LEE, Richard

Like many of his contemporaries, Lee was a newcomer to the city of London, where by 1430 he had become a freeman of the Grocers’ Company, and where his brother, William, had become a joiner. He probably originated from Surrey, where his father, probably one John Lee, was buried in the parish church of Walkingstead near Godstone, while his mother ended her days in or near East Grinstead in Sussex, where she chose to be entombed.8 John Lee may have been the son of a Worcs. man, Simon Lee. Stowe 860, ff. 55-56; Hasted, iv. 169-70; PCC 5 Wattys. Lee’s rise through the ranks of the Grocers was, it seems, a rapid one. In 1430 he was still listed among those householders and shop holders who were not members of the livery, but by Christmas 1433 he had achieved this distinction. In November 1438 he was among the grocers charged by the mayor with investigating the sale of adulterated wax in the city, and a year later he was selected as an arbiter in a dispute between William Cottesbroke* and another grocer. In July 1443 he was chosen for the first time as one of the wardens of the craft.9 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 15, 21-22; Ms. Archs. Grocers’ Co. i. 198, 221, 224, 228, 232, 266, 276. From the late 1430s onwards he contributed to several levies raised by the Company, including one raised in the 1440s to provide assistance to the beleaguered English garrison at Calais, a cause very much in the interests of London’s grocers, a number of whom were also merchants of the Calais staple.

Lee’s activities as a merchant were often hidden by the dealings of his agents and partners. The few references to him in the surviving customs accounts do, however, show that he dealt in a variety of goods, not just those traditionally associated with grocers. In 1445-6 he imported linen cloth into the port of London, while in 1449-50 he brought in a shipment of herring worth £14.10 E122/73/23, f. 8; 203/3, f. 2. While relatively little is recorded of these overseas ventures there is plenty of evidence to show that Lee was building up a considerable distributive business at home. Like Thomas Catworth*, he was a keen proponent of provincial fairs as a means to sell goods produced or imported by Londoners, even though this view was opposed by several companies, including the Grocers, for the reason that it damaged London’s own markets. A ban on members attending such fairs had been enacted by the Grocers in 1420, and, although eventually abandoned by the company, this was still in force in 1432 when Lee was fined 20d. for attending the fair at Salisbury.11 P. Nightingale, A Med. Mercantile Community, 439, 449; Ms. Archs. Grocers’ Co. i. 219. In his later career, he dealt most frequently with traders from Huntingdonshire, where his links with men from St. Ives and St. Neots suggests that he saw the fairs in that county as a good means of selling dyes and other merchandise. He also lent money to Henry Archer, himself a supplier of goods to East Anglia, who by 1451 appears to have over-extended himself as a provider of credit to his customers. Lee was similarly active in Kent, where he acquired property: gifts of goods and chattels were made to him by dyers from Dartford and Maidstone in the 1440s. It was in this context that he became the victim of attempted fraud when one Gilbert Ridder had a letter written, ostensibly from one of Lee’s contacts in Maidstone, requesting delivery of 20s. and two yards of medley cloth ‘by certayne tokyns contayned in the seide lettre.’ The letter had in fact been written in London, and once the culprit was discovered he and the unfortunate scribe were put in the pillory.12 CCR, 1441-7, p. 139; CPR, 1446-52, p. 10; 1452-61, p. 619; 1461-7, pp. 316-17; Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 159; Nightingale, 486-9; Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 74. Further afield, Lee had close links in the city of York where at some point before his death he joined the fraternity of St. Christopher to which he left the sum of 40s. in his will. He also left £20 to be distributed among the poor of that city and ‘amonge suche as I have bought and sold withall’ according to their need. No details survive of his trade with this part of the country, although he was certainly connected in business with a fellow grocer, John Philip, who himself traded in York in the 1440s and 1450s.13 Nightingale, 449; CCR, 1441-7, p. 433.

