BLACKBURN, Nicholas

The Blackburns were probably the leading merchant family of early fifteenth-century York. They originated from Richmond in the North Riding and when the MP’s father and namesake was made a freeman of York in 1397-8 he was already active as a merchant of the Calais staple, shipping wool, hides and fells from both Kingston-upon-Hull and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Perhaps the best indication of Blackburn’s standing among his fellow staplers was his appointment in April 1406, in accordance with an agreement reached with the merchants of the realm in the previous Parliament, as admiral of the seas north of the Thames. His wealth allowed him to become a creditor of the Crown and he lent £100 for the invasion of France in 1415 and, two years later, a further £46 13s. 4d. In York he traded with other prominent staplers, notably John Aldstaynmore* and John Bolton* (to whom he married his daughter, Alice). Meanwhile, in 1412 he had been elected mayor of York; two years later he and his wife were admitted to the guild of Corpus Christi; and around the same time he become one of the city’s 12 aldermen.4 J. Kermode, ‘Merchants of York, Hull and Beverley’ (Sheffield Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1990), app. 4; PROME, viii. 404-6.

The youngest of three sons, Nicholas junior followed in his father’s footsteps, both as a merchant of the staple and as a stalwart of the government of York.5 The MP is not to be confused with his nephew and namesake, the son of his brother, William. That Nicholas was apprenticed to William Bowes I* before gaining his freedom in 1422, and serving as chamberlain in 1433-4 and sheriff five years later. In June 1454 he was among those indicted for supporting Lord Egremont’s attack on the Nevilles at Heworth, just outside the city, in the previous Aug.: York City Archs., Liber Misc. viii. E.39, p. 96; Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 131; York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 1396-1500 (Surtees Soc. cxcii), 209-10; KB9/148/1/16. He was probably the ‘Nicholas Blackburn junior’ admitted to the freedom of York in 1403-4, the same year as his brother John. Styled ‘citizen and merchant of York’ in 1415, he was by then active in overseas trade alongside his father and elder brother. In Hilary term that year the collectors of the wool custom in Hull sued the sheriffs of York in the Exchequer. They claimed that the sheriffs had returned false answers of ‘non sunt inventi’ to writs of capias requiring certain York merchants, including the three Blackburns, to appear before the King to answer for non payment of customs.6 Freemen of York, 107; E13/131, rot. 13. In March 1416 the younger Nicholas was present in the council chamber to witness some local deeds and by June 1418 he had joined the city’s council of 24.7 York Memoranda Bk. ii. 46, 55. By this time his elder brother, John, was an alderman like their father, and Nicholas’s membership of the city’s governing council at this stage of his career, when as yet he had held none of the more junior offices of bridgemaster, chamberlain or sheriff, may have been a reflection of his family’s status. The younger Nicholas was finally chosen as chamberlain in February 1424, and in September 1427 further office followed when he was elected as one of the city’s sheriffs. John had died at some point before March 1427 and it is possible that Nicholas took over his place as an alderman at the end of his shrieval year.

In February 1429 Blackburn was elected as the city’s mayor, and at the end of his mayoralty he appears to have taken over his father’s responsibilities on the city council. It was probably he, rather than his father, who witnessed the parliamentary election in January 1431, and in the following April he was one of seven men appointed to assess the parliamentary subsidy in the city. On 24 Mar. 1432 he was returned, alongside another alderman, Thomas Gare*, to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Westminster on 12 May.8 C219/14/2, 3. Nothing is known of their activities at Westminster, but the Parliament contained several items of business that related to the Calais staple, and as both men were active in the wool trade their return may have secured the representation of the interests of the city’s powerful wool merchants at the assembly.

Shortly before Blackburn’s departure for Westminster, his father had died and on 10 Apr. he, along with the other executors, was granted administration of his will. Although at the end of his life Nicholas senior had named his son as an executor, and confirmed his reversionary interest in his estate (after the death of the testator’s widow), earlier on the relationship between father and son had been seriously troubled. In February 1423 Nicholas junior had been bound in the enormous sum of £700 before the sheriffs of York that he would neither ‘disturb nor enter’ his father’s goods or house. When, four years later, Nicholas senior claimed his son had forfeited the bond, he was unable to enforce it as the latter was then serving as sheriff; he appealed to the chancellor of England for a writ of sub poena against him.9 C1/7/311. In part, the disagreements between the two men may have been fomented by others, for not long after his father’s death Nicholas also fell into dispute with his fellow executors, including his brother-in-law, John Bolton, and John Aldstaynmore, whom he accused of having conspired to defraud him of his inheritance by making false suggestions to his father.10 C1/11/80.

