FORSTER, Stephen

The Forsters originally hailed from Stanton Drew in north Somerset where, according to his will, Stephen was baptized. He had at least two brothers, one of whom, Thomas, continued to live at Stanton Drew, while another, Richard, became a successful merchant of Bristol and was mayor of that town in 1446-7.4 Gt. Red. Bk. of Bristol, ii. 212; CCR, 1441-7, p. 472. Their parentage is obscure, and a later tradition that Stephen was the son of the London stockfishmonger Robert Forster is not supported by any contemporary evidence. On the other hand it is possible that Stephen’s membership of the Fishmongers’ Company stemmed from some kind of family connexion with the craft, for his surname was certainly current among its freemen in the early fifteenth century, and in 1385 a John Forster from Somerset had acquired property in the capital.5 Stowe 860, f. 54. See the will of John Forster (d.1414), citizen and fishmonger: Guildhall Lib. London, commissary ct. wills, 9171/2, f. 224v; CP25(1)/151/77/74.

Forster was one of a number of men with interests in Bristol who became London citizens and established successful businesses in the capital in this period, notably the grocers and half-brothers, John Young I* and Thomas Canynges*. Given the paucity of the fifteenth-century records of the Fishmongers’ Company it is impossible to say when he obtained the freedom of the city, or whether he did so by apprenticeship, redemption or patrimony. The first seems unlikely, mainly because by the time of his earliest appearance in the city’s records he was already established as a merchant in Bristol, from where he was licensed to ship grain to Bordeaux and Bayonne in 1426.6 DKR, xlviii. 241. He was to maintain his commercial links in Bristol for much of his career: in January 1432 he was a recipient of a gift of goods and chattels by Nicholas Hill of Bristol, with whom he was subsequently associated in an unsuccessful suit for debt brought against a Suffolk man, while in March 1438 he successfully recovered the sum of £140 from the widow of another Bristolian, John Knyght.7 Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 264; 1437-57, pp. 1, 74; CPR, 1441-6, p. 213. By 1426 Forster had also begun to make his name in London, where that year he was chosen as an arbiter in a dispute involving a fishmonger, indicating that he had not only obtained the freedom of the city but was sufficiently prominent there to be employed by the mayor’s court in this way.8 Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 199.

Shipments of grain formed just a small part of Forster’s wide-ranging trading activities. He was one of a select band of English merchants who traded extensively with Iceland in order to buy large quantities of fish. Bristol merchants were at the forefront of this trade, and in March 1439 Forster and his wealthy business partner, William Canynges*, were granted a licence enabling them to take their ship the Katherine of Bristol to Iceland and Finmark (the extreme north of Norway) in order to purchase fish. The licence also mentioned the ‘great debts’ which were owed to them by the people of Norway, indicating that they had probably undertaken earlier ventures without royal licence. There were similar voyages in subsequent years, and in 1442 Forster and Canynges secured a fresh licence for a period of four years allowing them to take the Katherine and another vessel, Le Marie Redeclyf to Iceland.9 Overseas Trade (Bristol Rec. Soc. vii), 71; E. Power and M.M. Postan, English Trade in 15th Cent. 168; DKR, xlviii. 327, 332; Statutes, ii. 239; CPR, 1441-6, p. 81. Forster’s association with Canynges can be traced back to at least April 1438 when the two men had been joined in another royal licence, this time enabling them to trade with either Bayonne or with Portugal. Forster retained his links with Canynges throughout his life: it was in Forster’s house in the parish of St. Botolph Billingsgate that Canynges’s son, also named William, made his will in 1458, and later that year Canynges himself acted as Forster’s executor.10 DKR, xlviii. 323; Bristol Wills (Trans. Bristol and Glos Arch. Soc.), 153; Overseas Trade, 303. Their relationship not only helped Forster to retain a stake in mercantile activity in Bristol, while simultanously becoming more prominent as a merchant in London, for the growing prominence of the Canynges brothers in the capital may also have been instrumental in encouraging his close association with the Grocers’ Company. In the late 1440s Forster was described as ‘citizen and grocer’ of London, and in his will he made a bequest of £10 to that company in addition to the £20 he left to the Fishmongers. Although his exact status within the company is not known, it is clear that he did not ‘translate’ his freedom from the Fishmongers to the Grocers and thus it is probable that he was admitted by the latter in a more ‘honorary’ capacity. His position within the Fishmongers’ Company certainly cannot be questioned, for in September 1454 he was permitted to take over the apprenticeship of one William Danyell, originally from Berkeley in Gloucestershire, whose master had left the city without making arrangements for his future instruction.11 Guildhall Lib. London, Grocers’ Co. wardens’ accts., 11571/1, f. 74v; PCC 15 Stokton; P. Nightingale, Med. Mercantile Community, 453; Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 136-7.