Frequently, Lee’s role was that of a financier rather than a trader. So, in 1446 Geoffrey Woolman, a relatively obscure merchant, bought goods worth some £1,000 in Bruges which were subsequently captured by enemy ships. As compensation he was allowed to export 600 sacks of wool in Italian vessels using the grocer John Maldon as his factor. Lee knew both men, and it is almost certain that he was using Woolman as an agent. The investment of £1,000 was made possible by ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels made by Woolman to Lee and Maldon in 1443 and 1444.14 Nightingale, 473; CCR, 1441-7, p. 479; 1447-54, pp. 33-34; Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 98, 168. The numerous similar gifts of goods and chattels made to Lee during the 1440s and 1450s testify to his prominence as a lender of money and as an investor in business enterprises. Many of these investments were made in the businesses of younger, less prominent members of the Grocers’ Company. More than 15 grocers made gifts to Lee in this period, illustrating his considerable influence in his craft.15 CCR, 1441-7, p. 40; Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 108, 166. For the other grocers see Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 160, 163, 174-5, 178-9; 1458-82, p. 151; CCR, 1441-7, p. 433; 1447-54, pp. 135, 139, 238, 241, 251, 268, 314; 1454-61, p. 400.

Periodically, Lee’s business dealings turned sour. In July 1454 he appeared before John Walden*, then one of the sheriffs, and affirmed a plaint of debt against Margery, widow of William Crowche, in the sum of £31 4s. for woollen cloth which William had bought from him. The case was transferred to the mayor’s court after Margery found herself sureties and claimed the right to wage her law, since no original bill concerning the debt survived. Unfortunately for her, the mayor and aldermen (having examined the ‘ancient books and old judgements’ dealing with such cases) agreed with Lee that the evidence of two or three good citizens should be sufficient, even in the absence of written evidence, and awarded him 6s. 8d. in damages, over and above the outstanding debt. This was by no means the end of the matter, for by July 1455 Margery had married again, and together with her second husband, Henry Blount, she petitioned the chancellor for redress and succeeded in having a royal commission, headed by (Sir) John Fortescue*, appointed to examine the record and process of the suit heard in the London courts.16 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 149; Cal. Early Mayors’ Ct. Rolls ed. Thomas, p. xxxvi; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 256, 299; C1/25/221.

Throughout his life Lee’s own fortunes were closely linked with those of his Company and of his fellow grocers. As one of the more prominent members of the Company he was inevitably drawn into some of the internal debates and conflicts which erupted during a period of financial and political instability. In the autumn of 1447 he and William Marowe* were chosen as arbiters in a dispute between two of the wardens, Richard Hakedy and Thomas Gybbes, arising from their period in office. Hakedy, in particular, seems to have been reluctant to accept the verdict and in doing so came into conflict with the Company as a whole. In 1456 the matter came to a head, and Lee, along with John Walden, was chosen to arbitrate once again, although this time between Hakedy and four of the past and present wardens of the Company, among them George Ireland†, a close associate of Lee who went on to marry one of his daughters.17 Ms. Archs. Grocers’ Co. ii. 291, 294; Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 1. These disputes were nothing compared to the problems caused by another grocer, Walter Walker, a member of Henry VI’s household, whose trouble-making brought him into conflict with both the Company and the city government. Lee was himself among the victims of Walker’s activities: in February 1453, while serving as sheriff, Lee managed to secure his imprisonment for ‘malicious words’ spoken against him: what Walker repeatedly asserted was that Lee had stolen a bag of garbelled pepper from his house. A witness claimed that he heard Walker say that Lee was a robber and that he would hang him and ‘make him a paving stone of London’. The dispute dragged on for several years but eventually Walker’s legal counsel admitted before the court of aldermen that their bill was a fabrication, and Walker, ‘with groans and tears’, asked for Lee’s forgiveness. It may nevertheless have given Lee some satisfaction that barely six months later, in March 1461, Walker was beheaded at Smithfield ‘for mysbehavyng and wordis spokyn agayn the kyng’, the newly-proclaimed Edward IV.18 Jnl. 5, f. 102v; jnl. 6, ff. 264-6, 272v; Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 175.

