CLERK, William

The commoness of William’s surname makes it difficult to be certain about his origins, but he was probably from a family that had long played a prominent part in the affairs of Leicester. His putative father was mayor of the town in 1420-1 and 1432-3, and was assessed on an annual income of £5 in the Leicestershire tax returns of 1435-6.2 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 448; E179/192/59. If our MP was Thomas’s son, he was active before his father’s death. In 1427, described as a ‘fisher’, he witnessed a Leicester deed, and in April 1430 he had an action pending in the borough court at Nottingham against Richard Tamworth for failure to pay for 20 salt fish worth 3s. 4d.3 Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, 338; Notts. Archs., Nottingham recs., ct. rolls CA1321/II, rot. 13d. More significantly, on 1 May 1431 the vicar of St. Margaret’s granted him and his wife a close in Barkeby Lane in the east suburb of the town. This conveyance provides a clue to the identity of his wife. The close had once been the property of another townsman, John Furnes, and in March 1444, after his wife’s death, our MP conveyed it to John’s son, Ralph, in fee. This implies, although does not prove, that his wife was John’s daughter and that the close had been part of her marriage settlement.4 Wyggeston Hosp. Recs., 340, 344.

At a date before July 1431, Richard Botry, an agent of John Darcy, brother and heir male of Philip, Lord Darcy (d.1418), took from Clerk and his putative father herring and stockfish worth over £2 in name of toll at Torksey, where the Fosse Dyke joined the river Trent. This proved the catalyst for the referral to a panel of arbiters of the important question of the freedom of the burgesses of Leicester from the payment of tolls. In May 1416 Henry V had confirmed this customary freedom to his tenants of the honour of Leicester, but it remained unclear how far this freedom extended. The importance of the question is reflected in the status of the arbiters, the chief justices of both benches and the wealthy knight, Sir Richard Hastings*. While the men of Lincoln and Nottingham, among others, had long been exempt from the tolls due to the lord of Torksey, that privilege had not hitherto attached to those of Leicester. On 31 July 1431 our MP and Botry entered into mutual bonds in £20 to be bound by their award. Unfortunately the borough records note only the submission to arbitration not the award itself, perhaps an indication that its terms were unfavourable to the town.5 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 244-5. Darcy inherited the manor of Torksey from his brother. For the tolls payable there: Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reps. and Pprs. xxviii (2), 474-5.

The survival of his putative father at least into the late 1430s may explain why Clerk did not hold borough office until 1444-5, when, during the mayoralty of William Newby*, he acted as serjeant, an officer of the mayor entitled to wages of 40s. p.a. under a borough ordinance of 1379.6 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 192, 422. Thomas Clerk was alive in 1438 but dead by Michaelmas 1446, when his executors had actions of debt pending in the ct. of c.p.: Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. 342; CP40/743, rot. 374d. More important offices soon followed. Appointed at some date after April 1448 and relinquishing office by Michaelmas 1450, he briefly served as the town’s deputy bailiff under the local lawyer, Richard Hotoft*.7 William Braunston was still serving in Apr. 1448, and by Mich. 1450 the dep. bailiff was William Hynde: DL29/212/3262; Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. 350; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 451. The only surviving reference to our MP in office dates from April 1450: CCR, 1447-54, pp. 422-3. Interestingly, shortly before his appointment he had taken Hotoft’s livery. According to an indictment made by a Leicester jury before royal commissioners of inquiry on 2 Apr. 1448, he had been one of three men who, on the previous 5 Dec., had illegally done so.8 CIMisc. viii. 213. He was, however, to be disadvantaged neither by this indictment nor by his replacement, at some date in 1450, as Hotoft’s deputy. He was elected to the mayoralty at Michaelmas 1451; on 8 Jan. 1453 he headed a jury of the town which sat before the county j.p.s; and on the following 1 Mar. he was elected to Parliament.9 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 448; KB9/270A/48; C219/16/2. The jury made an indictment concerning the breaking of a close belonging to Katherine Clerk, presumably a relative of our MP and perhaps even his mother. She was alive as late as 1459: Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 426.

Clerk’s election to Parliament is the last certain reference to him. In Michaelmas term 1455 the mayor, Thomas Dalton*, appeared personally in the court of common pleas to sue Hotoft and three townsmen, including one William Clerk, for threatening him at Leicester, an episode in the dispute between the town and the royal bailiff.10 CP40/779, rot. 625; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 263-5. In view of our MP’s earlier connexion with Hotoft it is tempting to identify him with the defendant, save for the fact that the latter is described as a glover rather than a fishmonger. Since, when the records give our MP’s trade, it is routinely the latter or some variant of the same, such as ‘pannierman’, it is likely that this Clerk is another.11 He is, for example, described as a fishmonger when sued for debt by Robert Barley* in 1435 and by William Rempston, parson of Bingham, Notts., in 1440: CP40/698, rot. 344d; 716, rot. 86. He appears as a ‘pannierman’ or hawker of fish in an action of 1437: CP40/705, rot. 274.