Forster’s links with London grocers, and indeed with other prominent merchants such as Thomas Cook II* and Philip Malpas* (with both of whose families he became related by marriage) reflects the fact that his commercial interests ranged far beyond those of most fishmongers. Like many other London traders he regarded cloth as a staple commodity: in 1445-6, for example, he exported 124 short cloths through the port of London in three separate shipments.12 E122/73/20, mm. 8v, 18v, 32; 161/11, m. 5. Rather more unusual, however, was his involvement in the export trade in tin. In October 1440 he was granted a licence enabling him to ship the metal to Venice, and by the late 1440s he had established links with a Cornish tin merchant, Stephen Boldon, who may well have been his main supplier.13 DKR, xlviii. 340; CCR, 1447-54, p. 166. Indeed, in April 1441 he and Philip Malpas were among those accused of seeking to monopolize the tin trade by buying up the entire supply of this commodity coming into London. The city’s pewterers complained that as a result they were unable to obtain it at the price laid down by ordinance.14 Corp. London RO, jnl. 3, f. 84. The export of tin to Venice provided Forster with an avenue to gain access to a vast range of luxury goods from the Mediterranean, and by the mid 1440s he was importing large quantities of such items in partnership with Thomas Canynges, William Estfield*, John St. Loe* (an esquire of the body and constable of Bristol castle), and the Oxfordshire landowner Richard Quatermayns*. Exemplary of these commodities were the goods in Forster’s hands in October 1445, which included luxury materials such as silk, gold brocade and tartarin, spices such as cloves, ginger and pepper, sweet wine from Greece, and even roots (for use as purgatives) from Asia Minor.15 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 83-84; Power and Postan, 271. By the later 1440s Forster was also importing iron from the Iberian peninsula, along with wine and liquorice. It seems that he retained an interest in the iron trade to the end of his life, for in 1457 he was one of the recipients of a gift of goods and chattels by the leading London ironmonger Nicholas Marchall, probably as security for credit or ready money.16 C76/110, m. 10; W. Childs, Anglo-Castilian Trade, 212; E122/73/23, mm. 2, 24d; 203/3, ff. 20v, 23; Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 184.

Following the acquisition of his export licence in 1426, Forster had continued to enjoy close ties with the city of Bayonne in Gascony. By the late 1430s, however, a serious trade dispute had arisen between London and Bayonne and, in July 1438, a ship from Bayonne was arrested by the sheriffs of London after the authorities in its home port had levied new tolls on merchandise belonging to Forster and four other Londoners. This retaliation was prompted by an action for debt which Forster and the others took out against the master of the ship and three Gascon merchants. The damage being done to his business may have prompted Forster to become involved in the negotiations which led to a settlement of the dispute in June 1442. Several months earlier, he and John St. Loe had been jointly appointed as provosts of Bayonne and keepers of its castle, and on 28 June 1444 they were granted the offices for 60 years, receiving all the customs, fees and rents there and without paying any taxes or dues to royal officers in Aquitaine. It is unlikely that Forster took up the post up in person, for between 1445 and 1447 he went on to serve terms as sheriff and auditor of London, and in April 1448, following the death of St. Loe, he resigned the posts to Richard Quatermayns and Ralph, Lord Sudeley, the steward of the Household.17 Vale, 117-18; C61/131, m. 3; CCR, 1447-54, p. 73; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 218, 271; CCR, 1447-54, p. 73.