Most of Lee’s business dealings were conducted without such controversies, although during the 1440s and 1450s the prevailing political conditions were to have an impact upon the attitudes of London’s grocers. The shortage of coins in circulation became a serious problem for the Grocers’ Company during this period, and action had to be taken to ensure that those who were admitted to the livery of the craft were of sufficient standing at a time when many businesses were in trouble. In May 1456 Lee and another grocer, Robert Gayton*, were appointed with representatives of the Drapers, Goldsmiths and Mercers to a royal commission which was to investigate how alchemy might be employed to increase the production of coins.19 Nightingale, 465. Increasingly, the Crown was putting pressure on individual Londoners to provide loans. Lee was one of a number of them who lent sums of money in the spring and summer of 1453, although his loan of £20 was rather less substantial than the sums advanced by men like Geoffrey Feldyng*and Philip Malpas*. The administration also tried to raise funds that year by seizing £8,000 worth of alum belonging to Genoese merchants in the ports of London and Southampton. London merchants, grocers chief among them, were charged with selling it at a maximum profit of 2s. in the pound, or ten per cent, which they were then obliged to lend to the Crown up to a total sum of £800. This proved an unpopular measure, and a number of individuals evidently sold their alum without disclosing the profits they had made. The officers of the Grocers’ Company were summoned to appear before the King’s council on no fewer than three occasions to discuss this question. Nevertheless, the King’s ministers persisted in their course of action and on 12 Sept. 1453 £2,000-worth of alum and tin known as ‘blak foile’ were granted to a group of grocers, including Lee and Marowe, to sell on the same terms as before.20 Ibid. 495; PPC, vi. 152-4; W. Smith, ‘R. Finance and Politics 1450-5’, (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 236-8, app. VI; CPR, 1452-61, p. 155.

For most of his life, Lee resided in the parish of St. Stephen Walbrook, where, in 1444, he served as a churchwarden. His marriage, to Lettice, of whom little is recorded, had clearly taken place some years before, for their elder son, Richard the younger, was already active as a grocer by the early 1450s. Their second son, John, was soon to embark upon a career as a canon lawyer and took his doctorate at the University of Padua in 1461.21 Jnl. 4, f. 56v; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 199, 259; TRHS, ser. 4, xix. 105. As well as helping his sons embark on successful careers, Lee employed his considerable wealth to acquire property in London, Essex and Kent. His earliest recorded acquisitions were of tenements in Bucklersbury, not far from Grocers’ Hall, a street where a number of fellow grocers lived in this period. Lee’s properties had once belonged to William Oliver†, after whose death his impressive holdings were disposed of by his feoffees, who included Thomas Catworth. In July 1448 Catworth settled the Bucklersbury properties on a group of grocers headed by Lee and including Walter Hunte, one of Lee’s business associates. Hunte subsequently acted as Lee’s feoffee of these tenements, while Lee appears to have repaid the favour by acting in a similar capacity for Hunte’s properties in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles.22 London hr 177/2; 179/27; 187/40; 188/27-28; 206/30. Other of Lee’s holdings included no fewer than 16 messuages in the parish of All Hallows at the Hay and in Soper Lane and the adjoining ‘Puppekirtyllane’ in the parish of St. Pancras. These were acquired from Thomas Reynham, the son of a London mercer, and were settled by Lee at some point in the 1460s on a group which included the city lawyer Thomas Kirton. Probably the most important of Lee’s London properties, they were subsequently held by his widow and passed to the younger Richard on her death in 1477. Like William Marowe, Lee also acquired property belonging to the Reynhams in the parish of St. Mary at Hill. Indeed, among his acquisitions was an annual rent issuing from Marowe’s wharf called ‘Le Culver Keye’ in that parish.23 Ibid. 190/5; 193/5; 195/37; 196/12-14; 198/1-2; 212/8. Other identifiable groups of holdings which Lee acquired included six messuages in the parishes of All Hallows Thames Street said to be worth £20 p.a. in 1498, and perhaps also a wharf and 11 solars in the parish later held by his son and assessed at a value of £28 p.a. In the parish of All Hallows Bread Street he owned a tenement called The Star and 64s. of rent which he, his two sons-in-law, Ireland and John Mitchell, and John Crosby†, were granted by Robert Gayton and his wife in December 1461.24 Ibid. 184/5; 191/31-2; 198/25-26; 210/1; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 249. In addition to these properties, Lee also took on the lease of tenements in his parish of St. Stephen Walbrook from the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s cathedral. These holdings were part of the endowment of the chantry of the fourteenth-century alderman Adam de Bury, but by the late 1450s had fallen into a state of disrepair. In July 1457 Lee took out a 95-year-lease on the tenements, at an annual rent of eight marks, and agreed to repair and maintain them.25 C106/149.

