EDON, Hugh

Edon’s career was remarkable for its longevity. Involved in the administration of his native borough for half a century, he held one of the principal town offices of mayor, coroner, bailiff or chamberlain for at least 24 of the 47 years between 1445 and 1492.5 His numerous appointments are recorded in Grimsby bor. recs., ct. rolls and ct. bk. What, besides a long life, singled him out for such a uniquely active role is difficult to determine. His 17 years as one of Grimsby’s coroners suggests a legal training, but other evidence shows he made his living as a merchant. Nor does it appear that his qualification lay in the extent of his landholdings within the town. Judging from the contributions he made to the expenses of the borough MPs these were modest: in 1450 he contributed only 4d. and in 1460 10d.6 Grimsby bor. recs., assessments for parlty. expenses 1/612/1 (4d. over erasure of 6d.), 2 (formerly 1/800/1, 2). During the first part of his career his qualification may have lain in a close association with Sir John Neville, brother of Ralph, earl of Westmorland, who held the fee farm of the town, for he acted as Sir John’s attorney in the borough court from 1449 to 1452. But Sir John died at Towton in 1461 and the loss of his patronage did not diminish Edon’s activity.7 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 28, 30 Hen. VI. The most likely explanation for his long list of offices lies in a shortage of substantial townsmen, a result of the contraction the borough suffered from the mid-fifteenth century.8 S.H. Rigby, Med. Grimsby, 113-46.

Aside from Edon’s long catalogue of administrative appointments, he makes only intermittent appearances in the records. Early in his career, on 6 Feb. 1449, he was one of the 23 burgesses who endorsed the admission of Ralph Chandler*, the servant of John, Viscount Beaumont, to the ranks of the burgesses. More interestingly, in June 1450, with two other prominent Grimsby men, John Dene* and William Yerburgh*, he allegedly harboured two local mariners who had assaulted a merchant of Lübeck at Boston and despoiled his ship of cloth worth as much as £500. This was an episode in the crisis in Anglo-Hanseatic relations precipitated by the notorious seizure of the Bay fleet by Robert Wenyngton* in July 1449, and was one of a number of related incidents involving Grimsby merchants. For Edon, this offence explains why he sued out a pardon in April 1452, which he subsequently pleaded when indicted before justices of oyer and terminer at Grantham on the following 24 Oct.9 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 27 Hen. VI; KB9/65A/7; C67/40, m. 5.

No doubt Edon’s involvement in this offence did nothing to diminish his standing among his fellow townsmen. His first election as mayor came in the autumn of 1454, and while in office he was elected, albeit narrowly, to represent Grimsby in Parliament. His fellow Member, William Grimsby*, a yeoman of the Crown, comfortably won the election with 20 votes, but Edon was only just ahead of his rivals, polling 11 against a former mayor, William Est, with nine, John Langholm II* with eight, and Richard Asseby with seven. Edon himself was present at the hustings and voted for Est and Asseby.10 Grimsby ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 3; CP40/765, rot. 221; 769, rot. 243d; Bull. IHR, xlii. 217. Parliamentary and mayoral service existed in a different relationship for Edon in 1459. On 6 Nov. he was one of the 12 burgesses who attested the return of the mayor John Sheriff*, to the Coventry Parliament; and six days later he was nominated to act as Sheriff’s deputy during his absence.11 Rigby, 170; CP40/795, rot. 191d; C219/16/5; Grimsby ct. roll 1/101, 38 Hen. VI. He himself was returned to the next Parliament. According to an entry on the borough court roll under the date 2 Sept. 1460, ‘Burgenses parliamenti qui Burgenses eligerunt Hugonem Edon et Robertum Peresson preter John Cok et Brughton essendum ad parliamentum domini Regis’. This is open to more than one interpretation: either an earlier election had been set aside in favour of Edon and Peresson or Cok and Thomas Broughton† were the defeated candidates. Given that the other entries on the court rolls relating to parliamentary elections concerned contested elections, the latter explanation is probably to be preferred.12 Bull. IHR, xlii. 218.

