HOGESON, Robert (d.1458), of Scarborough, Yorks.

Robert may have been the son and heir of Thomas Hogeson, who in 1434-5 and 1438-9 paid tithes of 10d. to Scarborough’s church of St. Mary as resident ‘supra clivum’ (that is, in the Upper Cliff, the part of the town around the church). If so, he had succeeded his father by 1441 when he himself paid tithes of 3s. as resident in the parish of St. Sepulchre. E101/514/32, ff. 10, 31, 39. He soon came to take a more important part in the town’s affairs than his putative father. In 1447 he stood surety on the election of John Acclom* to Parliament and was elected as one of the bailiffs in 1452. More significantly, on 27 Aug. 1454, with other leading men of Scarborough, he was entrusted with the important task of bringing to an end the piratical activities of Andrew Trollope, master porter of Calais. A month later he was again elected bailiff and then, while in office, he was returned to the Yorkist Parliament of July 1455. C219/15/4; 16/3; CPR, 1452-61, p. 179; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 733. The timing of these appointments is highly significant. In his will Hogeson named Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, as one of its supervisors, and there can be no doubt that, like John Robinson*, who stood as surety on his election to Parliament, he was one of the townsmen aligned with the Neville interest. Had he lived into Edward IV’s reign his career would have no doubt flourished further.

Hogeson’s developing commercial interests were also cut short by his premature death. In 1457, described as ‘draper alias burgess and merchant of Scarborough’, he sued pleas of debt totalling over 40 marks against two merchants of Kingston-upon-Hull and another of Scarborough’s leading townsmen, Thomas Wardale, as the owner of a ship called ‘Katerine of Scarborough’; and, in actions pending at the time of his death, he claimed £80 against four Scarborough men, headed by the prominent merchant, John Lambert, and including two members of the Herryson family. CP40/785, rot. 185d; 787, rot. 20; 790, rot. 178. Our MP was also in dispute with another member of that family over a failure in his duty as bailiff. On 3 June 1456 John Herryson came into the Exchequer of pleas and claimed £15 5s. against our MP and the other bailiff of 1454-5, Laurence Boles, alleging that they had wrongly released from their custody a yeoman of the town, William Garnet, who had been condemned in that sum to him in the borough court. On 22 Oct. they conceded the claim, but, although the barons awarded judgement to the plaintiff, he was still awaiting payment in Trinity term 1457. E13/146, rots. 73, 77. The claim was probably still unresolved when Hogeson drew up a brief will on 3 July 1458. He wanted, like all the leading burgesses, to be buried in the church of St. Mary, where a chaplain was to pray for his soul for a year at the cost of seven marks. To his wife Isabel he bequeathed 40s., and one mark each went to his two sons and daughter, Elizabeth. His executors were named as his wife, his brother, John Hogeson, and his brother-in-law, John Colson, to act under the supervision of the earl of Salisbury and the vicar of St. Mary’s, Robert Killom. They did not have long to wait before they were called upon to act because our MP died within a week of drawing up this will. Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 366.