BOLTON, John

The Bolton family had moved to York, almost certainly from Lancashire, in the second half of the fourteenth century. Both John Bolton’s father and grandfather had prospered in the mercery trade, and become established among the mercantile elite of their adopted city.6 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 276-7; J. Kermode, ‘Merchants of York, Hull and Beverley’ (Sheffield Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1990), app. 4 In 1410, during the mayoralty of his father, John and his younger brother, William (d.1429), were admitted to the freedom of the city by patrimony.7 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 113. By this time John was already one of the leading merchants in the city, operating alongside his father and exporting large quantities of wool from Kingston-upon-Hull. The scale of their activities is apparent from the huge amount of £132 8s. 4d. said to be owed by each of the two in wool customs in early 1415.8 E13/131, rot. 13. The younger Bolton’s wealth was, however, made primarily as a merchant of the staple, exporting raw wool to Calais. He entered into trading partnerships with some of York’s leading citizens, including his relations by marriage, the Blackburns, and John Northby*, with whom he received a grant to ship wool free of customs in 1426 because of losses caused by bad weather.9 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 348-9. At times these trading partnerships also resulted in dispute and litigation, often concerning very substantial sums. In 1431 Bolton was among a group of staplers who sued their colleague, the Lincoln merchant, Hamon Sutton I*, and two others for the enormous sum of £973 14s. 5d.,10 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 112-13. and in 1445 he pursued two of his erstwhile factors, John Brandesby and Simon Swan, for debts of no less than £489 6s. 8d. At the time, Bolton’s store at Calais was said to contain wool and Holland cloth worth £3,286 8s. 2d., while the two factors had shipped more wool worth £3,828 6s. 3d. to Calais.11 Sel. Cases Law Merchant, ii (Selden Soc. xlvi), 106-9, 156-9; E13/143, rots. 34d, 38d, 40, 44d, 48. These large-scale deals aside, there were also numerous smaller transactions involving local traders, some of which resulted in lawsuits in the King’s courts.12 CP40/647, rots. 40, 59d; 677, rots. 263d, 264; 717, rots. 205, 409. Bolton invested some of his wealth in property in York, where he resided in a substantial house in Skeldergate, and in the parliamentary subsidy of 1436 he was assessed on an annual income of £62 from rents, the highest individual assessment made in the city.13 E179/217/42; Test. Ebor. ii. 50.

As his father’s eldest son, John also inherited his responsibilities in the government of the city. In February 1417 he was chosen as one of the chamberlains and in September 1420 he was named as one of the sheriffs. It is unclear when he entered the city council, but it was almost certainly soon after the end of his shrieval year and he was certainly one of the council of 24 by April 1425 when he attested the parliamentary election. Similarly, the date of his entry into the aldermanic ranks is obscure, but it was probably on the death of his father, sometime around 1426.

It was as a member of the city’s ruling elite that Bolton was first returned to Parliament, along with Thomas Snawdon*, in September 1427. No record of his activities, nor the length of his service in the Commons survive, although in August 1428 he was among the aldermen present in the council chamber to assess the city’s parishes for the purposes of the subsidy granted in the Parliament.14 York Memoranda Bk. ii (Surtees Soc. cxxv), 135. It may be that Bolton was involved in business left unfinished at the end of the last session, for on 12 Sept. 1429 he was again elected to Parliament, thus becoming one of only five men elected more than once for York during Henry VI’s reign. Alternatively, the concerns of the Calais staple may have been foremost in the minds of the York electors, as alongside Bolton they returned another stapler, John Aldstaynmore*. The Parliament which assembled at Westminster on 22 Sept. was notable not only for the series of petitions which resulted in the so-called Partition and Ordinance of the Staple (concerning the use of foreign currency in an attempt to regulate the bullion supply at Calais), but also for a long discussion over the internal government of the staple company which resulted in the election of John Reynwell* as mayor of the staple for three years.

On New Year’s Day 1431 Bolton once again attested his city’s parliamentary election indenture. He was now nearing the pinnacle of his civic career, and in February was elected mayor.15 C219/14/2. Not long after, he and his wife, Alice, were admitted to the guild of Corpus Christi.16 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York (Surtees Soc. lvii), 30. It was unusual for so prominent a citizen as Bolton not to have been admitted to the guild earlier, but there is no record of his membership before his mayoral year. His official duties were varied: he headed the commissions to assess the parliamentary subsidy and to deliver the royal gaol of York, while in January 1432 he presided over a meeting of the council in which it was decided to commission a new monstrance to be carried in the annual Corpus Christi procession.17 York Memoranda Bk. iii (Surtees Soc. clxxxvi), 154. At the end of his year in office Bolton returned to the ranks of the aldermen and continued to play a full role in the government of the city. He was frequently present in the council chamber to witness deeds and put his name to decisions made by the council, and he was also present to attest the parliamentary elections of 1435 and 1437.18 C219/14/5; 15/1. In February 1436 he was named to the commission to raise a loan in the city for the defence of Calais, and he joined with other leading citizens in advancing £145 5d. to the Crown.19 E403/723, m. 3. His last recorded extraordinary duty as an alderman was in 1439 when he was named to sit on a commission appointed to inquire into wastes committed and relics allegedly stolen by John Middleton, former master of the hospital of St. Nicholas, York.

