FLETE, Everard

Flete’s family had taken its name from the town of Fleet in Holland in Lincolnshire, and was still prominent in that county in the fifteenth century. By this time, however, successive generations of Fletes had also become established in London, and both Everard and his relative, William*, began their careers as the apprentices of mercers in the city. Their entry to the mystery was undoubtedly facilitated by another relative, the mercer Symkyn Flete, to whom William was apprenticed, while Everard was bound to William Marchford†.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 88. Everard duly completed his training and obtained the freedom of the City in 1407, and, perhaps with the assistance of his former master, established a successful business. He remained close to Marchford who in August 1410 appointed him a feoffee of a mansion in the parish of St. Mary Milk Street which had once belonged to Adam Carlisle†, and went on to serve as one of his former master’s executors.5 C67/37, m.16; Corp. London RO, hr 138/18; PCC 28, 30 Marche (PROB11/2A/463; 2B/3-4); CP40/666, rot. 311d. In the meantime he was rapidly becoming a prominent member of the Mercers’ Company. In 1407 he was admitted to the first of the three stages which led to membership of the livery of the craft, a process which he duly completed in 1409.6 Med. Acct. Bks. of the Mercers, 196, 202, 216.

Flete’s trading activities at this time are not especially well documented, although the substantial number of apprentices (no fewer than 14) that he enrolled during his career suggests that his business was thriving.7 Ibid. 218, 228, 308, 358, 442, 534. Unlike many fellow mercers, he does not appear to have been active in overseas trade, judging from the paucity of references to him in the customs accounts of this period (although the fragmentary nature of some of these records may distort the picture). On the other hand there is some evidence that he was enjoying success, perhaps through connexions he had established within his company: in 1415 and 1416 he and John Abbot II* were among a group of men who twice petitioned Parliament for repayment of the sum of £585 18s. 4d. which they had given to Richard Garner, master of the royal mint, to be re-coined. Repayment had been delayed because the goods of Garner and his deputy had been taken into the Crown’s hands by the treasurer, Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, whose affairs had fallen into abeyance by his unexpected death following the siege of Harfleur.8 PROME, ix. 125, 192. Later references show that Flete established links with individuals from various parts of the country, many of them probably customers or suppliers. In the early 1420s he was trading at Stourbridge fair in Cambridgeshire, and by the end of the decade he was owed debts, quite possibly commercial in origin, by individuals from as far afield as East Anglia, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and his home county of Lincolnshire.9 CP40/672, rot. 118; CPR, 1422-9, pp. 441, 505; 1436-41, p. 217; 1441-6, pp. 18, 119. A reflection of his activity as a merchant was his appointment in July 1433 as constable of the staple at Westminster, a post he held for two years.

His business transactions would suggest that most of his dealings were with the east Midlands and East Anglia, and indeed it was in these parts of the country where he acquired much of his property. Although the precise locations of most of his estates is not recorded, an assessment made for the income tax of 1436 valued his property in London, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire at the sizeable sum of £30 p.a.10 S.L. Thrupp, Merchant Class Med. London, 381; E179/238/90. He evidently retained some of his family holdings at Fleet,11 CP40/664, rot. 116d. and it was evidently through the good offices of his former master, Marchford, that he gained entry to landed society in Hertfordshire. In April 1412, along with Marchford’s business partner and later executor John Bally, he took possession a meadow known as ‘Marchalmede’ in Buntingford, and it was presumably in execution of the provisions of Marchford’s will that seven years later they conveyed it to John Butler† and John Shadworth†, both long-standing associates of the testator. Similarly, it was Marchford who first put Flete in possession of the holdings in Reed known as the manor of ‘Chamberleyns’. Here, he later clashed with the feudal overlord of the property, Thomas Chalers†, over the services owing, but he still retained a stake there in 1430, when Margery Walsham (or Walsingham), a widow from London, quitclaimed her title in ‘Chamberleyns’ to a group of men including him as well as John Fray†.12 E210/402, 627; CCR, 1429-35, p. 18; VCH Herts. iii. 247-9; CP40/656, rot. 372; 658, rot. 340; C4/6/38. In London itself the extent and location of Flete’s property remains unclear, largely because of the difficulty in distinguishing transactions involving his own tenements from those where he was acting as a feoffee. It is probable, however, that among his holdings were properties in the parishes of St. Michael Wood Street and St. Mildred Bread Street. By 1422 Shadworth and Butler had become Flete’s feoffees of a tenement and two shops in Wood Street, and they seem to have acted in a similar capacity for property in Milk Street which they conveyed to other trustees ten years later. With several other mercers Flete also held a tenement in the parish of St. Laurence Jewry, and in 1435 he and the others brought a plaint of intrusion in the mayor’s court against Geoffrey Feldyng*.13 Corp. London RO, hr 142/69, 150/23, 152/3, 168/21; Cal. P. and M. London 1413-37, p. 284.

