BEDALE, William

William is thought to have been the son of John Bedale, one of the leading citizens of York in the first decades of the fifteenth century, who was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1386 and served as chamberlain in 1401-2, sheriff three years later and as mayor in 1418-19. A merchant, he regularly shipped iron, woad and cloth from the port of Kingston-upon-Hull,4 Kermode, app. 4. yet if John was indeed William’s father it is curious that he himself was admitted to the freedom of York (in 1403) by purchase rather than by patrimony.5 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 107. The date of John’s death is not known, but he was still alive as late as 1421.6 CPR, 1416-22, p. 345.

By the end of Henry IV’s reign, William was himself trading in cloth from Kingston-upon-Hull. In April 1413 his affairs suffered a setback when a ship called Le Marie of Beverley and its cargo of cloth (some of it belonging to him) were seized as forfeit to the King for non-payment of customs and granted by the newly-crowned Henry V to two household knights.7 CPR, 1413-16, p. 19. Little evidence remains of his subsequent involvement in overseas trade, but in 1422 he was among a group of English merchants from York, Hull and Beverley whose merchandise was seized by Hanseatic ships en route to Danzig. Fourteen years later, the Hansards had still made no restitution.8 Hanserecesse, 1431-76, ed. von der Ropp, ii. 65.

In February 1415 Bedale was elected as one of the chamberlains of York, thus beginning an active career in civic government that continued until his death. It was not, however, until September 1423 that he took office as one of the sheriffs. When he relinquished this post a year later, he and his colleague William Gateshead promptly found themselves subject to litigation: one Robert Hoton claimed that he had been wrongfully imprisoned by the sheriffs for ten days and only released on the payment of a fine of five marks, while Hoton’s wife, Joan, claimed she had been similarly imprisoned for three days. In the sheriffs’ defence their attorney at Westminster, Robert Cawode, recited the city’s charter granted by Richard II and how the bailiffs and later sheriffs had the power to commit debtors brought before the city’s courts to prison.9 E13/136, rots. 7, 12. It seems that the Hotons’ complaints had no impact on Bedale’s further career. In the same year as he served as sheriff he and his wife, Agnes, were admitted into the prestigious guild of Corpus Christi.10 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, 22. Shortly after the end of his shrievalty he became a member of the council of 24 and on 4 Apr. 1425 he witnessed his first parliamentary election in this capacity. Bedale was a frequent attender at council meetings during the late 1420s, and by March 1432, when he witnessed the election to the Parliament of that year, he had almost certainly joined the ranks of the aldermen.11 York Memoranda Bk. ii (Surtees Soc. cxxv), 110, 142, 159, 183; iii (ibid. clxxxvi), 105, 107, 158.

By this stage in his career Bedale had become a leading member of York’s mercantile elite. In 1430 he was instrumental in settling the dispute of the Mercers’ Company with John Warthill over its hospital in Fossgate,12 York Mercers, 32. and in February 1432, and again two years later, he was chosen master of the Mercers. In 1433 he served as one of the pageant masters in the Company’s annual Corpus Christi procession.13 Archs. Co. Merchant Adventurers, York (Borthwick Texts and Cals. xvi), 19. His connexions were not, however, limited to his own fraternity, but also included the city’s leading wool merchants. When, in June 1428, he had been bound before the mayor of York to keep the peace towards one Hawise Selby, his sureties had included besides his fellow mercers, William Holbeck* and Robert Middleton, the stapler, John Bolton*.14 York Memoranda Bk. iii. 118. Bedale acted alongside Bolton again in 1435 when he was appointed as arbiter in a dispute between the executors of another stapler, John Aldstaynmore*. This resulted in litigation when the latter’s kinsman and executor, Henry Aldstaynmore, claimed that they, along with another of the executors, William Holbeck, had brought various vexatious suits before the mayor of York, leading to his wrongful imprisonment, in an attempt to deprive him of his inheritance.15 C1/9/168; 10/296. Little evidence survives of Bedale’s business affairs in the latter years of his life, which seem to have been limited to domestic commerce. He may at this time have been involved in the local carrying trade, as well as buying cloth from merchants from Berwick. His annual turn-over has been estimated at little more than £25 at his death.16 J. Kermode, Med. Merchants, 298; York Memoranda Bk. iii. 125; CPR, 1429-36, p. 67. He was nevertheless also active in buying and selling property in York. For the parliamentary subsidy of 1436 he was assessed on an income valued at £18 p.a, with only 13 individuals being assessed at more.17 E179/217/42. Periodically his transactions ended in dispute. At an unknown date after 1432 he was accused in Chancery by the executors of another York man, William Wymondswald, of defrauding them out of a messuage in the city purchased by Wymondswald for £40.18 C1/11/61.

