HOLGATE, Nicholas

The Holgates may have been newcomers to York at the beginning of Henry VI’s reign. Nicholas’s father, John, was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1426, only four years before his son himself gained admission by patrimony.3 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 138, 143. Nicholas was probably able to establish himself among the upper echelons of York mercantile society by virtue his marriage to Agnes, the daughter of the mercer John Radcliffe. The match had been concluded by July 1440 when the couple were admitted to the York Mercers’ guild of Holy Trinity.4 York Mercers (Surtees Soc. cxxix), 52. Civic office followed soon after: in February 1445 Holgate was chosen as one of the city’s chamberlains, and in September 1448 he became one of the sheriffs. At the end of his shrieval year he almost certainly joined the ranks of the council of 24. It was in this capacity that he witnessed the parliamentary election of November 1450 (where he was the seventh name to appear on the list in an election witnessed, unusually, by only six of the 12 aldermen).5 C219/16/1. In 1446 Holgate and his wife had also been admitted to York’s premier fraternity, the prestigious guild of Corpus Christi.6 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, 47.

Holgate continued to serve on the council of 24 into the mid 1450s. He again witnessed the parliamentary election in February 1453, and on 10 Sept. 1455 he was among the councillors who decided to impose fines on their colleagues for unpunctual attendance at future meetings. Indeed, it was not until April 1457 that his elevation to the ranks of the aldermen was noted in the York records.7 C219/16/2; York Memoranda Bk. ii. 199, 200. Just two years later, however, in February 1459, Holgate reached the pinnacle of the civic hierarchy when he was elected mayor. As such, he may have watched developments on the wider political stage with a degree of concern, as England descended into open civil war. Certainly, that autumn, when writs for a Parliament to be assemble at Coventry on 20 Nov. arrived, the citizens prevaricated for some time, and it was only on 26 Nov., nearly a week after Parliament had assembled, that the elections were held. It seems that the citizens took care to avoid taking sides, for less than a year later, when the tables had turned and the Yorkist lords were in the ascendant, it was Holgate who was returned to a Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 7 Oct.8 C219/16/5, 6.

By this advanced stage in his career Holgate was well established in trade. In the spring of 1455 he had exported at least five short cloths from Kingston-upon-Hull, and five years later he shipped 12 more. His overseas interests were not restricted to the mercery trade: in 1462-3 he imported iron and other goods to the value of £148, and two years later he imported iron cauldrons worth £3 6s. 8d. His last recorded overseas deal, in 1466-7, involved the import of a pipe of linseed oil.9 Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. cxliv), 15-16, 25, 46, 48, 63, 66, 83, 99. His role as an importer of ironmongery may have been an important one locally: as early as the mid 1440s he had been the principal supplier of nails to the wardens of both Fosse and Ouse bridges.10 York Bridgemasters’ Accts. ed. Stell (York Arch. Trust, 2003), 59, 206, 208, 356, 409.

Little evidence survives of the last years of Holgate’s career. In August 1462, as one of the city’s senior aldermen, he was named to a royal commission to investigate the perennial problem of weirs on the river Ouse. By April 1465, following the death of his first wife, he had married Alice, daughter of the common clerk, Roger Burton.11 York Memoranda Bk. ii. 262. In 1467 and again in 1472 he participated in the Mercers’ annual pageant of Corpus Christi, on the latter occasion being named third among a list of members of the Company who contributed towards the costs of the pageant.12 York Mercers, 63, 71. There are no subsequent references to him and he probably died not long afterwards; he was certainly dead by 1476, when regular records of the council meetings start. He is known to have had at least one son, Thomas, who was admitted to the freedom of York by patrimony in 1491.13 Freemen of York, 217.