The business dealings of Forster and his contemporaries depended upon complex networks of finance and credit, to which alien traders and bankers were pivotal. Dealings with aliens could, however, provoke controversy. Thus, in 1429 the Grocers’ Company prohibited its members from sealing obligations to Italians, as it had been discovered that the latter were selling the bonds on to others. The incident which appears to have provoked this was a public transfer which an Italian, Bartholomeo Contarini, made in the mayor’s court of bonds for £152 which he had been given by two prominent grocers, Sayer Acre and Nicholas Wyfold. Contarini had then assigned these bonds, payable by May 1430, to Forster in settlement of debts which he owed to him. In court Contarini undertook not to issue any acquittance to the two grocers without Forster’s consent, and to avow any suits taken out by Forster for non payment of the debt.18 Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 236; Nightingale, 441. The sum concerned on this occasion was a comparatively minor one, but at some point in the 1450s Forster, Contarini, Cook and Malpas entered into a bond for the huge sum of £1,579 9s. 4d. with Simon Eyre and an associate, although the precise nature of the transaction is not recorded.19 Cal. P. and M. London, 1457-82, p. 11.

Forster’s prominence as a merchant meant that he was frequently called upon to act as an arbiter in commercial disputes, both in London and elsewhere. In January 1435 he and Robert Whittingham I* were chosen as arbiters by John Reynwell* in the course of the latter’s acrimonious dispute with the staplers of Calais. Five years later he acted in a similar capacity for Thomas Gille I*, the connexion between the two men possibly originating with the latter’s role as a customer in Southampton. Shortly afterwards he was Philip Malpas’s choice of arbiter in a dispute which involved holding up the embarkation of a Venetian galley. In 1448 his local knowledge was drawn upon when he was among those chosen to hear an appeal concerning a dispute involving Bristol men that had originally been heard in the court of admiralty.20 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 360-1; jnl. 3, f. 70. Less is known about Forster’s own lawsuits, although in the autumn of 1443, and in circumstances that remain obscure, he had come into conflict with the leading magnate in the land, William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. On 30 Sept. that year he and his later son-in-law, the stockfishmonger John Felde, were said to have threatened and harrassed Suffolk’s servants and tenants at Kingston-upon-Hull. It took more than three years for the matter to come to trial, but when it did, Forster wisely decided to negotiate a settlement.21 CP40/744, rot. 340.

Forster’s growing wealth made him a target for the Crown, which was coming increasingly to rely upon loans provided by London merchants and by the staplers. In September 1449 he lent the sum of 100 marks, which was the subject of a swift order authorizing repayment by assignment, and eight months later he found £301 for the expenses of the Household. On the latter occasion security for repayment was provided in the form of jewels and plate which were delivered to him by Richard Joynour*. The pledged goods were worth some £23 more than the loan, and in July 1451, after Forster had handed over that sum, it was agreed that he should keep them. The items listed included a number of standing cups decorated with precious stones, as well as diamonds and pearls.22 E403/777, m. 1; 796, m. 3; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 455-6; Nightingale, 501-2. This may well have been at Forster’s own request as it is clear that he had a taste for such luxury items: in 1448 he had bought a large quantity of plate from a yeoman named William Shepey, in exchange for nine bales of fustian. The plate included ‘a tablet of gold with an ymage of oure lady therynne and a crowne of gold with x perles theron set upon hir hede & her childe enameled stondyng before hir & with xiiii Rubies & xxviii perles sette rounde aboute in the bordures of the same tablet’, as well as a number of goblets, salt cellars, candlesticks and other pieces suitable for a wealthy household.23 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 107-8. Forster’s dealings in alum and tin made him vulnerable to other efforts by the Crown to raise finance. In the summer of 1453 the Crown seized £8,000 worth of alum belonging to Genoese merchants in the port of Southampton. This was given to London merchants, chiefly grocers, who were allowed to buy and sell it at a maximum profit of 2s. in the pound, or ten per cent. They were then required to lend the profit, up to £800, to the Crown. This proved an unpopular measure and stern letters were sent from the King to the city requesting the names of those who had sold their alum without disclosing the profit they had made. Representatives of the Grocers’s Company were summoned on three occasions to the King’s council to discuss this question. Despite this the Crown was not deterred and on 12 Sept. that year granted £2,000-worth of alum and tin known as ‘blak foile’ to a group of grocers which included Forster. Once again they were required to sell it at a profit, and then hand the revenue over to the Exchequer.24 Nightingale, 495; PPC, vi. 152-4; W. Smith, ‘R. Finance and Politics 1450-5’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 236-8, app. vi; CPR, 1452-61, p. 155.

