HOLCOTE, William

A ‘gentleman’, Holcote paid an entry fine of 20s. to become a freeman of Maldon in January 1438,4 Ct. bk. D/B 3/1/1, f. 25. although his association with the town dated back to at least 1428, when he was a mainpernor for Robert Darcy I*, one of its leading residents.5 CFR, xv. 246. There is little doubt that he owed his admission as a burgess to the patronage of the influential Darcy, whose service he entered. Robert granted him land at Mundon, just south of Maldon, to hold for life rent-free, and it was as Darcy’s ‘servant’ that he acquired a licence to export grain to the Low Countries, probably on his patron’s behalf.6 SC6/848/14, m. 5d; DKR, xlviii. 35. In spite of such trading activities, Holcote may have owed his gentry status to the practice of the law, since ‘William Hulcote’ acted as an attorney in the court of common pleas for William Wyse, a weaver from Maldon, in 1427.7 CP40/664, rot. 317.

In 1439 Holcote stood surety for William Ayllewyn*, whom the King had licensed to buy barley in Norfolk and ship it to Maldon.8 CPR, 1436-41, p. 234. Lawyer or not, he himself likewise traded in grain, and in October 1440 the Crown granted him and John Swayn* permission to export a consignment to the Low Countries.9 DKR, xlviii. 340. He and Swayn sat alongside each other in the Parliament of 1442 and they served three terms together as bailiffs of Maldon. It was in March 1444, during the first of these terms, that the borough authorities made a record of local custom regarding admission to the franchise, electing local officials and regulating commercial activity.10 Ct. bk. D/B 3/1/1, f. 32v. Holcote entered his last Parliament in 1453, during his term as bailiff. The indenture recording the Maldon parliamentary election of that year is badly mutilated and the names of those chosen are no longer visible, but one of the borough’s chamberlains’ accounts reveals that Holcote received 5s. for expenses incurred riding to Westminster for the second session of this assembly.11 Chamberlains’ acct. D/B 3/3/196. There is no evidence of any property in Maldon that Holcote may have owned, but he did lease a ‘colehepe’ from the borough in the late 1440s.12 Ct. bk. D/B 3/1/1, f. 34. It is possible that he possessed lands in his mother’s county of Suffolk, although in 1457 he and his brother, George, formally renounced any claim to the manor of Rushbrook, a property once held by her brother, Robert Hunt.13 CCR, 1454-61, p. 257; Copinger, vi. 329. Holcote disappears from view after this date.