputes between the bishop and the mayor and commonalty. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 70. Parliament did not meet again for a full session until 21 Jan. 1465, back at Westminster.

Freeman last attended a convocation in Salisbury in December 1471, Ibid. f. 105v. and died within the next two or three years. The churchwardens of St. Edmund’s church accounted in 1473-4 for £5 16s. from the sale of ‘juells of sylver’ of the ‘fyne of the sepulture’ of Thomas Freeman. Churchwardens’ Accts. St. Edmund and St. Thomas, Sarum ed. Swayne, 14. He and his wife were buried behind the high altar, before the shrine of ‘Our Lady of Pitie’; 30 years later their son Richard was to ask to be entombed nearby. PCC 20 Holgrave (PROB11/14, ff. 157v-158). In 1485 in return for giving the Salisbury authorities access to the new floodgates in Water Lane, Richard was assured that he and his father would be remembered and prayed for at all civic assemblies thereafter. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 158v-159.