FLEMING, John

Members of John’s family, immigrants from Flanders as their name implies, settled in Hampshire before 1200, and for many centuries maintained an intimate connexion with Southampton. Several of them became prominent in the borough’s affairs, including Walter Fleming (d.1258) the mayor and shipowner, the John Fleming† who sat in seven Parliaments from 1298 to 1330, and our John’s grandfather, Henry†, four times an MP between 1329 and 1338.7 Remembrance Bk. i. pp. xxi-xxii; C. Platt, Med. Southampton, 239-40. John himself is first recorded in October 1406 when, as the son and heir of Benedict Fleming, he agreed to pay John Barflete an annual rent of 18s. for two tenements on the south side of East Street (in the suburb), for which Barflete might make distraint upon the capital tenement of the grantor in ‘Flemynggyslane’. His father was then still alive, and in the following May the two of them made a quitlaim of rents payable for a house in Above Bar Street, also in the suburb, and for another within the walls in English Street.8 God’s House deeds, 432, 744; Southampton RO, deeds, SC4/2/201. It was there, in a house on the west side of the street, in All Saints’ parish, that Fleming lived. These were just a few of the many properties in and near the town which came into his possession in the course of his life. They included 19 acres of land in ‘Goddeshousyfelde’ by the prior’s garden, for which he obtained in 1422 a lease for life at an annual rent of 36s. 4d., the ‘Aula Martini’ or ‘magna domus’ in French Street, which he also leased from God’s House, and a tenement in English Street acquired after litigation with William Newe’s daughter, as well as a mill, a workshop and cottages. A number of his properties were held as a tenant of the priory of St. Denys on long leases of 53 years or more.9 God’s House deeds, 776; Cart. God’s House, ii (Soton. Rec. Ser. xx), 233, 245, 259, 321; Southampton Terrier 1454 (ibid. xv), nos. 21-22, 45, 64, 74-77, 103, 301, 310-11, 316-20, 322, 374-6, 404, 460, 497; SC11/597; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 47-48. In 1431 (when he himself was a juror at the assessment) his holdings in Southampton were valued at £6 a year, but four years later those in Hampshire as a whole were said to be worth £20 p.a.10 Feudal Aids, ii. 360; E179/173/92.

Fleming was usually described as a ‘gentleman’;11 e.g. C67/38, m. 29. indeed, unlike earlier members of his family, he did not make a living as a merchant, even though shipments of wine were occasionally brought into port in his name.12 E122/184/3, pt. 3, f. 10; Port Bk. 1427-30 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1913), 61. Instead, he trained to be a lawyer, and was probably the man of this surname admitted to Lincoln’s Inn at some point before 1420. By April 1415 he had taken over from Thomas Marlborough* the post of clerk of the statute merchant in his home town, which, save for a break during his mayoralty, he apparently occupied until his death 40 years later. His early career was promoted by John Benet (d.1420), a former mayor of Southampton, who made him one of his executors, leaving him to implement a bequest to the town which involved taking up and re-laying the pipes of the friary’s water conduit, and building a new conduit house next to Holy Rood church.13 Southampton deeds, SC4/2/238; Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/445. The mayor and bailiffs appointed him as their attorney to prosecute and defend all cases touching the liberties of Southampton at the assizes held in Winchester in February 1422 and again in August 1424, and for a least 13 years he was employed as town clerk, an office which warranted a salary of £5 a year, a Christmas bonus of 3s. 4d. and livery of fur-trimmed robes.14 JUST 1/1531, rot. 47; 1540, rot. 110; Stewards’ Bks. 1428-34 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1935), 14-15, 44; 1434-9 (ibid. 1939), pp. xiii-xiv, 68. Fleming was frequently engaged on the business of the borough which necessitated journeys elsewhere. For instance, in 1429 he was party to the negotiations for the purchase on behalf of the commonalty of the great tenement known as West Hall. He accompanied the mayor, Peter James*, and recorder, William Chamberlain*, to Salisbury to treat with Robert Long*, the lawyer who was the other principal in the transaction, stayed there four days and then went on to visit Long’s house at South Wraxall. Their expenses were considerable, especially as they charged the town for the purchase of three cloaks to wear when riding, for green ginger and pepper (perhaps to use as gifts) and the hire of six horses additional to their own. When the transfer was completed, Fleming acted as a feoffee of the newly-acquired property. His expenses were considerably less in 1433-4 when he travelled to Winchester with the then mayor, John Emery. In 1438 he received from the steward of Southampton the final instalment of the parliamentary fifteenth and tenth he had been commissioned to collect in 1436, and was paid ten marks for going to London to hear the arbitration award in the town’s dispute with the prior and convent of St. Swithun’s, Winchester.15 Stewards’ Bks. 1428-34, 30-32, 82; 1434-9, 62, 75; Southampton deeds, SC4/2/257. Meanwhile, he had attended the shire court at Winchester in January 1431 where he attested the county indenture at the parliamentary elections.16 C219/14/2. Although the affairs of Southampton kept him busy, he was also retained by Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, who owned property in the town, and received a fee from the earl and his heirs at least from 1431 to 1444.17 A.F.C. Sinclair, ‘Beauchamp Earls of Warwick’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1988), 334, citing NLW, Bute mss, box 93/143, m. 1.

