COPNOTE, John

One of the more obscure Members for Lynn,5 It is possible that Robert Copnote, who was master of the Margret of Lynne in the 1390s, was a relative: CCR, 1392-6, p. 216. Copnote was involved in the Baltic trade.6 D.M. Owen, Making of King’s Lynn, 287. In 1415, he and Nicholas Alderman travelled to the court of the king of Denmark, to represent Lynn’s merchants at Bergen in a dispute with the Hanseatic League.7 King’s Lynn recs., Wm. Asshbourne’s bk., KL/C 10/2, ff. 77, 81v. Copnote was probably a party to this quarrel, since in December that year Henry V wrote to the Danish king’s officers at Bergen to inform them that, contrary to certain reports, the restrictions that Henry IV had placed on the League’s merchants at Lynn had not arisen from complaints made by Copnote, Alderman and another burgess, Thomas Grym. It is not clear how long the mission to Scandinavia lasted, but the letter may indicate that Copnote and his companions were still abroad when the King sent it.8 DKR, xiv. 577.

Within Lynn itself Copnote was one of the earliest members of the lower council of 27, established in 1418 in the wake of the disputes that had bedevilled local politics in the early fifteenth century.9 A.S. Green, Town Life, 419-20. A few years later, he gained promotion to the upper council, or 24, and he served as a local constable before his death. His fellow burgesses elected him to his one and only Parliament in April 1425. One of the tasks of him and Thomas Burgh*, the other MP for Lynn, was to recover a sum of 500 marks which the town had lent to Henry IV over 20 years earlier. In June 1425, they wrote to the mayor requesting the authority to receive this sum on behalf of the borough, and Copnote subsequently received a letter of attorney authorizing him to collect the sum from the dead King’s executors. Following the dissolution of Parliament Copnote and Burgh claimed expenses for the 82 days that they had spent attending it and journeying to and from Westminster. Their demands came to over £27 (since in the early fifteenth century Lynn still paid each of its MPs a relatively generous 3s. 4d. per day), but it is doubtful they ever received all of this sum, given the difficulties the borough usually had in raising parliamentary wages.10 KL/C 7/29, pp. 46, 48; H.J. Hillen, Hist. Lynn, i. 152; M. McKisack, Parl. Repn. Eng. Bors. 89-90. A few weeks after the dissolution of Parliament, Lynn faced demands to provide ships for the royal fleet. In response, the corporation decided to supply two vessels, Le Goost and Le Jamys, each crewed by 80 soldiers and sailors, and imposed a tax upon the merchants of the town to pay for this contribution to the King. On 20 Aug. 1425, it appointed ten burgesses to collect the tax, including Copnote whose particular role was to gather the taxes of those who traded with Norway.11 Owen, 287-8.

Among Copnote’s associates was John Brown†, who made him his executor before his death in late 1421 or very early 1422. As Brown’s executor, he took part in a suit in the court of the admiralty that several Lynn merchants brought in the early 1420s against John Smyth, a mariner from Danzig.12 King’s Lynn recs., hall roll, 1421-1, KL/C 6/6, mm. 7d, 10; CPR, 1422-9, p. 160. Copnote did not outlive Brown by many years, since he was no longer alive on 2 Jan. 1428, when the mayor of Lynn called an election for a new constable in his stead.13 KL/C 7/29, p. 174. The executors of his no longer extant will were Agnes Copnote, Robert Lenton and Thomas Burgh.14 Ibid. p. 266; KL/C 7/3, f. 80. Presumably Agnes was his widow, although there was also a Joan Copnote (perhaps his daughter) on whose behalf Burgh made a formal declaration in a borough assembly of August 1428.15 KL/C 7/29, p. 210. In July 1437, the borough exonerated the executors from a debt of £20 that they owed to it, because Agnes had provided £10 for the reconstruction of Lynn’s south gate.16 KL/C 7/3, ff. 80, 81v. Later, in January 1439, they contributed 40s. towards a loan that the burgesses had agreed to make the King.17 Ibid. f. 105. Agnes was still alive in the late 1440s, when she was paying an annual rent to the local guild of Corpus Christi for two stalls or shops in the town.18 King’s Lynn recs., treasurers’ accts., Corpus Christi guild, 1439-48, KL/C 57/25-30.