CLEMENT, William

Clement remains surprisingly obscure, given that he was a member of the royal household, and received grants of offices from Henry VI after the King attained his majority. In September 1437, as a groom of the Chamber, he was given the post of master forester of Troutbeck and Ambleside for life. Then, in February 1439 he received appointment during royal pleasure as surveyor of the search in London and Sandwich, and the terms of this appointment were changed in May 1440 to assure him that he would keep the post until provided with another offering equal remuneration.3 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 92, 242, 445. Clement remained surveyor of the search throughout the 1440s, and it was as such that in 1448 a London skinner made him a gift of his goods and chattels.4 CPR, 1441-6, p. 333; CCR, 1447-54, p. 41. He was therefore still in office when returned to the Parliament of February 1449 for the Wiltshire borough of Ludgershall. The borough pertained to the Crown, and his election was no doubt influenced by his connexions within the Household. Nevertheless, he was removed from the post of surveyor in March 1452, and there is no sign that he was compensated for the loss as had been promised.5 CPR, 1446-52, p. 517; 1452-61, p. 421.

It is also uncertain that Clement was still in royal service when returned to the Coventry Parliament of 1459. There was some impropriety in his election, for his name and that of his fellow MP for Cricklade were written over an erasure on the schedule returned to Chancery by the sheriff of Wiltshire.6 C219/16/5.

Despite Clement’s role as surveyor of the search in the port of London there is nothing tangible to identify him with a contemporary London citizen and tailor.7 Active by 1442, that William was the s. of John Clement, another tailor. In the 1440s he exported cloth and wool to Venice and also traded with Normandy and Brittany. After the accession of Edw. IV he supplied weapons as well as banners and streamers for the King’s ships: CCR, 1447-54, pp. 56, 96; DKR, xlviii. 356; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 57, 509; E403/825, m. 9, 827A, m. 8; C76/147, m. 6. He was pardoned in July 1468 as ‘of London and Southwark, draper alias tailor’, in 1472 as ‘formerly of London tailor, alias citizen and draper of London, alias of Southwark, Surr., gentleman’, and in 1474 also as ‘beerbrewer’ after his acquisition of a brewery: C67/46, m. 33; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 328, 467; C1/48/18, 66/310. The abbot of Bermondsey accused him of illegally fishing in his ponds at Rotherhithe in 1460, and in the mid 1470s he disputed with Sir Ralph Josselyn† possession of lands and tenements in Rotherhithe and Deptford Strand: CP40/800, rot. 102; C1/48/329; CCR, 1468-76, no. 1453. By 1469 he was m. to Joan, wid. of John Fitzjohn of Guildford, Surr.: Surr. Feet of Fines (Surr. Arch. Collns. extra vol. i), 194; CCR, 1468-76, no. 680.