Edon may have used his time at Westminster to bring himself to the attention of the Yorkist authorities, for soon after Edward IV’s accession he was appointed King’s searcher in the port of Hull, although he served only very briefly. A second election to the mayoralty soon followed and it was while mayor that he surrendered, on what appear to be favourable terms, the farm of Grimsby’s fulling and corn mills which he had taken out in 1457. In August 1462 a group of 28 burgesses, headed by the two coroners, agreed that the term of the farm should end at the following Michaelmas. They released to him all actions arising out of his tenure of the mills and undertook to pay him £4 6s. 8d. He was still mayor in the following April when he voted in the parliamentary election; and in January 1465 he was appointed to his second royal office, that of gauger in Hull, though he did not hold the office for long.13 CFR, xx. 9; Bull. IHR, xlii. 218; Grimsby ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 352; ct. roll 1/101, 2 Edw. IV; CPR, 1461-7, p. 386.

At an uncertain date in the mid to late 1460s – but probably in 1465 – Edon was involved, as coroner, in a disputed mayoral election. According to a petition he presented in Chancery with his fellow coroner, John Sheriff, he had been elected mayor by the burgesses, but had refused to take the office, largely due to the intimidation of John Newport II*, who claimed it for himself. Since the latter served as mayor, Edon’s petition was unsuccessful and he seems to have found himself on the wrong side of a division among the burgesses, at least eight of whom supported Newport.14 C1/31/339. Later, during the Readeption, Newport sued Edon for close-breaking and making threats, and it may be that there was a personal quarrel between them: CP40/837, rot. 11d.

In September 1468 Edon was one of the four burgesses chosen by John Forman, with whom he was later to serve as churchwarden of St. Mary’s church, and Richard Asseby, to arbitrate a dispute that had arisen between them. Two months later he pardoned the town community 33s. 4d. of its debt of £4 6s. 8d., presumably the sum still due to him under the terms of the agreement of August 1462. That other burgesses agreed to forgo similar sums is an indication of the borough’s declining economic fortunes. In April 1469 he acted as an attorney for delivery of seisin in a feoffment made by Thomas Moigne*.15 Grimsby ct. bk. 1/102/1, ff. 13, 39d; CAD, i. C1033. On 2 Oct. 1471 he was once more elected to the mayoralty and it was as mayor that he was returned to the Parliament of the following October in company with his fellow MP of 1455, William Grimsby. Oddly, on 7 Oct. 1472, the day after this Parliament assembled, he was elected to serve a second consecutive term as mayor. The electing burgesses were evidently not concerned by the prospect of his lengthy absence on parliamentary service. At the end of his mayoralty, in October 1473, he acted as a pledge for the local esquire, Bernard Missenden, a retainer of Sir Thomas Burgh†, and his seven sons when they were admitted as burgesses.16 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 11, 12 Edw. IV.; ct. bk. 1/102/1, f.17d; C219/17/2.

Little evidence survives for the latter part of Edon’s long career. Although he served frequently as coroner until very near the end of his life, it is probable that the pace of his administrative activity slackened from the mid 1470s. In October 1480, as a churchwarden of St. Mary’s, Grimsby, he entered into a £20 recognizance to Stephen del See to abide by the arbitration of the town’s mayor and others on matters pending between the churchwardens and del See. It may be a measure of his declining position in the town’s affairs that when he stood in the parliamentry election of June 1483 he polled only two votes, although he was returned to the aborted Parliament of the following November. In his capacity as coroner Edon frequently voted in parliamentary elections in the 1480s.17 HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 258; Bull IHR, xlii. 218-20; Grimsby ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 54. In January 1492, when royal commissioners came to the borough to inquire into its decline, he headed the jury that sat before them. The last reference to him is an unreliable one: according to an inaccurate list of Grimsby’s MPs in an antiquarian work of 1825 he represented the borough in the Parliament of 1495, but no evidence has been found to support this identification and it is probably to be discounted.18 Grimsby recs., bailiffs’ extent bk. 1/700/1: G. Oliver, Great Grimsby, 118.

Episodic evidence survives of Edon’s trading interests. In 1449 he was dealing in white wine at Hull, and in 1469 he made arrangements to buy herrings, tar, iron and other commodities from a Dutch merchant. In the same year he entered into an agreement with two Edinburgh merchants: in atonement for their earlier failure to deliver to Edon and his partners 2,000 salt fish and other goods, they undertook to offer them a sale on favourable terms when they next came to Grimsby.19 E. Gillett, Grimsby, 25, 29, 41.