Bolton’s wealth and connexions among the civic elite of York allowed him to contract a prestigious marriage to Alice, daughter of Nicholas Blackburn, a union which also provided him with ties of marriage to several of the other families that dominated the government of York in the early fifteenth century, including those of Aldstaynmore, Bowes and Ormshead.20 Kermode, Med. Merchants, 82-83. These families co-operated both in government and in their personal affairs. Bolton served as one of his father-in-law’s feoffees and Blackburn’s son would later claim that he and William Bedale* had conspired to defraud him by making false suggestions to his father.21 C1/11/80. In October 1424 Bolton chose John Aldstaynmore as an arbiter on his behalf in a local property dispute with William Bowes I*,22 York Memoranda Bk. iii, 76-77, 113. and he was also drawn into the dispute over the administration of Aldstaynmore’s estate, when the latter’s kinsman, Henry, claimed that Bolton, along with Bedale and 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.23 C1/9/168; 10/296. In September 1438, Bolton was appointed supervisor of Bedale’s will, receiving a bequest of 40s. for his troubles.24 York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 540.

Bolton himself made his will on 10 Aug. 1445 and died the following day. He had clearly settled his property and most of his business affairs previously, and his short testament dealt almost exclusively with the provision for his soul. He asked to be buried in the church of St. Saviour, York, although he properly gave his ‘best gown with a hood tailored for my body’ to the rector of St. John the Evangelist, Mickelgate (his home parish) for his mortuary. He donated £20 in alms and small bequests to the guild of Corpus Christi, 20s. each to the local houses of Carmelites and Franciscans, and 3s. 4d. to each recluse living in York. The remainder of his goods were to be settled on his widow, Alice (also his sole executor), who was to divide them between herself and their unmarried children. Probate was granted six days later.25 Ibid. prob. reg. 2, f. 108. Bolton’s will is unhelpful in identifying the provenance of ‘The Bolton Hours’. This manuscript, a book of hours in the Use of York, has long been associated with the Bolton family, although it may have been made for Alice’s mother, Margaret Blackburn. It contains a note for the obit of Bolton himself and Alice: York Minster Lib. Add. mss, 2; Med. Women, 217-36.

Within a short time of Bolton’s death his widow was embroiled in litigation over his affairs.26 CP40/758, rot. 133d. Among those who sought to recover a share of his estate were the executors of Bolton’s former trading partner, John Russell. They claimed that the two men had together shipped three sarplers of wool to Calais in Bolton’s name. Russell’s executors demanded £60 4s. 4d., as his share of the sale price, from Bolton’s agents, Brandesby and Swan. They refused to ‘beer witness of the treweth’, it was alleged, as they had both been bound in 500 marks to Alice Bolton which would be forfeited if she ‘take eny losse’ in the matter between her and Russell’s executors, ‘the which is clerely ayenst good faith & conscience’.27 C1/16/592.

Little evidence survives of the unmarried children mentioned in Bolton’s will. A son, Robert (d.1436), was admitted to the freedom of York by patrimony in 1428-9, while the chaplain John Bolton, admitted by patrimony in 1458-9, may have been another son.28 Kermode, ‘Merchants of York, Hull and Beverley’, app. 4; Freemen of York, 141, 179. Only two daughters, Margaret and Agnes, can be identified with any certainty. Margaret’s marriages are indicative of her family’s wealth and standing within the civic hierarchy of York. She married, first, Roger Salvayn (d.1440), an esquire of York (whose father, Sir Roger (d.1420), had been treasurer of Calais during Henry V’s reign), and, second, Henry Gascoigne (d.1457), younger son of the judge, Sir William Gascoigne† of Gawthorpe, Yorkshire. Her first marriage had taken place by 1434 when several manors in Holderness were settled on her and Salvayn. Three years later Salvayn enfeoffed John Bolton and two other men of the manor of North Duffield, in a transaction probably related to the marriage settlement. Margaret’s second marriage followed rapidly after Salvayn’s death.29 CP40/717, rot. 431d. She died in 1471 and asked to be buried beside her father.30 Yorks. Deeds, i. (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. xxxix), 83-84; v. (ibid. lxix), 35; CFR, xiv. 335; York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 158. Her sister, Agnes, had been admitted to the guild of Corpus Christi in 1441.31 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, 38.