MALPAS, Philip

Over the course of his career Malpas would become one of the most controversial figures in mid fifteenth-century London, yet much of this career itself remains difficult to interpret. The names of his parents are not known, but his family came originally from Malpas in Cheshire. At some point in the reign of Henry IV Philip was apprenticed to a London draper, Thomas Glynvan, and he had evidently not completed his training when his master died in 1409, leaving him a small bequest.5 G. Ormerod, Palatine and City of Chester ed. Helsby, ii. 325; commissary ct. wills, 9171/2, f. 146. Despite the death of his master, Malpas completed his apprenticeship, entered the freedom, and became a prominent member of the Drapers’ Company. By the early 1420s he had acquired premises close to other drapers in the Cornhill area of the city and along with Robert Clopton* he contributed money towards the building of Drapers’ Hall. In August 1425 he was chosen as one of the wardens of the Company, serving alongside Thomas Cook, father of the better-known Thomas II*, a man with whom he was already well acquainted, for four months earlier the elder Cook had been one of three arbiters who acted on Malpas’s behalf in a dispute brought before the court of aldermen for adjudication.6 Johnson, i. 294, 299, 307; John Vale’s Bk. ed. Kekewich et al. 79.

Malpas became one of the most successful merchants of his day, probably not least as a result of his readiness to employ sharp practices when an opportunity presented itself. An early example of the ruthlessness which was to characterise much of his career was his demand in May 1418 for cloth worth £115 as security for a loan of £80 to John Middleton, a merchant of the Calais staple, repayable within a period of six months. When Middleton failed to pay his debt, Malpas sold the cloth, but Middleton on this occasion got the better of him, and in July 1421 had Malpas convicted of usury and imprisoned until he repaid his profit of £35.7 Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 103. This was not to remain the only occasion on which Malpas was accused of usurious practices, but his increasing prominence in London allowed him to avoid further formal convictions. Thus, a charge of usury brought against him by the mercer John Farndon in February 1444 was put to arbitration which was still pending in September 1458 when new arbiters were appointed by the court of aldermen.8 Jnl. 6, ff. 230, 246.

If Malpas’s behaviour gained him a degree of notoriety, this does not appear to have adversely affected his other business activities. By the beginning of the 1430s he was extremely active in the export trade in cloth. In 1429-30 he shipped 93 short cloths in a single consignment, while in a period of just a few months in 1433 he sent no fewer than ten consignments of cloth to northern Europe. In total these amounted to 477½ cloths, a quantity that implied a well-developed series of links with suppliers among England’s clothworkers, as well as reliable sources of distribution on the continent.9 E122/161/11, m. 1; 203/1, ff. 3, 7v-8v, 17, 22v-23v, 34v. The other commodity in which Malpas traded was tin, which he brought to London from Cornwall, often via the port of Southampton, from where the metal was taken on by cart to the capital. He was clearly an important figure in the trade: in 1443-4 nine of the 15 cartloads of tin that left Southampton for London belonged to him.10 Soton. Brokage Bk. 1443-4 (Soton. Rec. Ser. iv), pp. xxxi, 273-4, 277, 296, 298. Once again, however, his methods and associates were controversial. In the early 1430s he became associated with Richard Tregoose*, a man whose notoriety in the south-west would come to exceed anything that Malpas was able to achieve in London. Over a period of years, Tregoose conducted campaigns of violence and intimidation directed at tin-workers and traders in the Cornish stannaries, while apparently co-operating with Malpas, who took care of the distribution and retail of the illicitly acquired metal in London. One of Tregoose’s principal victims was Robert Borlase, who in 1434 complained to the chancellor that whereas he had deposited £100-worth of tin at the weigh-house in St. Swithin’s parish, Malpas, Tregoose and another Cornishman had brought a false action for debt against him before one of the sheriffs of London on 13 Feb., with the assistance of John Langford, one of the serjeants of the city, who was said to be ‘of the said Philip ys affynyte’. Langford ensured that Borlase, despite not having been informed of the action, was formally attached by the tin to answer the action in court. Tregoose and Malpas then came before the court to ‘prove’ that the tin belonged to Tregoose and it was then immediately released to them from the weigh-house, and taken by cart to Malpas’s house.11 H. Kleineke, ‘Why the West was Wild’, in The Fifteenth Cent. III ed. Clark, 83-88; H. Kleineke, ‘Poachers and Gamekeepers’, in Outlaws ed. Appleby and Dalton, 134-6; KB27/729, rex rots. 1, 6; C1/70/77; C254/141/54; 142/21. Evidently, Malpas and Tregoose were seeking to monopolize the tin trade through London at the expense of the city’s pewterers, who in April 1441 complained to the mayor and aldermen that certain citizens, including Malpas and his friend Stephen Forster*, had been buying up all the tin coming into the city.12 Jnl. 3, f. 84.