By the late 1430s Flete had served as one of the wardens of the Mercers’ Company on four separate occasions. Perhaps most notable had been his second term of office in 1424-5, during the course of which the Company had secured the royal charter which, as well as confirming its existing privileges, formally invested it with the patronage of the rector-ship of St. Michael Paternoster which had been settled on the Company by the executors of Richard Whittington† as part of the arrangements for the foundation of a college for priests and an almshouse attached to the church.14 CPR, 1422-9, p. 274; Mercers’ Co, Biog. Index Cards; Canterbury Cath. Archs., Dean and Chapter mss, CCA-DCc-ChAnt/L/95, 116, M/391. The wardenship was, however, to remain the pinnacle of Flete’s company career. While he was evidently well regarded by his peers and frequently called upon as a trustee and as a surety for the guardianships and patrimonies of other mercers, as well as acting as an executor for old associates like John Bally, further advancement, such as to the office of master, was to elude him.15 Cal. Letter Bks. London, K, 70, 212, 251; CPR, 1416-22, pp. 284-5; Corp. London RO, Bridge House deeds E.44, H.71, 77; Cal. P. and M. London 1413-37, p. 267.

A similar picture emerges in the city more generally. While Flete established close and evidently cordial ties with members of other companies, such as the drapers John Norman* and William Botreaux I*, and would later undertake the onerous execution of Botreaux’s will, a task which involved the recovery of debts as far afield as the West Country,16 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 10, 321, 333; E13/140, rots. 18, 26d, 27, 29; CP40/688, rot. 129; 696, rot. 323; 727, rot. 411d; KB27/717, rot. 21; Corp. London RO, hr 161/37, 39. his career of civic office holding remained limited. He was one of only nine men chosen to represent London in Parliament in the reign of Henry VI who failed to attain the rank of alderman. His civic career, such as it was, had begun by the end of 1421, when he attested the parliamentary elections. His own first election four years later was no surprise given the prominent position he occupied within the Mercers’ Company at that time – he was in fact coming to the end of his second term as warden – and he may, moreover, have possessed some previous experience of parliamentary procedure dating back to his participation in the Londoners’ petitions to the Commons in 1415 and 1416.17 Cal. Letter Bks. London, K, 40n. In 1425, Parliament was dissolved on 14 July, but less than six months later, on 7 Jan., fresh writs were issued for a new Parliament which was to meet at Leicester on 18 Feb. The re-election of Flete by the commonalty, like that of John Welles II* by the court of aldermen, may well have indicated that there was unfinished business left over from the previous assembly.

Following the conclusion of his second Parliament, on 21 Sept. 1426 Flete was chosen as one of the City’s four auditors, often the first step towards higher office within London’s government. In his case, however, despite being re-elected the next year, the post marked the high water mark of his civic career. Thereafter he played a more limited role in city affairs, occasionally being appointed to committees and as an arbiter in disputes. In January 1429, for example, two mercers and a goldsmith entered into bonds with the chamberlain to abide by the award of Flete and others, a task which the arbiters were apparently unable or unwilling to complete, as the matter was referred to the mayor and aldermen.18 Jnl. 2, ff. 81v, 130; Cal. P. and M. London 1413-37, pp. 223, 229. Though not elected to Parliament again, Flete nevertheless attested the parliamentary election in 1427 and on three subsequent occasions. Not much else is recorded of him in the city records, although he acted as a delegate from the common council at a meeting of the court of aldermen in March 1438 and was appointed to a committee a year later. He was still active in April 1440, when he was appointed as one of the four collectors of the subsidy which had been granted by Parliament.19 Cal. Letter Bks. London, K, 239; CFR, xvii. 150. In the summer of the same year his son – unnamed in the journal – was said to have been the originator of a quarrel between the butchers and men of the inns of court. Flete is last heard of in April 1441, when he and his wife were granted a plenary indulgence at the Roman curia.20 Jnl. 3, f. 53; CPL, ix. 240.