Uniquely, Fleming would appear to have been the only lawyer elected mayor of Southampton throughout the fifteenth century: all the rest were merchants. During his term, which began in September 1445 and lasted for two consecutive years, one of his principal concerns, as before, was to safeguard the borough’s liberties in the face of encroachment by the Crown. In 1440 Henry VI had granted to six men, including the courtier John Norris*, the offices of packing all woollen cloths, wool-fells, pewter and other merchandise in London, Southampton and Sandwich, with power to open all containers and seize anything uncustomed, taking half the forfeitures as their reward, and holding their posts for life. However, in the summer of 1446 the packers’ deputies alleged in the Exchequer that at Southampton Fleming had forcibly prevented them from examining certain bales of cloth, which had been packed by his own servants. The mayor replied to the charge that the office of packing belonged to the borough of Southampton as a long-held liberty (in fact, it had been specifically mentioned in a charter for the first time only in the previous year). The case dragged on for eight years without the barons reaching a judgement, but it looks as if Fleming eventually won the day.18 Port Bk. 1439-40 (Soton. Rec. Ser. v), p. xlv; CPR, 1436-41, pp. 490-1; E159/222, recorda Easter rot. 10, Trin. rot. 18. He may well have taken a leading role in negotiations at Westminster for the charter which conferred on the borough the status of a county, for it was during his second year as mayor that, on 9 Mar. 1447, this was formally granted. Less to his credit is the report of his dealings while mayor with a Genoese merchant called Adorado Cattaneo, who was bound to him under an obligation of £200 to appear in Chancery on a certain day to answer the suit of John de Pounce and Thomas Coventre II* of Devizes. Although Cattaneo did so appear, Fleming refused to return or cancel the bond, leaving the merchant with no recourse to justice save the chancellor’s equity court, since the condition of the bond had been verbal.19 C1/15/261.

Nor was the Italian the only person to complain about Fleming’s practices over the next few years, during his time as recorder of Southampton. After the death of William Overey*, his widow, Agnes, alleged that Fleming had been victimizing her tenants,20 Hants RO, Clarke Jervoise mss, 18M64/21/28. and in July 1448 a royal commission was set up to make inquiry in Hampshire and Southampton itself touching extortions, oppressions, maintenances and other misdeeds allegedly committed by him. The investigation was in all probability prompted by a number of petitions sent to the chancellor. Most notable among them were two from the warden of God’s House hospital and provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, who claimed that Fleming had stirred up many men of Southampton, exhorting them to deprive the college of rents. More specifically, the provost accused him of personally withholding six marks, and of wrongfully imprisoning his servants. He said that Fleming had taken upon himself all the rule of the law in Southampton for 20 years or more, and was now so powerful that ‘no man there dare seye ayenst hym in no wise’, and, evidently incensed by Fleming’s treachery (as up until recently he had been employed as the provost’s counsel), he demanded that he be kept in prison until he made satisfation.21 CPR, 1446-52, p. 189; C1/16/507, 106/57, 58. The provost was supported in his suit by the highly litigious John Payn I* and his son-in-law Thomas White, who had their own reasons for seeking Fleming’s removal from office. In another petition to the chancellor White alleged that he had been disenfranchised as a burgess of Southampton by Fleming, acting in alliance with Peter James (the mayor of 1447-9) and Andrew James* (Fleming’s son-in-law), and had no remedy because of Fleming’s maintenance and domination of the town’s government. Although Fleming ‘calleth hymself a man lerned in the lawe’ in fact, White asserted, he ‘errowsely and parceally reuleth the court there to grete hurte and jniurie to many’. The townspeople were impressed ‘by untrewe coloure’, for in fact he was taking from them ‘grete gode’ by extortion, and regularly imprisoned his victims until he had his way. White’s principal grievance was that Fleming refused to obey writs from Chancery, the Exchequer and the other central courts of law, and in particular that when mayor he had deliberately ignored writs for the endowment of Cecily, duchess of Warwick (for whom White and Payn acted as agents). He, White, had suffered imprisonment among thieves and unnecessary subjugation to legal processes owing to Fleming’s failure to return a writ. In reply Fleming protested at the ‘untrewe ymaginacon and wurchynge’ of White and Payn, their manipulation of the law to suit their own ends, and their practice of suing in the central courts all and sundry who crossed their path. As to the question of the return of royal writs, he pointed out that this was the sheriff’s responsibility, not his.22 C1/16/352-3. However, there may have been substance in the charges against him, for in 1449-50 the steward of Southampton had to pay £3 6s. 8d., presumably as a fine, for a false return made by the mayor and bailiffs upon a writ from King’s bench which had led to White’s arrest.23 Southampton City Archs., steward’s bk., SC5/1/7, f. 24.