By contrast with his business dealings, relatively little is recorded of either the extent or location of Forster’s property. He was not among those Londoners whose holdings were assessed for the income tax of 1436, suggesting that he may have been included among the taxpayers elsewhere, possibly in Bristol, for which no return survives. His holdings in London are difficult to locate. Nevertheless, it is known that in November 1437 he and his wife Agnes purchased a tenement and six shops in Birchin Lane, in the parish of St. Edmund the King, from a London grocer for the sum of £100.25 Corp. London RO, hr 166/31. Their marriage had probably taken place a year or so earlier, for by the time of his death one of Forster’s sons had attained his majority. He also held property in the parish of St. Botolph Billingsgate: in July 1448 he was granted tenements in Pudding Lane, to which he added another building in the parish which he leased from the City. It was here that he was living at the time of his death. It is possible too that he aquired buildings in or near Bread Street, the ward he was to represent as an alderman.26 Ibid. hr 167/33, 169/14, 176/12, 178/11-12, 14, 186/6; CCR, 1447-54, p. 233; CPR, 1446-52, p. 130; jnl. 6, f. 147.

Like his elder brother Richard, Forster also had property interests in Bristol, where he and Thomas Canynges were among those granted the King’s Head in St. Magnus’ parish by a group of goldsmiths and armourers in 1440, and during his brother’s mayoralty seven years later he participated in a transaction concerning several messuages in the town.27 CCR, 1441-7, p. 472; Som Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xii), 117. Forster appears to have been a popular choice as a feoffee elsewhere in the country too. From 1449 to 1454, for instance, he was a trustee of the manor of Hintlesham in Suffolk which came into the possession of John Timperley I*,28 CPR, 1446-52, p. 221; 1452-61, p. 150. and on behalf of his associate Richard Quatermayns he served as a feoffee of estates in Berkshire.29 CPR, 1441-6, p. 144; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 173, 268; 1461-8, p. 143. A further indication of the regard in which he was held was the royal grant to him and Baldwin Boteler in January 1440, of the marriage of the three daughters and heirs of Thomas Baldington, who were perhaps by this date the stepdaughters of John Fray†, the baron of the Exchequer.30 CPR, 1436-41, p. 360.

Although Forster was active in London from the mid 1420s onwards, it was not until the late 1430s that he began to take a more prominent role in the city’s government. Indeed it is striking that his election to Parliament, on 1 Sept. 1435, took place several years before he was appointed to any civic office. Clearly, therefore, qualities other than governmental experience lay behind his election to this assembly, and it is most likely to have been his standing as a merchant which made him a useful person to have representing the city’s interests.31 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 191. He attested the election of London’s MPs in November the following year, but it was not until September 1439 that he was appointed for the first time as one of the city’s four auditors, an office which he went on to hold for four consecutive years, twice the usual term. In parallel, he was appointed to several city committees which met to consider issues ranging from London’s water supply to the settlement of a dispute between the city government and the Weavers.32 Jnl. 3, ff. 11, 12, 36, 116; 4, f. 23. Now his career rapidly gathered pace. On 31 July 1444 he was elected to the vacant aldermanry of Bread Street Ward,33 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 297. and that same autumn he was chosen one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. The following September he was once again appointed an auditor, although on this occasion he served for just one year. More committee work followed, and in September 1450 he was included in one of several commissions of oyer and terminer which were appointed in the capital following the end of Cade’s revolt.34 Jnl. 4, ff. 76, 161, 184v; 5, ff. 8, 30v, 66, 90. The mayoral elections of October 1452 saw him defeated by Geoffrey Feldyng*, but two years later he finally achieved his goal. His mayoralty spanned one of the most troubled years of Henry VI’s reign, and it may have been with a sense of foreboding of future troubles that on 1 Oct. 1455, shortly before relinquishing his office, he obtained a royal pardon.35 Jnl. 6, f. 236v; C67/41, m. 26.

