DANIELL, John

Daniell poses a problem of identification. The surviving references may describe more than one career, for it seems unlikely, although not impossible, that the MP of 1423 was the same man who drew up a will as late as 1474. It is thus tempting to suppose that the MP returned for the town to four Parliaments from 1423 to 1433 was the father of the MP of 1455. Yet the surviving records describe a coherent career lasting from the early 1420s to the late 1450s, and it is equally plausible that the same man was returned to all five Parliaments and that the testator of 1474 was his kinsman, perhaps his son, or even, as a very old man, the MP himself. In any event, it has been assumed in what follows that the same man was elected to all five Parliaments.

John’s father, Richard Daniell, was a leading townsman of Scarborough. Judging from the records of fish tithes paid to the town’s church of St. Mary, he was one of the most successful of the local fishermen. In 1414-15, the first year for which the records of payment survive, he paid tithes on a substantial catch worth nearly £150. At some point over the next 20 years John joined him in this enterprise. In 1434-5, the first year of another brief run of surviving tithe accounts, father and son were operating on equal terms, both with catches worth between £140 and £150.2 E101/514/31, ff. 50v-52; 32, ff. 7v-9. In the same year they were also involved in a joint enterprise of another sort. They were among a group of Scarborough men, including George Topcliffe*, who on 2 Apr. 1434 at the Scottish port of ‘La Frith’ seized ‘Le Nicholas’ of Aberdeen with its cargo of salmon and took it to Shields in Northumberland, where they divided the cargo between them and imprisoned the Scottish crew. Soon after, the matter was brought to the attention of the chancellor. Two London fishmongers, Thomas Bernewell* and Thomas Weston, claimed the cargo as their own and complained that it had been seized contrary to the truce then prevailing between England and Scotland. It is not known whether they secured redress.3 C1/10/240; 12/144.

Daniell’s father was in office as bailiff when John was returned to the second of his five Parliaments, and it is clear that the father and son co-operated on the closest of terms.4 C219/13/5. This is also apparent in the conventional will the father made on 11 July 1438 in which he named his son as sole residuary legatee and executor. He was dead a week later, and his widow, Isabel, died soon after. She is, however, unlikely to have been our MP’s mother. In her will of 17 Dec. 1438 she named three sons, but all three were by an earlier husband, with her eldest, Thomas Pickering of Settrington (some 18 miles from Scarborough), to act as her sole executor.5 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, ff. 527v, 591v.

It is curious that by the time of his father’s death Daniell should have represented the town in four Parliaments, and although with that death he no doubt became a more substantial figure his later career has left few traces on the surviving records. He continued to pursue his fishing interests, paying tithes on a catch valued at about £190 in 1439-9 and one worth about £132 in 1441-2, the last year for which the accounts survive.6 E101/514/32, ff. 29-30, 36v, 37v. It must also be assumed that he took a part in his native town’s administrative affairs. He is not known to have served as bailiff, but only a partial list of the holders of that office can be compiled from the available records. Even more poorly documented is the composition of the three councils, of descending rank, elected each year to assist the bailiffs. The identity of these councillors is known only for 1456 and 1463, and it is significant that Daniell was elected to the first of the three councils in 1456. No doubt he also served on other occasions. None the less, his apparent enthusiasm for parliamentary service may not have extended to the more routine tasks of borough government. On 14 July 1446 he sued out a royal exemption from office, perhaps with the particular purpose of avoiding election to the potentially-onerous post of bailiff.7 CPR, 1441-6, p. 441.

Little is known of Daniell’s relations with the other leading men of Scarborough. In 1445 he offered surety for the payment of a distraint by William Helperby*, but was on less friendly terms with John Acclom*. In February 1440 Acclom presented a petition to the chancellor complaining that Daniell had purchased two acres of land in the fields of Scarborough which should have come to him under an entail. To protect his purchase, Daniell had allegedly persuaded a priest, who had a life estate in one of the acres, to burn the deed of entail.8 CP40/737, rot. 61d; C1/9/245.

On 27 Aug. 1454, with other leading men of Scarborough, Daniell was entrusted with the important task of bringing to an end the piratical activities of Anthony Trollope, master porter of Calais. He was then, after a break in his parliamentary career of over 20 years, elected to the Yorkist Parliament of the following July. It may be that he was one of the Scarborough men aligned with the Neville interest, for his fellow MP and the bailiff who made the return, Robert Hogeson*, certainly was. His nomination to the 1454 commission, issued when Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, was chancellor, is also relevant here, for it included, as the three Scarborough men who were to act alongside the bailiffs, not only Hogeson but also another Neville man, John Robinson*.9 CPR, 1452-61, p. 179; C219/16/3.

If the MP is not to be identified with the testator of 1474, the last reference to him dates from March 1458 when, along with Thomas Gower II* and Thomas Sage II*, he was commissioned to investigate the taking of a ship of Rouen by a carvel owned by Thomas, Lord Roos. It is, however, possible that he did survive to make that will, which, frustratingly, mentions no members of his family. Describing himself as ‘of Scarborough, esquire’, the testator wanted to be buried in the chapel of the Holy Cross in the church of St. Mary and left rents worth 23s. 8d. p.a. for the celebration of three trentale masses each year at a cost of 15s. with the residue to be distributed among the poor. Perhaps our MP was making a final few provisions as a lonely old man. It may be relevant here that the style ‘esquire’, a rare attribution among even the leading townsmen of Scarborough, had been given to the MP in the 1458 commission. The will was proved on 26 Mar. 1474.10 CPR, 1452-61, p. 436; York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 7.