Little is known for certain about this rich and influential Hull merchant before his appointment, in the summer of 1410, as deputy to Thomas Chaucer, the chief butler of England, in the three main ports along the Yorkshire coast. By July 1412, if not before, he had established an even more important connexion with John, duke of Bedford, who then employed him, possibly on Chaucer’s recommendation, as a trustee of certain holdings in Hull. Much later, in 1433, the two men were again associated in similar property transactions; and it looks very much as if the duke made use of our Member’s services on a fairly regular basis throughout the intervening period. Certainly, the latter is described, inter alia, in a royal pardon of 1443 as sometime receiver of ducal revenues in Yorkshire; and in his will he made generous provision for the foundation of a chantry where prayers were to be said for the soul of his former patron.
John clearly derived considerable material benefit from his second marriage, in, or just before, June 1429, to Agnes, the elder daughter of Robert Hebburn, one of the wealthiest and most powerful merchants in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Her first husband, Richard Dalton, another Newcastle merchant, had entrusted her with money for the use of their young son, John, which she now advanced to Bedford to finance his commercial ventures. Well over half the estates of her second husband, John Strother, a Northumbrian landowner with interests in trade, had been settled upon her as a jointure, along with rents and tenements in the town of Newcastle; and although she disposed of some of these to Strother’s next heirs in return for a fixed annual income, she still kept up many connexions with the north east. Throughout the rest of her life, Agnes maintained friendly relations with members of her first husband’s family, several of whom lived in York. In 1445, for example, the widow of William Dalton, an affluent wool merchant, left her an elaborately ornamented silver cup which made a valuable addition to the impressive collection of plate accumulated by her and Bedford over the years. The latter’s links with the mercantile community of York had already been strengthened by the marriage of his only daughter, Ellen, to
Thomas Gare
† (d.1439), who served successively as chamberlain, sheriff and mayor of the city. In his will of September 1438, Gare remembered his father-in-law with a gift, and promised the reversion of certain land in Calais to Bedford’s younger son, Nicholas. John also became drawn into the affairs of William, earl of Suffolk, the owner of extensive estates around Hull, for whom he acted as a trustee.
The subject of this biography died shortly afterwards, during the spring of 1451. He was buried, according to his wishes, beside his first wife in the choir of the church of Holy Trinity, Hull. He left at least three sons and a daughter, to whom he made generous bequests of plate, hangings, and other luxury goods. Two of his sons, Richard and Thomas, were named as his executors, along with his stepson, John Dalton, whom he clearly regarded with great affection. His chief concern was to endow a perpetual chantry at Holy Trinity with land worth £5 a year. An inquisition ad quod damnum held in Hull four years later found that rents and houses to the value of £13 p.a. would still remain in the hands of his trustees, so they were duly permitted to make the necessary conveyances. Other rents were set aside for the provision of obits for the souls of various friends and relatives, as well as for the late duke of Bedford. The widowed Agnes Bedford lived on until 1459 and was buried in the same church as her last husband, ‘before the image of the Virgin’.