These disputes may suggest that Blackburn was a difficult character, an impression given more weight by numerous other similar incidents. In October 1434 he entered into a recognizance for £100 to abide by the arbitration of four of the city’s leading citizens in a dispute with another York merchant, Henry Berwick. Three years later his fellow aldermen, Thomas Ridley*, John Thirsk* and Ralph Clifton, had to find sureties for him in the mayor’s court, entering into recognizances for 40 marks that he would keep the peace towards Thomas Mody, a local walker [fuller].11 CCR, 1429-35, p. 347; York Memoranda Bk. iii (Surtees Soc. clxxxvi), 104. At times, Blackburn’s trading ventures also ended acrimoniously. In November 1433 he had agreed with another York stapler, William Marshall (d.1450), to allow Thomas Durell, Marshall’s attorney in Calais, to sell 24 sarplers of wool on his behalf. (His use of a factor may indicate that Blackburn had allowed his membership of the staple company to lapse by this date.) Durell, so Blackburn later complained to the chancellor, had sold the wool but unlawfully kept the profits.12 C1/44/277. Some years earlier Blackburn’s joint ownership of a ship with a York tailor, Richard Newland, had also ended in dispute and litigation in Chancery.13 C1/7/186.

Little evidence of Blackburn’s career from the mid 1430s has come to light. On 8 Apr. 1434 he was granted the administration of the estate of his late wife, Margaret. Her parentage is obscure, and before long Blackburn married another woman of the same name. He continued to be involved in civic affairs for the remainder of his life, frequently attending meetings of the city council, and being present to witness the parliamentary elections. He does not appear to have invested much of his profits from trade in property in York, since for the parliamentary subsidy of 1435 he was assessed on holdings worth only £15 p.a.; among his fellow aldermen only three were assessed at less.14 E179/217/42. From 1428 he rented a ditch in North Street from the masters of Ouse Bridge, and from 1440 he also leased from them a meadow, pasture and a barn in Holgate Lane outside the city walls, but little other evidence survives of the extent and location of his property,15 York Bridgemasters’ Accts. ed. Stell (York Arch. Trust, 2003), 139, 152, 169, 175, 186, 191, 212, 224, 236. save that his principal dwelling was in North Street. There, Blackburn’s neighbours included many of the city’s leading merchants, and in January 1438 he acted with Thomas Ridley as a patron of the chantry chapel founded in the fourteenth century by Adam de Bank in the appointment of a new chaplain.16 York Memoranda Bk. iii. 118.

In Blackburn’s will, made on 7 Feb. 1448, he asked to be buried in the choir of St. Mary, ‘ubi sedere consuevi infra ecclesiam meam parochialem’ and near to the tomb of his dead children. Detailed provision for his funeral included the request that eight poor men clad in black robes would attend his corpse throughout the ceremony and subsequent masses. Besides prayers for the testator’s soul in his parish church, a trental was to be sung by each of the mendicant orders in the city, and ten marks to be distributed in alms. Blackburn’s widow received his capital messuage in North Street, as well as his household goods and chattels, while his property in The Shambles (which he had inherited from his sister-in-law, Joan, in 1429), was to be sold, with half the proceeds going to his widow and the remainder to meet the costs of his provision for his soul. Interestingly, Blackburn made no mention of his surviving children. He appointed his widow and two merchants, John Helmesley and John Shirwood, as his executors, leaving them 20s. for their trouble.17 York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, ff. 168v-9. Stained glass representations of Nicholas Blackburn and his wife, as well as his parents, appear above the High Altar in All Saints, North Street. While his father is represented in armour, doubtless reflecting his appointment as admiral, Nicholas junior is shown wearing civilian clothes. The windows were probably commissioned in the 1420s by Nicholas senior, although it seems curious that he chose to commemorate his yr. son: RCHM York, 22.

The execution of Blackburn’s will did not proceed smoothly. On 8 Mar. Margaret was granted administration, but the other two executors apparently refused their charge. The most important task was the sale of the property in The Shambles, something which Margaret failed to achieve. Indeed, she may have fallen on hard times after the death of her husband, and in 1450 she was assessed at only 40s. p.a. towards the parliamentary subsidy. On 6 Feb. 1454 the administration of Margaret’s estate was granted to her son-in-law, Thomas Wandesford (who had married Blackburn’s eldest daughter, Agnes), and the merchant, Henry Audernes, who were later joined by a third individual, the clerk Peter Dobbys. They alleged in a petition to the chancellor that Blackburn’s surviving executors, Helmesley and Shirwood, were refusing to allow the sale of his property in accordance with his will.18 E179/217/56; York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 290; C1/71/19. None of Blackburn’s sons appear to have taken up the freedom of York;19 J. Kermode, Med. Merchants, 82. The Richard Blackburn, grocer, who became free by patrimony in 1475 was the son of the MP’s nephew: Freemen of York, 195. indeed the eldest, Christopher, moved to Sandwich in Kent.20 York Memoranda Bk. iii. 131.