To Malpas, as a well-connected member of London’s mercantile elite, the well-to-do members of the city’s Italian community presented a target impossible to resist. It is not known what manner of business deal connected the draper with the Genoese merchant Cristoforo Stella, but before the end of 1436 the two men had begun legal action against another alien, Belizardo de’ Bardi, who had consequently been imprisoned by order of the mayor and sheriffs. Within a few months, however, Malpas and Stella had themselves fallen out, and Malpas had to find vast sureties amounting to a total of £14,000 (provided for him by seven men, including Hugh Wyche*, Thomas Canynges* and John Norman*), that he would keep the peace towards Stella, as well as himself sealing a bond for 300 marks.13 Ibid. f. 127; Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, pp. 291, 295. Another victim was the Venetian merchant Andrea Corner, whose quarrel with Malpas was put to arbitration in 1438.14 Jnl. 3, ff. 172, 175v. Just a year later, Malpas was once again implicated in wrongdoing at the expense of an Italian, when he was said by a Lucchese merchant named Francesco Micheli to have been party to his kidnapping and the theft of £100 of his goods, an exercise apparently staged to settle a debt owed to the skinner Thomas Goly by one Thomas Podmore.15 C1/19/366.

In spite of his imprisonment for usury early in his career, Malpas continued to act as a money lender, as is apparent from the numerous ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels that were made to him, these being legal devices often employed as a means for the borrower to provide security to the lender, and a popular means for merchants and craftsmen to secure capital at a time when shortages of coin further enouraged the use of credit. Large sums were probably involved in a number of cases, notably those ‘gifts’ which were made to Malpas, together with either Thomas Cook II or Stephen Forster. It was in the context of such transactions that strong relationships between the three men were forged, and these were further fortified by ties of marriage. At some point after 1435, Cook married Malpas’s daughter, Elizabeth, while in 1458 Forster’s son John married the couple’s child, Joan. By contrast, other connexions forged in the course of Malpas’s money-lending activities were at least in part to blame for his unpopularity in London. Thus, on several occasions he worked with royal officers like Thomas Haseley†, the keeper of the Exchange, and the Exchequer official Andrew Kebell* to provide credit facilities to Londoners.16 CCR, 1422-9, p. 72; 1435-41, pp. 277, 380; 1447-54, p. 59, 99, 142, 278; 1454-61, p. 107; 1461-8, p. 244; Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, p. 271; 1437-57, p. 160. Periodically, although on a far more modest scale than many of his peers, he also provided loans to the Crown itself. He made just two such loans amounting to a total of £116 13s. 4d. in the period before 1450, although he became a more active lender following that year’s dramatic events. Rather than to his usefulness as a lender to the Crown, he may have owed the favour he came to enjoy at court to relationships he had built up with individual men of influence. Among these important connexions were members of the nobility like the duke of Buckingham who in July 1447 included Malpas among the feoffees of his manor of Brustwick,17 CPR, 1446-52, p. 78. and the duke of York (another one of Buckingham’s feoffees) who may have borrowed from the draper, since goods and jewels to a value of £114 belonging to York were later in Malpas’s possession;18 E403/745, m. 3; 775, m. 13; Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 468. and there were also lesser courtiers like John Norris* (named alongside Malpas as a feoffee of some of the property of his son-in-law Thomas Cook), John Stanley I* and John Basket* (to whom he and others conveyed property in Surrey in May 1449). Crucially, however, Malpas’s connexions were not restricted to the court circle. In parallel, he forged and maintained close contacts among the leading merchants of his day. Thus, he served the prominent stapler William Venour as a feoffee of property in Essex, and in London was connected not only with the Forsters but also to men such as Thomas Canynges and his half-brother Thomas Young II*.19 John Vale’s Bk. 81, 85-86; CPR, 1441-6, p. 345; 1446-52, pp. 221, 517; 1452-61, p. 150; 1461-7, p. 228; CCR, 1441-7, p. 308; 1447-54, pp. 89-90, 132, 263; 1461-8, p. 118.