Yet clearly nothing of much consequence came of the official investigations into Fleming’s conduct, for he continued to be recorder in Southampton, and even though in July 1446 he had taken out letters of exemption for life from holding royal office against his will, he was regularly appointed to ad hoc commissions from 1448 to 1451. Meanwhile, he had been one of 19 burgesses who with the mayor were party to the electoral indenture for the Parliament of February 1449, and he himself was returned as one of the borough’s representatives in the following autumn.24 CPR, 1441-6, p. 443; C219/15/6. While Fleming was in London shortly before the Commons assembled early in November, four letters were sent from Genoese merchants in Southampton to associates in the capital instructing them to hand over to him sums of money totalling £92, probably so they could be used to pay part of Southampton’s fee farm at the Exchequer.25 Port and Brokage Bks. 1448-9 (Soton. Rec. Ser. xxxvi), 85. It would appear that he did not receive the usual daily wage of 2s. while attending the Lower House, for although he was paid 33s. 4d. when he left home for the second session in January 1450, 23s. 4d. for attending part of the session at Leicester, and £5 on 15 Apr., this only amounted to wages for 78 days of a Parliament lasting at least 147. However, he was receiving an annual fee of £4 as recorder, and perhaps this was deemed to be sufficient remuneration.26 Southampton steward’s bk., SC5/1/7, ff. 7, 11v, 18. He was again party to the electoral indentures at Southampton on 5 Mar. 1453 and 23 June 1455.27 C219/16/2, 3.

Fleming’s last years were troubled by further litigation. The prior of St. Denys brought an action of trespass in the King’s bench alleging that in 1450 he with certain ‘stayners’ of Southampton, had assaulted three of the canons of the priory and held them prisoner for several weeks. The case was still not resolved by the Michaelmas term of 1453, when Nicholas Aysshton*, j.c.p., was assigned to conduct a hearing in the locality.28 KB27/762, rot. 107d; 763, rot. 29; CP40/770, rots. 44d, 289. Fleming also fell out with his former son-in-law, Andrew James, to the extent that James was forced to petition the chancellor against him. James claimed that when he had agreed to marry Fleming’s daughter, Joan, her father had promised to settle on them in fee-tail the house and garden in Southampton where he himself used to live. The couple moved into the house, where Joan bore ‘diverse children’ before she died, but Fleming, on being asked to make a deed of confirmation to James and Joan’s heirs, broke his promise by instead granting the property to James alone, and only for his lifetime. James, being illiterate, was not aware of the changes made to the terms of their agreement, and sealed the indenture believing it to be in accordance with the original promise. He now realized that his children were likely to be disinherited.29 C1/16/277. Whether by this stage James had already taken as his second wife one of the daughters of Fleming’s enemy, John Payn, and had fallen under the latter’s malign influence remains unclear, but in any case his defection can hardly have improved relations among the leading burgesses of Southampton.

Fleming made no mention of his grandchildren in the brief will he drew up on 4 Aug. 1455. He died at an unknown date before 5 July 1456, and was buried in St. Mary’s church, Southampton, although a bequest provided a salary of four marks a year for a chaplain to pray for his soul in perpetuity at his former parish church of All Saints.30 PCC 7 Stokton. His executors were his son and heir, Gabriel, and their kinsman, the recently-elected MP, Walter Clerk*, but little more than a year later the two men quarelled, presumably over the administration of the will, and each brought legal actions, the one against the other, in the court of the Exchequer. Indeed, their dissension led Gabriel to join the faction of his father’s old opponent, John Payn.31 KB27/794, rot. 67. Nevertheless, the Fleming family long continued to occupy a prominent place in the affairs of Southampton, and our MP’s grandson, John†, represented the borough in the Parliament of 1504.32 Platt, 240.