Outside London Lee’s principal holdings lay in Kent where his son, Richard, was to become a prominent member of the gentry community in the late 15th century. His connexion with the county was reflected in his trading activities, and by the late 1440s he appears to have had important dealings with the town of Maidstone, where either he or his son acquired a town house. By the mid 1450s Lee was a tenant of lands belonging to Richard Propechaunt, a former tax collector in Kent, but it is uncertain when he acquired, apparently from the London mercer John Tate, the manors of Great Delce and Horsted in the north of the county. Following his death Great Delce became the Lees’ family seat and was still held by them in the early 18th century.26 C67/41, m. 2; 42, m. 41; Hasted, iv. 169-70, 212, 269. Lee was also concerned in property transactions in Essex where he acted as a feoffee for Thomas Howkyns, a grocer who had also drawn upon his services in connexion with his holdings in London. The extent of Lee’s own holdings in the county is uncertain. His son Richard held at his death in 1498 the manor of Bardfelds, worth some 40s. p.a., as well as other estates worth a total of 86s. 8d., but it is unclear whether he inherited them from his father or purchased them himself.27 C1/40/269; 41/69-72; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 197.

From an early point in his career Lee was as closely involved in the affairs of London’s government as he was in matters affecting his Company. He took his first steps on the public stage in July 1434 when he was named by the mayor and aldermen to negotiate with representatives of the Weavers’ Company, which was then involved in a dispute with the city government. Lee himself had only recently become a liveryman of his own craft, and this appointment suggests that his abilities were already being recognized by those in authority. It is thus curious that in March 1442 he sued out a royal licence exempting him for life from service on commissions and juries, and from holding any public office.28 Jnl. 4, f. 34; CPR, 1441-6, p. 57. Certainly, he availed himself of his letters patent in so far as not to hold office under the Crown until 1449, while soon embarking in earnest on a long and successful career in the government of London. Financial matters came to occupy much of his time: in August 1444 he was chosen as one of those who was to collect a loan of £1,000 which was to be made to the King, while in January the following year he was a receiver of 500 marks which was raised, probably for adorning or decorating the city in some way. In the summer of 1446 discussions were held concerning a fresh loan to the Crown, and Lee was present at a meeting of the common council held on 12 July. In September that year he was chosen by the commoners as one of the four city auditors, a natural progression from his earlier tasks and one which set him upon the city’s formal cursus honorum. He held the post for two years, a term which was becoming increasingly common. He was now also being appointed with increasing frequency to the various committees which were established to consult about particular issues affecting the city and its inhabitants, and in January 1447 he attested the election of its MPs.29 Jnl. 4, ff. 38v, 60v, 81v, 90v-91, 113.

Following the end of his term as auditor, Lee continued to be involved in financial matters, and in August 1449 was appointed by the Crown as a tax collector for London. He now set his sights on higher civic office, for which he was well qualified as a former warden of the Grocers and as one of the wealthiest members of his craft. In July 1450 he unsuccessfully put himself forward for the aldermanry of Lime Street Ward, but a few months later, on 2 Oct., he was chosen as one of the city’s four representatives in Parliament. The assembly met in an atmosphere of deepening political crisis, following the impeachment and murder of the King’s principal minister, the duke of Suffolk, the expulsion of the English from Normandy and above all the popular revolt led by Jack Cade which had affected London directly. Lee’s own views of the political situation are not recorded, but in common with many prominent members of his Company he was doubtless uneasy about the government’s financial problems and its increasing reliance upon the merchants of London and the Calais staple for support. It is striking, therefore, that his fellow Members included both William Marowe and John Harowe*, the former a fellow grocer, and the latter a merchant of the staple whose anti-Lancastrian sentiments were to lead to his death at the battle of Wakefield.30 Jnl. 5, ff. 40, 47v; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 687-92. Following the dissolution of the Parliament Lee made a fresh bid for the aldermanic bench, putting himself forward for the vacant ward of Langbourne on 4 May 1451. Once more he was unsuccessful, and was rebuffed twice more in the same year, in June when he stood for his own ward of Walbrook, and again in July when he was rejected for Broad Street. His failure to be elected for any of these wards cannot easily be explained, for it was relatively unusual for anyone to be rejected on so many occasions, but Lee nevertheless persevered. In August 1452 he was finally chosen as alderman for Bishopsgate Ward,31 Jnl. 5, ff. 56v-57, 61, 80. and a month later pricked as one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex.32 Ms. Archs. Grocers’ Co. ii. 317.

