ANSON, Richard

Anson, of unknown origin, was admitted to the freedom of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1437-8 upon payment of the customary fine.5 Bench bk.1, BRG1, f. 18v. He was then already a man of some standing for less than two years later, at Michaelmas 1439, he was appointed as one of the town’s chamberlains (and, oddly, appears also to have been appointed as one of the four auditors of the chamberlains’ accounts). While serving as chamberlain he was returned to his first Parliament, serving alongside Richard Scoles*. Their main purpose in attending the Parliament was to secure an important new charter for the town incorporating it as a county in its own right. According to an account of their expenses incurred in securing two new grants (one in May and another in July 1440 providing for a mayoral sword and new aldermanic robes) both men were paid for an attendance of 28 days at Westminster. Anson received a further 50s. for 25 extra days spent in London and £6 13s. 4d. which he had given as a gift to William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk.6 Bench bk. 3, BRE 2, f. 12. This probably related to expenses occurred outside of the parliamentary sessions as Anson and Scoles received a further £11 10s. each in parliamentary wages for two periods spent at Westminster: between them 61 days’ service from 30 Oct. until 29 Dec. 1439 and a further 54 days from 9 Jan. until 1 Mar. 1440.7 Chamberlains’ accts. BRF2/356. In the accounting year 1440-1 Anson received a further 40s. in part payment of debts still outstanding from the previous year’s efforts to secure the new charter: BRF 2/357. Further office followed on Anson’s return home and he was named among the first aldermen of the newly-constituted town and county of Hull in June 1440 and at Michaelmas that year as sheriff.

Like most of the local elite Anson was a merchant, actively involved in overseas trade. With other Hull merchants he often traded to Iceland and the towns of the Hanseatic League. In June 1436 he had been one of a number of local men whose goods (in Anson’s case 20 woollen broadcloths) had been seized for non-payment of customs. In July 1439 they successfully obtained a pardon, probably at the bequest of the Household knight, Sir Henry Brounflete, the owner of the ship in which the goods had been taken.8 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 294-5. The following year he and three others submitted a claim to the Hanseatic authorities alleging that they had been captured by German merchants en route to Denmark and compelled to serve aboard their own ship for 16 weeks. When they finally arrived at their destination their licence to trade was out of date, leaving them out of pocket to the tune of £660.9 J. Kermode, Med. Merchants, 218; Hanserecesse, 1431-76 ed. van der Ropp, ii. 542-5. Anson was clearly no stranger to trouble. In Trinity term 1438 he was accused of leading an assault on John Byrkyn of Hull, who had had the temerity to attempt to serve him and others with writs requiring their presence before the barons of the Exchequer. This accusation led, in Michaelmas term 1439, to Anson’s brief imprisonment in the Fleet prison before he was released the following term on the mainprise of two Yorkshire lawyers, John Portyngton and John Killingholme*. It may be that one of Anson’s motivations for seeking election to the Parliament of that year was to delay further action in this matter. The case eventually ended with Anson agreeing to make fine with the King for his contempt in Michaelmas term 1445.10 E159/214, recorda Trin. rot. 6.

Meanwhile, in January 1442, Anson had been elected to his second Parliament. He and his fellow burgess, Nicholas Ellis*, were paid their wages of £7 12s. each for 76 days’ service promptly on their return, as well as 16s. 8d. for obtaining copies of Acts made during the Parliament.11 Chamberlains’ accts. BRF2/358. Little other evidence survives of his career in the first half of this decade, but in January 1445 he was returned to the Commons for a third time. He and his fellow burgess, Hugh Clitheroe*, received £8 10s. each for 85 days’ attendance (including ten days travelling to and from Westminster) at the Parliament’s first two sessions and £6 each for their service between 21 Oct. and 20 Dec. Anson then received wages for a further 83 days at the Parliament’s final session between 24 Jan. and 9 Apr. 1446, as well as 25s. 8d. for suing out writs relating to the collection of parliamentary subsidies in the county of Hull.12 Ibid. BRF2/361, 362a. In January 1446, at the beginning of the final session, Anson had been appointed as one of the collectors of customs in the port of Kingston-upon-Hull, although he did not take up office until sometime after he returned home in the summer. He probably made a handsome profit from this position, using his local and mercantile knowledge to both his own advantage and that of the Crown. In Easter term 1449, along with three others, he took a half share of the goods, valued at £62 16s. 6d., arrested in the Marie Knyght of Dordrecht.13 E159/225, recorda, Easter rot. 7. He customarily received a cash reward from the Crown at Michaelmas for his good service, and in December 1451 and August 1453 he made two loans to the Crown of 100 marks and £40 respectively. In June 1449 he had been named in the general pardon against all trade offences issued to the merchants of the Calais staple in return for loans, but there is no evidence that he was personally involved in contributing towards the staplers’ loans.14 E403/769, m. 6; 775, m. 11; 777, m. 9; 781, m. 6; 786, m. 10; 791, m. 4; 796, m. 4; CPR, 1446-52, p. 256.

