LEMATON, Richard

Lematon was one of at least five sons of the minor Northumberland landowner, John Barker, who took their name from the small hamlet of Lemington in the parish of Edlingham. Little is known of Lematon’s father, but his identity is confirmed in a deed of November 1449 when on the death of his elder brother John the family estates were conveyed to Richard.5 Swinburne (Capheaton) mss, ZSW/3/17-18. While John found a career in the service of, first, John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, and then the Percy family, Richard apparently made his living through trade, and in 1440 purchased the freedom of the city of York.6 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 156. By this time he was already a merchant of the Calais staple, probably acting as a factor in Calais for various York wool merchants. In 1443 he was required by John Russell of York to settle his affairs in Calais and deliver the residue of his goods there to his executors. Soon afterwards he also became involved in the prolonged business of executing the will of Russell’s brother, Richard Russell I*.7 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 68; CP40/739, rot. 314d.

By the mid 1440s Lematon had returned to England and settled in York, where he was elected to a first civic office in February 1446 as one of the city chamberlains, serving a term which saw the construction of a new common hall.8 York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 1396-1500, 58. In September 1447 he was named as one of the sheriffs, and by January 1449 (when he attested the parliamentary election) he had joined the ranks of the council of 24. He continued to serve on the council for the rest of his life, but otherwise his career was now interrupted by the need to settle the tangled affairs of his brother John, who died in the autumn of 1449, after appointing Richard one of his executors. On 14 Nov. their father conveyed his properties in Edlingham to Richard, and in October the following year another brother, Robert, similarly settled property in London and Middlesex on Richard and his fellow executor, Robert Forster.9 CCR, 1447-54, p. 166. Central to the executors’ responsibilities was the settlement of John’s affairs at the Exchequer, where he had to render account for his offices as warden of the exchange and mint and as clerk of works at Roxburgh, Berwick and Carlisle, and on the east march, where he had lent money to the warden, Henry Percy, Lord Poynings. Probably in order to facilitate the collection of assignments made to his late brother for the works at Berwick and elsewhere, in December 1449 Lematon secured appointment as one of the collectors of customs in Kingston-upon-Hull. He held this office for less than a year, by which time he had succeeded in collecting the outstanding amounts.10 J.M.W. Bean, Estates Percy Fam. 99-100; CFR, xviii. 134-5, 138; E122/61/65; E356/20; PROME, xii. 50-51. The Crown’s demands aside, there were also private claimants to be satisfied. Thus, the London draper Peter Caldecote brought litigation against the executors over a bond for 200 marks for his help in securing letters patent granting John Lematon and his brothers Thomas and Henry the office of warden of the exchange as well as the reversion of the chancellorship of the Exchequer. According to Richard Lematon’s version of events, Caldecote had agreed not to enforce the bond until the letters patent had been granted, but this Caldecote denied, claiming that John had reneged on his bond when he was deprived of the potentially lucrative reversion of the chancellorship by a grant secured for Thomas Thorpe* by the duke of Suffolk.11 C1/19/60-64. The outcome of this case is unknown, but the execution of his brother’s will occupied Lematon for the remainder of the decade until 1459, when he purchased a general pardon.12 C67/42, m. 36. In addition, his succession to the family lands gave him a foothold in his native Northumberland. He maintained loose ties with the Percy earls, and in 1460 was party to property transactions in Edlingham.13 Swinburne (Capheaton) mss, ZSW/3/19-20; Plumpton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. iv), p. xxxvii.

By the beginning of the 1450s Lematon was himself a prominent and wealthy merchant. Little evidence survives of the scale of his dealings in wool, but in 1452-3 he was importing quantities of woad and canvas into Kingston-upon-Hull.14 Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. cxliv), 12-13. Between 1449 and 1451 he had been among those leading members of the staple who contributed loans for the upkeep of the Calais garrison, as well as for the costs of the royal household and for payments made to the Burgundians for the renewal of the truce and the release of English goods seized in the Low Countries. In the summer of 1449, along with his fellow York staplers, John Thirsk* and John Karr*, he lent £315 12s. to the Crown, probably part of the loan of 4,000 marks made by the Company for the costs incurred in recovering wool seized in the Low Countries by the Burgundians in the aftermath of the attack by the ships commanded by Robert Wenyngton alias Cane* on the Bay Fleet. This agreement was brokered by an embassy sent to Flanders earlier in the summer and which had included Thirsk and several other staplers.15 CPR, 1446-52, p. 316. In October 1450 they were granted repayment from the customs in Hull for their loan, but four years later the sum of £157 16s. was still outstanding and further provision was made for its repayment. In 1452 Lematon exported 55 skins and ten stones of wool with Karr and Thirsk from Kingston-upon-Hull recovering £37 9s. on the money owed to them.16 CPR, 1452-61, p. 209; E122/62/68. Full repayment was, however, delayed and in October 1454 Lematon, jointly with William Stocton II*, received a further licence to recover debts of £113 15s. 10½d. outstanding from the loan made to pay the Burgundians five years earlier. In the following year he exported at least 51 sacks of wool from Hull under the terms of this agreement.17 CPR, 1452-61, p. 211; Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90, 16-17.

In parallel with his wealth, Lematon’s standing in the city of York proceeded to grow. In 1451 he and his wife were admitted to the prestigious guild of Corpus Christi.18 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York, 51. By February 1453, when he again attested the parliamentary election, he had joined the ranks of the aldermen, and two years later he was chosen as mayor. It was tenure of this office that saw him appointed, just days after the end of his term, as a justice to deliver the city gaol of prisoners. He now unquestionably ranked among the leading citizens of York, and as an alderman probably played his part in the deliberations that must have preceded the elections to the Parliament summoned in the autumn of 1459 to meet at Coventry. Certainly, the citizens of York prevaricated, and in the event the elections for their representatives did not take place until 26 Nov., six days after the Commons had assembled. It is not known what considerations persuaded Lematon and his colleague Thomas Beverley* to accept election, but by the time they reached Coventry almost a third of the short session had probably gone by, and they had perhaps contrived to absent themselves from the assembly’s most contentious business, the attainder of the duke of York and his Neville allies. Otherwise, nothing is known of Lematon’s activities in the Commons, but it is perhaps instructive that in September 1460 he was among the aldermen of York who attested the election to the Yorkist Parliament called to undo the actions of its precursor.19 C219/16/5, 6.

Scant evidence survives of the remainder of Lematon’s career. He is known to have engaged in domestic trade in partnership with his earlier associate Stocton in the early 1460s, when an obligation made by them jointly to the mayor and commonalty of Carlisle became the subject of a dispute between the citizens and a former mayor.20 Sel. Cases in Chancery (Selden Soc. x), 144. In January 1472 he was among those merchants of the Calais staple who received a general pardon in recognition of their company’s collective support for Edward IV during Henry VI’s Readeption, but no evidence of his personal attitude to the renewed dynastic change has come to light.21 CPR, 1467-77, p. 316. He was, in any event, advancing in years. In June 1474, probably as he neared death, he and his feoffees (Richard Unde and the chaplain Richard Kirketon) settled his properties both in York and in Edlingham on his daughter, Joan. In the event of her death without issue they were to revert to Unde and Kirketon for the performance of Lematon’s will. He probably died shortly after making this settlement, and he was certainly dead by 1476 when regular minutes of the York council meetings begin.22 Swinburne (Capheaton) mss, ZSW/3/21.