Lee’s membership of the court of aldermen led him to become even more closely involved in the affairs of the city during the 1450s. As well as attending meetings of the court he was a member of numerous committees concerned with a wide range of issues.33 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, passim; jnl. 5, ff. 55, 66, 70, 79, 84v, 86v, 111v, 136v, 138, 155, 156v, 159v, 173, 181, 182v, 185v. He also became eligible for a second term of office as an auditor, and was duly chosen on 21 Sept. 1453, the day after relinquishing the shrievalty. He served in this capacity for a further two years, and during his term of office attested the election to the Parliament summoned in the aftermath of the first battle of St. Albans in the early summer of 1455. With the death of the duke of Somerset, the duke of York and his adherents were now at least temporarily in the ascendant, and it was not long after that the Calais staplers agreed to the admission of the earl of Warwick as captain of Calais, and established arrangements for the financing of the garrison there and the repayment of loans to the staplers. The effect of these agreements was to give the staplers, among them a number of Lee’s fellow grocers, a vested interest in York’s continued prominence at the heart of government. Ostensibly, the Grocers did nothing to indicate their growing frustration with the Crown’s policies, a frustration which increased from 1453 onwards with the forced sale of seized alum, and the Crown’s failure to repay loans. Lee himself was co-ordinating the Grocers’ actions in these years, as he had been chosen in 1452 as one of the two ‘aldermen’ of the Company.34 Posts reserved for serving aldermen who took on overall responsibility for the running of the Company, aided by the wardens. There is little doubt, therefore, that he played an important role as the Grocers’ stance became increasingly pro-Yorkist, and it is significant, too, that his son-in-law George Ireland was a supporter of the policies advocated by York. Lee himself had by the late 1450s established at least a loose connexion with Sir William Oldhall*, the duke’s chamberlain: in 1458 he was one of three prominent Londoners who joined Sir John Fastolf as recipients of a grant of property in London made by the former Speaker.35 Nightingale, 498; London hr 187/3.

Lee remained active as an administrator in London, having held most of the important offices in the city government, and undertook occasional duties at the Crown’s behest. In March 1457 he was among commissioners appointed to hear an appeal from the court of admiralty, while in August 1458 the Londoners chose him as an arbiter in a serious local dispute between the citizens living in Fleet Street and the lawyers of the Inner Temple and Cliffords Inn.36 Jnl. 6, ff. 242, 248. Now, however, the uneasy settlement between the rival lords sealed at the love-day of March 1458 collapsed and the country descended into open civil war. In the autumn of 1459 the duke of York and his allies, the Neville earls of Warwick and Salisbury, were routed outside the gates of Ludlow and driven into exile. A Parliament summoned to Coventry in November pronounced sentence of attainder on the fugitives. The following summer, the tables turned. Warwick and Salisbury, accompanied by York’s eldest son and heir, Edward, earl of March, invaded from Calais, and defeated a royal army at Northampton, taking Henry VI captive. Shortly afterwards the victorious lords summoned a Parliament to meet at Westminster in early October. Although Lee was not returned to this assembly, on 13 Oct. he was elected as mayor of London, a choice which almost certainly reflected the prevailing mood in the capital, and it may be significant, too, that at some point during 1460 he had succeeded in transferring his aldermanry to his own ward of Walbrook.37 Griffiths, 865; CPR, 1452-61, p. 625; Guildhall Lib. London, Grocers’ Co. wardens’ accts., 11571/1, ff. 27, 160, 163v; C.M. Barron, ‘London and the Crown’, in Crown and Local Communities ed. Highfield and Jeffs, 97. During the early months of Lee’s mayoralty Parliament agreed a settlement that guaranteed the throne of Henry VI for his life, but thereafter passed it to the duke of York and his heirs, bypassing and disinheriting Henry’s son, Prince Edward. In December the Yorkist leaders dispersed throughout the realm to crush residual Lancastrian resistance to the settlement, much of the required funds being supplied by London merchants. The Grocers for their part advanced more than £200 to the earl of March for his campaign in the Welsh marches.

