DOGE, Thomas

Nothing is known about Doge’s family background, or whether he originally came from Wareham, the borough he represented in Parliament, although his usual description, ‘of Wareham’ and his service as mayor indicate that he was resident in the town. His first official appearance, in November 1431, was as a juror a few miles away at Wimborne Minster, providing information to the royal commissioners sent to assess a subsidy, and he subsequently acted in the same way at Shaftesbury in March 1434, at an inquisition post mortem on Thomas Erdington†, the Warwickshire landowner who had held a manor at Corfe Mullen, situated between Wareham and Wimborne.6 Feudal Aids, ii. 117; C139/63/23. Doge came to the attention of the government later in the 1430s, and having been appointed collector of customs and subsidies at Poole in 1439 he held office without break until July 1446.7 E122/119/1. Besides his normal duties which included the seizure of shipments of wool being smuggled out of the country without payment of dues, he was required to find vessels to transport the retinues of the earl of Huntingdon and Lord Scales over to France,8 E159/216, recorda Easter, rot. 19; CPR, 1436-41, p. 451. and he and his fellow customer were also responsible for organizing the passage of the King’s chamberlain, Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley, sent to Normandy on embassy.9 E403/747, m. 4; E404/59/97, 98.

Doge was regularly rewarded at the Exchequer for carrying out the tasks of customer,10 E403/743, m. 5; 747, m. 5; 749, m. 5; 755, m. 6; 759, m. 7; 765, m. 7. but he also received special rewards for his success in the discovery and seizure of three different caches of un-customed wool, found in a creek near Weymouth, on the quayside at Poole, and near Lyme.11 E403/743, m. 15. Payment of one such reward was made on 19 Mar. 1442 while he was up at Westminster for his first Parliament. Perhaps he put himself forward for election by the burgesses of Wareham because he had business to transact at the Exchequer. While serving as customer at Poole he was chosen to be mayor at Wareham in 1444. Following his removal from office as customer two years later, he took out a royal pardon, on 14 Nov. 1446, presumably so as to be exonerated from discrepancies in his accounts. He was then described as ‘of Wareham, gentleman’.12 C67/39, m. 7. Shortly afterwards he was again elected to the Commons, this time to sit in the Parliament summoned to meet at Bury St. Edmunds on 10 Feb. following.

Doge was re-appointed customer at Poole in December 1448, but early in the following year he and Roger Juye, who had been his fellow collector during his previous term, were summoned before the barons of the Exchequer to answer for 200 sacks of wool, which they had seized at ‘Melcombe Crike’ in March 1444. It may be that his failure to render a satisfactory account for this substantial haul, said to be worth £1,000, was the cause of his removal from the post not long afterwards, but more likely that his removal was prompted by ‘intelligence’ given to the barons that he had colluded with the alleged smugglers, among whom was John Clerk*, one of the customs officials at Exeter and Dartmouth.13 E159/225, recorda Hil. rot. 11; E143/24/7. Doge had earlier sued Clerk on a bond in £42 sealed in Aug. 1445: CP40/748, rots. 313; 749, rot. 405d. He sat for Wareham again in the Parliament of 1449-50, and if he had fallen under a cloud this was dispelled by the autumn of 1451 when he was appointed escheator of Somerset and Dorset. He apparently performed well in the office, for just a few weeks after the end of his term he was named as controller of customs at Poole, on 14 Jan. 1453.14 CPR, 1452-61, p. 25. The authorities had evidently not learned of his death, which occurred that same winter; they did not find a replacement until 12 Mar. By then Doge’s widow Alice had taken up the task of executing his will. That same Hilary term she was sued by Eleanor, dowager countess of Arundel, for a debt of £4 12s. 10d. incurred by her late husband.15 CP40/768, rot. 157

Doge left a son, also called Thomas, who appeared in the court of common pleas in the 1450s similarly described as ‘of Wareham, gentleman’. In 1455 in association with other local men he was accused by Richard Benet of taking livestock and goods at Wareham worth 20 marks, although in the same year he himself brought actions against townspeople of Wareham and Weymouth for various debts totalling £38.16 CP40/778, rot. 25d; 779, rot. 180. It was presumably he who, simply as Thomas Doge or Dooge, purchased a pardon on 5 Nov. that year. This was just three weeks after a pardon had been granted to Robert Spetchley* of Bristol, who had served as under escheator or clerk to our MP in Somerset and Dorset, and was curiously described on the roll as ‘extorcioner’.17 C67/41, mm. 19, 21. It is impossible to deduce whether any criticism of our MP himself is implied in the use of this expression. That the earlier business of the missing sacks of wool had led to a quarrel between Doge and Roger Juye is suggested by a suit brought by Juye in 1458 against the younger Thomas for the sum of £40.18 CP40/788, rot. 377d. Meanwhile, by the autumn of 1457 our MP’s widow Alice had married a Wiltshire esquire, Robert Bodenham of Ebbesborne Wake. It was then that Richard, earl of Salisbury, brought a plea against her and the younger Thomas Doge as executors of our MP’s will for detinue of £172 13s. 4d. The sum claimed may have been assigned on the customs at Poole, as granted to the earl when Doge was a customer.19 CP40/787, rot. 31d; CPR, 1441-6, p. 440.