At Michaelmas 1450 Anson was first chosen as mayor of Hull. Just six days later he was elected to serve in the Commons for a fourth time. On this occasion he travelled to Westminster with the lawyer William Eland*. Anson departed for Westminster on 1 Nov., returning home on 23 Dec. and receiving wages of £5 6s. After leaving again on 25 Jan. 1451, he remained at Westminster for 40 days, and then travelled again to the Commons on 27 Mar. and returned home on the following 11 Apr. He went back to Westminster for a final time ten days before the dissolution of the Parliament on 5 July 1451.15 Chamberlains’ accts. BRF 2/364.

The next reference to Anson’s activities is much less mundane and shows that he was quick to identify himself with the interests of Richard, duke of York. On 25 Oct. 1452, before a powerful royal commission charged with inquiring into treasons in Lincolnshire, he was indicted for participating in a rising in Grantham on the previous 23 Feb. The rising had been in support of York’s ill-judged rebellion that ended in the duke’s humiliation at Dartford.16 KB9/65/20. Like most of the others indicted Anson escaped punishment, but his dedication to York’s cause, first manifest here, was later to have fatal consequences. In the meantime, this alleged involvement in treason did not deter his fellow townsmen from again electing Anson as mayor at Michaelmas 1453. On the following 12 Jan. he and his fellow aldermen decided that he should ride to London to petition the King’s council for the townsmen’s right to hold the admiralty court in their town. It is unclear how long Anson remained in London and Westminster, but in April the aldermen decided that he should also approach the council in order that the town might acquire more land in mortmain.17 Bench bk. BRB1, ff. 31v-32. Events back home, however, may have forced Anson to return. In May Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, and Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont, came to Hull and attempted to rouse the inhabitants against their Neville opponents and the government of York, who had assumed the office of Protector in March 1454. The King’s council accused them of ‘straunge and unfittyng demeanyng’ and thanked the mayor and burgesses for resisting them, organizing an effective watch and ward within the town, and welcoming the Protector at the end of the month. No doubt here Anson found his public duty accorded with his Yorkist sympathies.18 PPC, vi. 195-7; Kingston-upon-Hull recs., corporation letters, BRL9.

In the following Michaelmas term Anson was again at Westminster, seemingly seeking to acquire a new charter for the town, presumably in connexion with the admiralty court.19 Bench bk. BRB1, ff. 35v, 43. If so, he was unsuccessful. Soon after, he had a new opportunity to serve the duke of York. On 7 July 1455, in the wake of the Yorkist victory at the second battle of St. Albans, he was again elected to the Commons alongside his old friend, Ellis, with whom he had served as both MP and customs collector. Both men were probably present for the entirety of the first session, receiving wages for 28 days’ service. Anson returned to Westminster on 13 Nov., the day after the opening of the Parliament’s second session, and remained there until the end of the session. Thereafter, however, he seems, if the record of payments in the chamberlains’ account is complete, to have absented himself from the long last session of the Parliament from January to March 1456, leaving the representative duties in Ellis’s hands.20 Chamberlains’ accts. BRF2/367-8.

