BOWES, William II

Bowes’s father was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in York during the first half of the fifteenth century. The two men often worked in partnership: around 1416 Nicholas, the nephew of Nicholas Blackburn*, was apprenticed jointly to them for six years.3 York City Archs., Liber Misc. viii. E.39, p. 96. The son was admitted to the freedom of York by patrimony in 1417.4 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 126. He was soon active in overseas trade, and in 1422 he was among a group of English merchants from York, Hull and Beverley who had their merchandise seized en route to Danzig by Hanseatic ships.5 Hanserecesse, 1431-76 ed. von der Ropp, ii. 65.

Bowes’s election as one of the chamberlains of York in February 1425 was the first stage of a long career in the city’s government. It seems likely that it was also about this time that he married, making a good match to Agnes, the daughter of the merchant and former sheriff of York, Robert Kirkeby, for in 1428 the couple were admitted to the prestigious guild of Corpus Christi.6 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York, 28. At Michaelmas 1431 he was elected one of the sheriffs, and it is likely that membership of the council of 24 followed immediately after the end of his year in office. He was certainly serving in this capacity by September 1433 when he attended a council meeting to hear a petition presented by the city’s vintners. By this stage of his career Bowes stood in high enough esteem among his peers to be appointed as an arbiter on behalf of another merchant, Henry Berwick, in his dispute with Nicholas Blackburn.7 CCR, 1429-35, p. 374. Nevertheless, while his father lived, his means appear to have been limited: for the parliamentary subsidy of 1435 he was assessed at only £9 p.a.8 E179/217/42. Bowes did not serve long among the city’s junior councillors, however, and by September 1436 he had joined the ranks of the aldermen. It was as such, in December 1436, that he was chosen to attend the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster the following month, in an election attested by his father. Nothing is known of the activities in the Commons of Bowes and his colleague, the mercer Richard Louth*, although on their return to York both men appeared in the council chamber, along with the collectors of the parliamentary subsidy, to testify that they had apportioned the £16 9s. 8d. deducted from the city’s tax assessment on the grounds of its impoverishment.9 Liber Misc. viii E.39, p. 155.

On his return from Parliament Bowes resumed his role in the government of York. In June 1437 he was named to a royal commission to inquire into the long-running problem of fishgarths obstructing the river Fosse (something possibly secured when he had been in Westminster earlier in the year), and in 1442 and again in 1447 he attested the parliamentary election.10 C219/15/2, 4. In February 1443 he reached the pinnacle of his civic career when he was elected mayor of York.

During this time Bowes continued to be active in overseas trade. No evidence of the extent of his exports of wool to Calais survives, but litigation reveals that he was well connected with merchants in London, Calais and the Low Countries and party to the complicated system of credit that underpinned the wool trade there. In September 1442 he received partial payment of a debt of £20 from the London stapler, John Twygge. He had received this payment of £6 4s. 2d. by the hands of the mayor and fellowship of the staple at Calais in the form of a letter of exchange drawn in Antwerp and paid to staplers by the wealthy stapler, Thomas Thurland*, for a debt owed to the Company. The Company of the staple (which owed money to both Twygge and Bowes) had in turn delivered Thurland’s letter of exchange to Bowes in part settlement of Twygge’s debt to him. Despite this, Twygge had refused to pay Bowes the outstanding sum, forcing him to complain to the chancellor for redress.11 C1/27/24-26.

Further litigation appears to have blighted the second half of Bowes’s career. In 1446 he was involved in a dispute with a French merchant over a bond for £1,000. The latter complained to the King’s council and the matter was passed for arbitration to the abbot of Dore. Bowes was ordered to pay compensation of £254.12 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 444-5. His problems were not confined to trade, however. In December 1445 a jury assembled before the mayor of York, Thomas Crathorne*, had presented that on the previous 31 Oct. at Layerthorp, a village within the boundaries of the county of the city of York, he had suffered an assault by a group of men led by John Wady, a York draper and former chamberlain. The indictment was returned into the King’s Bench, where Wady and his fellow defendants appeared in Hilary term 1446.13 KB27/740, rex rot. 3. In July of that same year, Bowes purchased a general pardon to exonerate himself from litigation arising from his executorship of his father’s will.14 C67/39, m. 8. Other law suits stemmed from his frequent employment as a feoffee. Between 1452 and 1454 he was sued by the heiresses of the mercer, Thomas Scorby, for his refusal to deliver seisin of a messuage and garden in St. Saviour’s Gate, York.15 C1/22/154. More serious were the consequences of various actions for debt. Around 1449 Bowes had been sued in the staple court at Calais by three Flemish merchants for debts totalling £535. The court found in the Flemings’ favour and Bowes was imprisoned in Calais until he could satisfy them. A subsequent writ of corpus cum causa ordered the lieutenant and constables of the staple to produce him in the court of Chancery.16 C47/25/9/22. Further trouble followed in August 1453 when he was outlawed at the suit of John Holme, merchant of Beverley. Commissions were issued to both the treasurer of Calais and the mayor and sheriffs of York to inquire into the extent of Bowes’s moveable goods in those places. In May 1457 the sheriffs of York certified to the Exchequer that Bowes had chattels in the city to the value of £33 6s. 8d. p.a., but they appear to have attempted to assist their fellow citizen by returning that he held no property there. However, on 14 Oct. that year the King’s attorney, William Nottingham II*, presented information to the barons of the Exchequer that at the time of his outlawry Bowes had in fact possessed more than 20 messuages scattered throughout the city. Another inquisition, held by the sheriffs a year later, reaffirmed the previous jury’s opinion that Bowes held no property in the city. Meanwhile, in June 1458 Bowes had been able to secure a general pardon as ‘late of York, merchant, alias sheriff of York, alias late citizen and alderman, alias late of Calais, merchant’. The affair rumbled on into Edward IV’s reign, when a third jury asserted that Bowes had no property in York, until finally, on 28 Nov. 1461, because of ‘divers errors in the record and process’, he secured a pardon of outlawry.17 E159/233, commissiones Easter, rot. 1; recorda Easter, rot. 12d.

It seems likely that these problems combined to cause Bowes either to be deprived of, or to resign his office as alderman of York, and to move out of the city. The pardon of June 1458 described him as ‘late alderman’, and his name is not listed among the aldermen present at subsequent parliamentary elections or at the recorded meetings of the council. He died, an old man and intestate, in 1476.18 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York, 28.