On 12 Sept. 1435 Bedale, along with Richard Warter*, was elected to attend the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on the following 10 Oct.19 C219/14/5. Nothing is known of their activities at this assembly, which was called amidst reversals in English fortunes in France, the defection of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and an increasing threat to Calais. Warter was a merchant of the staple, while Bedale had recently finished a second term as master of the Mercers’ Company in York, and mercantile interests were probably paramount in the city’s choice of MPs. In February 1437 Bedale reached the pinnacle of his civic career when he was elected mayor. Little is known of his mayoralty, but in June he was appointed to his only ad-hoc commission, one to investigate fishgarths on the river Ouse. At a personal level, his year in office proved blighted. In June, Bedale’s second wife, Alice, died and was buried in the church of St. Mary upon Bishophill. Under the terms of her will, she left her husband £20 and made bequests to her children and stepchildren, settling her own property on her son, William, with remainder to Robert Hyndeley, chaplain, another son from her first marriage.20 York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 495.

Bedale himself was not to survive her for long. He made his own will on 10 Sept. 1438, just six months after the end of his mayoral year, perhaps falling victim to the plague that was once again sweeping across England (his stepson, Robert Hyndeley, had died a month earlier). He asked to be buried in his parish church of St. Martin’s, Coney Street, making elaborate provision for his funeral there. Other bequests included gifts for the fabric of York Minster, as well as to each of the mendicant orders in York and the leper houses outside the walls. He made provision for obits to be celebrated for him, his wives, their parents and his dead children for ten years. Bedale’s property in the city was settled on his eldest son, John (except for messuages in Kargate and North Street which he gave to another son, Nicholas). He appointed John, together with John’s sister Agnes and the mercer John Calton, as executors, but placed them under the supervision of his old friend and fellow alderman, John Bolton, and Robert Semer, rector of his parish church. In a codicil added on the same day he made further cash bequests to provide for his soul. In all the value of the bequests totalled £92. Probate was granted on 17 Sept.21 Ibid. prob. reg. 2, f. 124; 3, ff. 531, 540.

Bedale’s eldest son had been made free of the city by patrimony in 1437, shortly before his father’s election as mayor. During his father’s mayoralty, John was also admitted to the Mercers’ Company, but he did not reach the heights of civic responsibility that William had done, and never held the offices of chamberlain or sheriff. In 1450, styled a merchant, he was assessed towards the parliamentary subsidy on property worth £9 p.a. John was still alive in 1468 when he was assisting the city chamberlains in the collection of the parliamentary subsidy, but had died by 1473 when his widow, Isabel, had married Robert Kelam of London.22 Freemen of York, 152; York Memoranda Bk. ii. 269; iii. 134; York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 129; E179/217/56. Of Bedale’s other sons only Nicholas, who was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1443 described as ‘chapman alias merchant’, is mentioned in the civic records of York. In 1445, however, another son, William, rented a ditch between the city walls and St. Mary’s abbey from the masters of Ouse Bridge.23 Freemen of York, 161; York Bridgemasters’ Accts. ed. Stell (York Arch. Trust, 2003), 249. Bedale’s daughter Agnes went on to marry the merchant William Cateryk, while her sister Joan died unmarried in 1447. By her will she asked to be buried next to her father and appointed her eldest brother, John, as her executor.24 CP40/732, rot. 453; York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 155.