Over the course of his career Malpas would become one of the most controversial figures in mid fifteenth-century London, yet much of this career itself remains difficult to interpret. The names of his parents are not known, but his family came originally from Malpas in Cheshire. At some point in the reign of Henry IV Philip was apprenticed to a London draper, Thomas Glynvan, and he had evidently not completed his training when his master died in 1409, leaving him a small bequest.
Malpas became one of the most successful merchants of his day, probably not least as a result of his readiness to employ sharp practices when an opportunity presented itself. An early example of the ruthlessness which was to characterise much of his career was his demand in May 1418 for cloth worth £115 as security for a loan of £80 to John Middleton, a merchant of the Calais staple, repayable within a period of six months. When Middleton failed to pay his debt, Malpas sold the cloth, but Middleton on this occasion got the better of him, and in July 1421 had Malpas convicted of usury and imprisoned until he repaid his profit of £35.
If Malpas’s behaviour gained him a degree of notoriety, this does not appear to have adversely affected his other business activities. By the beginning of the 1430s he was extremely active in the export trade in cloth. In 1429-30 he shipped 93 short cloths in a single consignment, while in a period of just a few months in 1433 he sent no fewer than ten consignments of cloth to northern Europe. In total these amounted to 477½ cloths, a quantity that implied a well-developed series of links with suppliers among England’s clothworkers, as well as reliable sources of distribution on the continent.
To Malpas, as a well-connected member of London’s mercantile elite, the well-to-do members of the city’s Italian community presented a target impossible to resist. It is not known what manner of business deal connected the draper with the Genoese merchant Cristoforo Stella, but before the end of 1436 the two men had begun legal action against another alien, Belizardo de’ Bardi, who had consequently been imprisoned by order of the mayor and sheriffs. Within a few months, however, Malpas and Stella had themselves fallen out, and Malpas had to find vast sureties amounting to a total of £14,000 (provided for him by seven men, including Hugh Wyche*, Thomas Canynges* and John Norman*), that he would keep the peace towards Stella, as well as himself sealing a bond for 300 marks.
In spite of his imprisonment for usury early in his career, Malpas continued to act as a money lender, as is apparent from the numerous ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels that were made to him, these being legal devices often employed as a means for the borrower to provide security to the lender, and a popular means for merchants and craftsmen to secure capital at a time when shortages of coin further enouraged the use of credit. Large sums were probably involved in a number of cases, notably those ‘gifts’ which were made to Malpas, together with either Thomas Cook II or Stephen Forster. It was in the context of such transactions that strong relationships between the three men were forged, and these were further fortified by ties of marriage. At some point after 1435, Cook married Malpas’s daughter, Elizabeth, while in 1458 Forster’s son John married the couple’s child, Joan. By contrast, other connexions forged in the course of Malpas’s money-lending activities were at least in part to blame for his unpopularity in London. Thus, on several occasions he worked with royal officers like Thomas Haseley†, the keeper of the Exchange, and the Exchequer official Andrew Kebell* to provide credit facilities to Londoners.
Malpas’s business methods, though sometimes unorthodox, proved to be highly lucrative, and allowed him to invest in a substantial portfolio of landed property. By 1436 his holdings in London and elsewhere were said to be worth some £70 p.a.
Outside the capital, Malpas and his son-in-law Thomas Cook set about acquiring substantial holdings in Essex. By 1450 Malpas had purchased the manor and advowson of Chaldwell, valued at ten marks p.a. in 1485, from the descendants of Sir William Rickhill j.c.p. His connexion with the family dated back to the early 1430s when he was first appointed as one of the trustees of the Rickhill estates in Kent, Essex and Surrey.
Malpas’s rise through the ranks of the civic hierarchy began with his election in the autumn of 1431 as one of the four auditors of the city of London. While serving in this position he was selected by the commonalty in March 1432 as one of the city’s MPs, a clear indication that he was at this time perceived as a man of promise.
In January 1442 Malpas, once more apparently able to rely on the full support of the commonalty, was elected to Parliament for a second time. The next step for Malpas, having served as both auditor and sheriff, was membership of the court of aldermen. In July 1444 he was a candidate for Bridge Ward, where he owned property, but was passed over in favour of Robert Horne. Such initial failure was not uncommon, but he was again unsuccessful in October, when Simon Eyre was preferred ahead of him for Walbrook Ward.
During what turned out to be a short-lived tenure of his aldermanry, Malpas endeavoured to move to the ward of Cornhill, the location of his main residence and of the shops of a number of prominent drapers. Again he was unsuccessful, losing out in March 1449 for a second time to Simon Eyre.
Malpas clearly knew that he was in danger, and while the rebels remained outside the city he took the opportunity to escape. His departure from London and the other measures taken by the city provided a breathing space during which time his son-in-law, Cook, was sent by the authorities to negotiate with Cade. These talks came to nothing and on 3 July the rebels entered London and as well as executing those ‘extorcioners’ found still to be there, they began to loot and despoil the houses of other hated figures. One of their targets was Malpas’s ‘Green Gate’ in Cornhill, where they were said to have taken
in specyalle moche mony, bothe of sylvyr and golde, the valowe of a notabylle some, and in specyalle of marchaundys, as of tynne, woode, madyr, and alym, whythe grette quantyte of wollyn clothe and many ryche jewellys, whythe othyr notabylle stuffe of fedyr beddys, beddyng, napery and many a ryche clothe of arys, to the valewe of a notabylle sum.
Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 191-2.
The effect of the looting, according to another chronicler, was to increase the uncertainty in the city, especially among ‘those that were substanciall’ and who thus feared the consequences for their own possessions.
The rebels’ incursion left Malpas’s fortunes in tatters. No longer an alderman, and clearly unpopular with the commonalty, he had little reason to want to return to the capital in the short term. Yet, rather than play down his connexions with the Crown, he chose to extend them and, in particular, to increase dramatically the level of his financial support. On 9 July 1451 he made a loan of some £397 2s., and in 1453-4, after he had returned to London, he stepped up his contributions still further. Having advanced £100 on 5 Mar. 1453, he found a further £1,200 on the following 16 July, after the King’s ministers had requested, and been refused, a loan of £10,000 from the city government. In the following year he provided additional sums of £680, to help pay for the defences of Guînes castle, £1,000, which was allocated to the expenses of the Household, and – towards the end of 1454 – a final £220.
Although evidently back in London, Malpas maintained a low profile. By the autumn of 1455, however, he had apparently been drawn into yet another dispute, for on 17 Oct. Robert Horne was questioned as to whether he had witnessed an altercation between Malpas and John Broddesworth. It was probably with this in mind, as well as other potential suits that may have faced him, that the previous month Malpas had sued out yet another royal pardon.
Malpas’s remarkable conversion was evidently not lost on Queen Margaret, who marked him out as an important enemy, so much so that when the Lancastrian forces threatened London following their victory at the second battle of St Albans in February 1461, he took flight abroad for a second time. While the city governors did their best to persuade her not to attack the city, Malpas did not wait for the outcome of their negotiations. Evidently fearful of reprisals, should the capital fall to Margaret, he embarked for Zeeland on a ship from Antwerp. His travelling companions included John Forster, and two men who had similarly changed their allegiances, Thomas Vaughan* and Master William Hatcliffe, the royal physician Soon after embarking, however, the ship was captured by a French vessel and they were taken to France to be ransomed.
By February 1462, when Malpas sued out a general pardon from King Edward, he had returned to England, and he now opted for a life of quiet retirement, although he made sure to show his gratitude to the new ruler with a loan of £100.
... where as it hath been denied and surmysed by the said Sir Thomas Cooke heretofore yat I the said Philip Malpas was the cause [of] tarying and taking of the goodes of the said Sir Thomas Cook which were takin in a ship which I was in uppon the see whan I last passed over the see. I the said Philip Malpas for my acquitall and discharge in that behalf sey and declare verely upon my conscience yat I was never the cause of suche said tarying or takyng of the said ship and goodes of the sid Sir Thomas Cooke therin. And that the said ship with goodes was never so taried nor takyn in my cause of defaute as I woll answer unto God.
By this time, Cook himself faced troubles of his own, and perhaps mindful of this Malpas made generous provision for his daughter Elizabeth (Cook’s wife) and her children, leaving Elizabeth 500 marks worth of goods, while a similar quantity was to be divided between her four sons. John Forster and his wife Joan, Malpas’s grand-daughter, were given a silver cup each. Also remembered were a nephew and two nieces, the children of Malpas’s sister, as well as his household servants. The testator’s charitable bequests included several to poor parishioners of St. Andrew’s Cornhill, as well as donations to the priory and hospital of St. Mary Spital, recently damaged by fire. To the poor almsmen of the Drapers’ Company he left 40s. p.a. for five years, as well as a standing cup of silver and gilt to the Company as a whole. Generous bequests to London’s prisoners included £25 for bread for five years and money to buy 400 shirts and smocks. In St. Andrew’s church, where he wished to be buried, a chantry was to be established for two years for his soul, the souls of his late wife, Juliana, their parents, and their daughter Philippa Josselyn who had died a few years previously. Philippa’s former husband Ralph Josselyn* was appointed an executor, and bequeathed 100 marks for his efforts.
Of Malpas’s immovable property in London the Cooks were to have the ‘great place’ in Cornhill as well as his property in St. Andrew Eastcheap, the shop in Bridge Street and all the Southwark tenements. The Cock in Cornhill was left to the Forsters, with remainder to Cook and his heirs. The reversion of all these holdings was left to Malpas’s nephew Thomas Ram and his heirs. Ralph Josselyn, despite the fact that Philippa was dead, was bequeathed the manor of Chaldwell for his life, with subsequent reversion to Thomas Cook’s son, Philip. Cook and his wife were also left Bellhouse, Appultons and the other Essex holdings and these were to be divided after their deaths between their younger sons, Thomas, William and John. In spite of these clear instructions, the descendants of Malpas’s two daughters began to squabble over the division of the inheritance just as soon as Elizabeth Cook had died in 1485.