Yet, during the Christmas festivities that followed the agreement came apart, as York was defeated and killed in battle at Wakefield by an army led by Henry’s formidable queen. As this army began to make its way south in the first weeks of January, the earl of Warwick, who had remained in command in London, hastily assembled a force and on 17 Feb. met Queen Margaret’s host at St. Albans, where he was outflanked and beaten by the northern army. Already rumours were rife in London that the city was to be given over to the queen’s army for plunder. Fearful of the consequences of an attack, Lee sent a messenger to the queen, ‘it is supposed to offer obedience provided that they were assured that they would not be plundered or suffer violence’. He then organized a further delegation, headed by Anne Neville, dowager duchess of Buckingham, and Jacquetta of Luxemburg, the aged widow of John, duke of Bedford. Having elicited a promise that the city would not be attacked, Lee as mayor issued a proclamation in London asking people to keep indoors, and made preparations to admit some of the queen’s men while providing money and supplies for the remainder. Yet when news came that the earl of Warwick and the young Edward of York were marching on London to protect it from the Queen’s men, disorder broke out. According to one account an unnamed brewer, at the head of a mob of Londoners, demanded the keys to the gates of the city, and the queen’s representatives were driven away. On 27 Feb. Edward reached London and was admitted to the city, while the northern army was forced to withdraw.38 Griffiths, 872-3.

In spite of Lee’s apparent prevarication, suggestions by later chroniclers that he had Lancastrian sympathies do not square with his actions during these crucial months.39 R. Fabyan, New Chrons. ed . Ellis, 638. His influence as mayor was considerable in strengthening London’s resolve to hold out against Margaret’s army, and his company was by that stage heavily committed to the success of the Yorkist coup d’etat. More still, with the first coronation in over 30 years looming, Lee was determined to assert the city’s (or more properly, his own) traditional place in the ceremonial. As a result of his approach to the new King’s brother, the duke of Clarence, acting as steward of England, he was permitted to serve as cup-bearer to the King at the coronation banquet, taking away the gold cup and its cover as his reward.40 Nightingale, 515-17; Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 5-6. Throughout Edward IV’s early years Lee continued to be a prominent member of the city government, albeit now one of the elder statesmen on the court of aldermen. Following the granting of a subsidy by Parliament in 1463 he was among those chosen to apportion the relief allowed to the inhabitants of the city, and periodically served as a royal commissioner to deliver Newgate gaol.41 Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 29; jnl. 6, ff. 68, 116, 141v, 151v, 164, 190v, 201, 222v, 226, 229. He continued to provide finance to the Crown: in May 1468 he was among the Londoners who sealed bonds guaranteeing the payment of £10,000 by the merchants of the Calais staple to Charles, duke of Burgundy, for his marriage to the King’s sister, Margaret, and he provided other loans, too.42 E404/74/1/45; Gt. Chron. London ed Thomas and Thornley, 429; Scofield, i. 453; E403/840, mm. 2, 8-9.

Now, however, England was thrown into renewed turmoil. As King Edward increasingly asserted his independence of action in the second half of the 1460s, so his cousin, the earl of Warwick, grew ever more disaffected with his rule. In the course of 1468 conspiracy theories ran wild in London, but it was in the north that Warwick secretly encouraged popular discontent. Under the cover of rebel uprisings, Warwick was able to dispose of several of the ‘new men’ who surrounded the King, and in late July 1469 he openly took Edward himself into custody, and proceeded to rule in his name. This experiment lasted for little more than a month before the King regained his liberty, but it was probably under the impression of the general political instability that in October the Londoners elected the experienced Lee to serve a second term as mayor. In the first instance, King Edward’s rule appeared secure once more: in March 1470 a royal army defeated a rebel force at Empingham, and Warwick (in league with the King’s unstable brother, the duke of Clarence) was forced to flee to France. Yet, just days before Lee’s mayoralty came to an end, Warwick returned with French assistance, Edward IV’s support crumbled, and when the new mayor of London, John Stokton, took office, it was Edward who was in exile, while Henry VI had been restored to the throne by the earl of Warwick.