In the late 1450s, as tensions heightened between the rival factions of Lancaster and York, Anson emerged both as the leading figure among Hull’s aldermen and a valued adherent of the Yorkist cause. He was prominent in the town’s administration: he was elected for his third term as mayor in 1458 and then as coroner at the end of his mayoralty. Of greater interest, in February 1458 he was appointed by Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, as collector in Hull of that part of the tunnage and poundage reserved to Warwick for his keepership of the seas.21 E356/20, rot. 24d; CCR, 1454-61, p. 240. It may be that it was a connexion with the Nevilles that determined his support for the Yorkist cause, although direct evidence of that connexion is wanting. In any event, his role in the collection of customs seems to have provided him with the opportunity to give direct support for the Yorkists in the aftermath of their rout at Ludford Bridge in October 1459. A month later the King’s attorney-general, William Nottingham II*, claimed before the barons of the Exchequer that Anson had illegally shipped overseas 500 marks which he had collected in customs’ revenue at Hull. It is tempting to suggest that he had taken these funds directly to Calais, where Warwick was captain. In February 1460 the mayor of Hull, Edmund Copendale†, was ordered to arrest Anson and distrain his lands and goods; this he failed to do adequately, making a false return in favour of his friend for which he was fined by the barons.22 E159/236, recorda Mich. rot. 79.

The Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton in July 1460 gave Anson a new importance. In the following month the Yorkist regime appointed him to the commission of the peace in the East Riding, and on 3 Sept. he was named as receiver of the manor of Burstwick, part of the lordship of Holderness, then in the King’s hands by reason of the death at that battle of Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham.23 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 624, 682. His support for York made him an obvious candidate for election to the Parliament of 1460 and he was duly elected on 21 Sept. Soon afterwards his fellow townsmen chose him again as their mayor, suggesting that there may have been a powerful faction in the town favourable to York. On the octave of Michaelmas 1460 (the second week of October, as Parliament opened) he appeared in person to answer the case pending against him in the Exchequer and offered surety, on the mainprise of John Scales* (his fellow MP for the borough), for a further appearance at the following octave of Hilary. But, as we shall see, the case was overtaken by other events.24 Bench bk. BRB1, f. 72; E159/236, recorda Mich. rot. 79.

On 8 Dec. 1460, a week after the prorogation of this Parliament, Anson had some, albeit modest, further reward for his support for York: he was appointed as deputy to the new chief butler of England, (Sir) John Wenlock, in his home port of Hull.25 CPR, 1452-61, p. 636. By this date he had presumably returned home from Westminster. Indeed, he may have done so even before the end of the session, for, according to an action in the court of common pleas in 1469, on 21 Nov. he entered into a bond at North Cave, some 12 miles from Hull.26 CP40/831, rot. 117. There is, however, other contradictory evidence. A case in the Exchequer of pleas has him both in London and Hull on 8 Dec.: E13/147, rots. 38, 76d. However this may be, on his return he was soon faced, as Hull’s mayor, with a difficult dilemma. A large Lancastrian army was gathering in the north and a Yorkist one, led by the duke of York, was marching north from London. Whether or not the town as a corporation sent a contingent to join one or other of these converging forces, what is not in doubt is that Anson was present on the Yorkist side when battle was joined at Wakefield on 30 Dec. He was captured by the victorious Lancastrians and beheaded at Pontefract alongside the earl of Salisbury, their heads then set upon the gates of York.27 Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 172; E13/167, rot. 10.

Anson’s untimely death left problems for his widow, Elizabeth, as the case against him in the Exchequer was yet to be concluded. The inquiries made on behalf of the Exchequer in 1460 had valued Anson’s property, comprising tenements in Finkle Street, Market Gate, Holdblak Street and Blackfriars Gate, at £20 p.a. and his goods and chattels at £100, and all this may have remained in Crown hands. On 4 Nov. 1461, however, she secured a general pardon as her late husband’s executrix, and was thus able to bring the Exchequer proceedings to an end and secure his property in the following May.28 E159/236, recorda,Mich. rot. 79. At about this time she married William Overton*, a strange choice on her part given Overton’s Lancastrian affiliations. She survived him and was alive as late as April 1483 when William Egremond, bishop of Dromore, acting as a suffragen bishop in the diocese of York, was commissioned to veil her.29 CP40/831, rot. 117; Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 261-3.