CARPENTER, John I

Carpenter, who sometimes lived at Titchfield near Portsmouth, traded in cloth, although not always legitimately. In September 1423 the royal searcher of ships in Southampton Water discovered three lengths of cloth of his on the Mary of Southampton, which were being smuggled out of the country without payment of customs dues.2 E122/184/3, pt. 1, f. 19v; E159/200, recorda Mich. rot. 25. In the Easter term of 1425 another merchant, Thomas Belle* alias Rygold of Southampton, brought a suit against him in the court of common pleas for a debt of £30.3 CP40/657, rot. 57. He was then called John Coupere alias Carpenter of Titchfield. Whether the two men had sorted out their differences by the time they were elected together to represent Portsmouth in the Parliament of 1431 does not appear. At the parliamentary elections held in the summer of 1433 Carpenter stood surety for the attendance in the Commons of Robert Abraham*. The other Member for Portsmouth elected on that occasion, Robert Fougle*, appeared as Carpenter’s mainpernor in both 1437 and 1442, and in 1447 Carpenter acted similarly on behalf of John Colayn*.4 C219/14/4, 15/1, 2, 4. Although Carpenter was never appointed to royal office, so far as the records reveal, in October 1437 he received a reward at the Exchequer for seizing on behalf of the Crown a ship called Le Thomas of Portsmouth.5 E403/729, m. 1.

There was more than one contemporary John Carpenter living in Portsmouth, as is clear from the description of our MP as ‘senior’ on the parliamentary returns of 1432, 1435 and 1437, and that of the bailiff as ‘junior’ in 1436-7,6 E368/209, rot. 8d; 210 rot. 4d; E159/213, recorda Hil. rot. 7d. but even so there is no reason to suppose that more than one person of this name sat for the borough in the period. Another member of the family, Thomas Carpenter, a merchant and ‘fisher’ took advantage of the offer of general pardons made by the King at the close of the Parliament of 1437 (when his kinsman was sitting in the Commons).7 C67/38, m. 9. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 159, wrongly attributes this pardon to the MP himself. Another John Carpenter, also called senior, was bailiff of Portsmouth in 1464-5 and 1478-9: E368/238, rots. 231, 242; Winchester Coll. muns. 15242.