Henry’s ‘Readeption’ threw the city of London into some confusion, and old divisions between the aldermen resurfaced. Copies of a bill containing an appeal from Warwick and Clarence to the commons of England were displayed on the standard in Cheapside, London Bridge and elsewhere, and for the time being the pro-Lancastrian party in London had the upper hand. The city’s merchants, however, were well informed of events in the Low Countries and in February 1471 rumours of King Edward’s impending return swept the city. Stokton now conveniently fell ill (or, according to one account, feigned illness), and it was to Lee that the citizens turned once more for leadership in the looming crisis. One of the grocer’s first actions was to have the earl of Warwick’s letters taken down, as he ‘wolde not suffer theime to be openly knowen ner seen to the commones’. In this, however, he had perhaps overplayed his hand, for now he for his part was forced to step aside by Thomas Cook II*, who had been reinstated to his aldermanry after Henry VI’s restoration, secured enough support to be able to take over as mayor until Stokton should have recovered. Cook’s ascendancy, however, proved almost equally short-lived, for in mid March Edward IV landed at Ravenspur, and within a few weeks was approaching London. Hearing news of Edward IV’s return, Cook took to flight. Lee took responsibility for handing the welcome sum of £166 13s. 4d to the King’s chamber, most likely before he won his victory at Tewkesbury, and there can be little doubt that Lee once more took a leading part in organizing the defence of London against the Kentish rebels led by the bastard of Fauconberg. On 21 May the King entered London in triumph, and knighted no fewer than 12 aldermen, including Lee and Ireland.43 John Vale’s Bk. ed. Kekewich et al., 48, 85n, 93, 219; Nightingale, 536; Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 98; E403/844, m. 2.

It seems that the strain of the repeated political crises had taken its toll on Lee who was, in any event, no longer a young man. On 24 Sept. 1471 he drew up a will, and he died within six months, before 4 Mar. 1472, when probate was granted. He asked to be buried in St. Stephen Walbrook, where he established a chantry for 20 years and requested that 1,000 masses be celebrated for his soul. In addition, he left the sum of £20 for the rebuilding of the church’s bell tower. As well as bequests to the parishes in Surrey and Sussex where his parents were buried, he made numerous charitable bequests to London hospitals, and to religious houses for further prayers for his soul. He left £10 each to the great bridges at London and Rochester, and a smaller amount to the parish church of Maidstone. On his eldest son, Richard, he settled £500, as well as plate to the value of £100, while his other son, John, received £100 and his four daughters, Margaret, wife of Ireland, and subsequently of William Fisher†, Alice, wife of John Mitchell, Lettice, wife of John Stokes (another grocer), and subsequently of the Canterbury lawyer Roger Brent†, and Joan, the wife of John Fogg† (son of the treasurer of Edward IV’s household, Sir John Fogg†), were each left £40 and plate to the same value. A codicil drawn up two days later provided for further charitable bequests, settled other sums of money on three relatives, and pardoned a debt of £20 owed by his brother, William. Most of Lee’s property in London was settled on his widow, Lettice, and in her own will of 1477 the holdings in Bucklersbury and St. Pancras were conveyed to St. Stephen’s in order to establish another chantry. She did, however, survive for at least another five years, and in October 1482 made a further and more extensive will, of which probate was granted in February 1484. Other properties then passed to Richard the younger, who died seised of them in September 1498.44 PCC 5 Wattys; E405/54, rot. 1; 55, rot. 3; 59, rot. 1d; London hr 203/21; 206/30; 210/2; 212/8; 219/1; commissary ct. wills, 9171/6, ff. 364-367v; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 197, 249.