CATES, Nicholas, of Great Yarmouth, Norf.

Cares was actively engaged in the herring trade of Yarmouth by 1388. He acquired property in the town four years later, and in 1401 he and his first wife made a settlement of shops in ‘Gurnays Conge’ Lane, to provide a home for the poor and sick, in return for prayers for their own welfare. His second wife inherited a messuage and land at Blythburgh in Suffolk, near Southwold, properties which, however, they sold in 1405.E122/149/22; Norf. RO, Gt. Yarmouth ct. rolls, C4/104, 111; CP25(1)223/111/16. Cates was one of the four bailiffs of Yarmouth responsible for making returns to the Parliament of 1411, and thus recorded his own election. On the parliamentary indenture drawn up in May 1413 his name appeared with those of no more than three other burgesses as being party to the election. He is last mentioned in November 1418, on a jury at Yarmouth giving evidence against certain men from Lowestoft and Southwold who, as they had sold herring within seven leagues of Yarmouth, were subject to the forfeiture of their wares and vessels for infringement of the borough’s charter.C219/10/6, 11/1; E101/512/25.