Very little is recorded of Forster in London over the next three years, and he appeared relatively infrequently at meetings of the court of aldermen. His business interests may well have taken up a great deal of his time, and in fact there is evidence that he was experiencing some serious financial problems: on 3 Feb. 1458 he was exonerated from his aldermanry on the grounds that he was ‘broken’ by his ‘great poverty’. The nature of Forster’s predicament is unclear, as his petition allowed the mayor and aldermen to decide on grounds of illness as well as financial hardship, but the former seems most likely. By the end of October he was clearly gravely ill, for on the 28th the mayor, Geoffrey Boleyn*, took the unusual step of making formal arrangements for Agnes Forster to continue to occupy the property in St. Bololph’s parish which she and Stephen leased from the City for two years after her husband’s death.36 Jnl. 6, f. 236. On 4 Dec. Forster drew up his will, in which he asked for burial in the church of St. Botolph. Among the most notable of his bequests was the sum of £20 for vestments and other ornaments for the church of Stanton Drew, and another £20 for the marriages of poor maidens there. Several relatives in Somerset also benefited from legacies, including his brother, Thomas, and nephew John. In Bristol Forster remembered the church and priory of St. Mary Magdalen, the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, and the poor of St. Bartholomew’s hospital. Among the individuals to whom he left bequests were the widow of Hugh Wyche*, and the wife of Arthur Ormesby†. William Kerver, a mercer with whom Forster was involved in business, was left £10 and his wife £20 ‘for the good service she has done for me in looking after my books’. He also remembered numerous household servants, as well as his cook. His eldest son, John, was to have the sum of £1,000 in cash, while 1,000 marks each was to go to his other sons, Robert and Stephen, when they came of age. His daughter Agnes was to receive 500 marks for her marriage. The considerable quantity of plate owned by Forster, some 303lb, was bequeathed to his widow, Agnes, who was also to receive 2,000 marks and all the household goods in their residence apart from any merchandise, which was to be sold to pay off debts. The residue of the estate was to be split equally between her and John Forster, who were to act as executors with William Canynges. The will was proved on 27 Dec.37 PCC 15 Stokton.

Shortly after her husband’s death the mayor, John Walden*, confirmed his predecessor’s grant to Agnes. She immediately set about the implementation of her husband’s will, a task which would occupy her for a number of years as she sought to recover the debts owing to him.38 Jnl. 6, ff. 147, 236v; C67/45, m. 30; C1/29/309, 31/156. It was not long, however, before she began to undertake the work that would make her famous in her own right as a reformer of London’s prisons, for in December 1463 ‘the weldisposed blessed and devote woman Dame Agnes Foster’ came before the aldermen with her scheme for the ‘ease and comfort and releef of al the powre prysoners beyng in the Gaoles and countours of the saide Citee’. The scheme made no mention of Stephen, but it is clear that projects such as the enlargement of Ludgate prison were intended to benefit his soul. Thus, in Stow’s day, an inscription admonished passers-by:

Deuout soules that passe this way,

for Stephen Forster late Maior, heartily pray,

And Dame Agnes his spouse, to God consecrate,

that of pitie this house made for Londoners in Ludgate,

So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,

as their keepers shal all answere at dreadful doomes day.39 J. Stow, Surv. London ed. Kingsford, i. 40.

Agnes lived on until 1484, distributing her sons’ inheritances and arranging the successive marriages of her daughter, Agnes, to John Felde, a London stockfishmonger, and Robert Morton†, kinsman of Dr. John Morton, the future archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal. By the time of her death she had moved to the parish of St. Stephen Walbrook where she asked to be buried. Of the three sons she had with Stephen, Robert, a London grocer, had died, while Stephen had become a clerk with links to Cambridge university. The eldest, John, a prominent member of Edward IV’s household, died in 1488, leaving as his heir his nephew, another Robert Morton.40 For Agnes and their children see John Vales’ Bk. ed. Kekewich et al., 84, 99-101; Cal. P. and M. London, 1457-82, pp. 175-6; C1/50/103; PCC 9 Logge (PROB11/4, ff. 65-66).