| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Colchester | [1393], [1406], [1407] |
Receiver, Colchester Sept. 1387–8, 1391 – 93; coroner 1389 – 90, 1395 – 96, 1398 – 1401, 1404 – 07, 1418 – 20; bailiff 1397 – 98, 1408 – 09, 1410 – 11, 1413 – 14, 1416 – 17, 1420 – 21; alderman 1398 – 99, 1400 – 01, 1404 – 07, 1411 – 12, 1418 – 19; councillor 1399 – 1400, 1419 – 20; mace-bearer 1399 – 1400, 1411–12.3Ct. rolls 26–42; Trans. Essex Arch. Soc. ser. 3, ii. 281.
Tax collector, Essex Mar. 1388.
Mate was an executor of the will of his father, dated 1 Dec. 1382, in which he was left all the family property in Holy Trinity parish, Colchester. He was concerned in litigation in the borough court the following year in an attempt to retrieve debts left unpaid at his father’s death, and he evidently disputed his inheritance with his mother, who in 1385 alleged at the assizes at Chelmsford that he had unjustly disseised her of a tenement in Colchester.4Ct. rolls 22 mm. 15, 39v, 47v, 24 m. 61.
Mate was active in the administration of Colchester for nearly 35 years, and was mainpernor for the parliamentary burgesses at the elections of 1395 (for Thomas Francis) and 1413 (May) (for Thomas Godstone). He obtained land in All Saints’ parish in 1402, in association with John Seaburgh and John Pod, and other properties in St Giles’s parish in 1412.5C219/9/11, 11/1; ct. rolls 33 m. 7, 48 m. 50. Engaged in the cloth trade, he was assessed for alnage on fabric sold locally in the early years of Henry IV’s reign.6E101/342/14, 16.
Simon Mate, whose service in local offices began a year after William’s ended, may well have been his son.