Malpas’s business methods, though sometimes unorthodox, proved to be highly lucrative, and allowed him to invest in a substantial portfolio of landed property. By 1436 his holdings in London and elsewhere were said to be worth some £70 p.a.20 S.L. Thrupp, Merchant Class Med. London, 382. He had acquired some of these by his marriage before August 1421 to Juliana, the eldest of the three daughters and coheiresses of John Beaumond, a wealthy chandler,21 London hr 149/36. and also the widow of the grocer William Middleton.22 Cal. Letter Bk. London, I, 256. By virtue of the marriage, Malpas was assigned the wardship of his wife’s youngest sister, Denise, but this proved a mixed blessing, for whereas Denise eventually went on to marry Hugh Wyche, Malpas (probably unwilling to part with the girl’s share of her father’s property) apparently opposed the match which was thus delayed until after August 1425 when the draper was discharged from his guardianship.23 Jnl. 2, f. 51. Denise died within the next nine years, whereupon Malpas and his wife added a tenement and shops in Thames Street to their possessions. His wife’s property aside, Malpas himself also acquired additional holdings. His ‘great place’ in Cornhill, known as the ‘Green Gate’, may well have been in his possession by the mid 1420s, or else acquired while he was already living in that part of the city. Other holdings included tenements in St. Andrew Eastcheap, St. Magnus and a tavern known as the Cock in St. Peter’s Cornhill,24 London hr 164/25, 26; 165/24, 31. while across the river in Southwark he accumulated two substantial houses, a tavern and a brewhouse known as the Bear and the Dolfyn, together with 12 shops and tenements, said to be worth £10 p.a. at the time of the death of his daughter in 1485.25 CCR, 1447-54, p. 255; C141/7/39.

Outside the capital, Malpas and his son-in-law Thomas Cook set about acquiring substantial holdings in Essex. By 1450 Malpas had purchased the manor and advowson of Chaldwell, valued at ten marks p.a. in 1485, from the descendants of Sir William Rickhill j.c.p. His connexion with the family dated back to the early 1430s when he was first appointed as one of the trustees of the Rickhill estates in Kent, Essex and Surrey.26 CCR, 1429-35, p. 187; 1447-54, p. 484; 1454-61, p. 347; Archaeologia Cantiana, xxxii. 68. Probably by virtue of his contacts at court, he acquired the manor of Bellhouse in the parish of Stanford Rivers, later valued at 100s. p.a., and other property in Chigwell and Havering atte Bower, which was believed to have been settled on feoffees headed by the then marquess of Suffolk by Elizabeth Hilton (daughter of Sir Robert†) pending their purchase by Malpas.27 C1/25/69-74; C141/7/39; VCH Essex, iv. 26, 213; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 38, 94.

Malpas’s rise through the ranks of the civic hierarchy began with his election in the autumn of 1431 as one of the four auditors of the city of London. While serving in this position he was selected by the commonalty in March 1432 as one of the city’s MPs, a clear indication that he was at this time perceived as a man of promise.28 Jnl. 3, f. 172. He was still at this stage able to count on the support of his fellow citizens when it came to civic appointments: in March 1439 he was chosen as one of the receivers of a loan of £1,000 which was to be raised by the city for the King. In September of the same year he was elected as one of the two sheriffs, but his tenure of this office resulted in controversy, when some of his men seized a fugitive from the sanctuary of St. Martin le Grand. The consequent dispute between the city and the college saw Malpas sent to the King as part of a deputation to explain the city’s position in the matter. He ended his shrievalty being owed more than £260 in expenses by the city, part of which were doubtless connected with the sanctuary crisis. On 15 Dec. 1440 a settlement of £175 was made, which left more than £85 still unpaid.29 Ibid. ff. 13, 59, 69; C49/68/21; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 241-2, 244.

In January 1442 Malpas, once more apparently able to rely on the full support of the commonalty, was elected to Parliament for a second time. The next step for Malpas, having served as both auditor and sheriff, was membership of the court of aldermen. In July 1444 he was a candidate for Bridge Ward, where he owned property, but was passed over in favour of Robert Horne. Such initial failure was not uncommon, but he was again unsuccessful in October, when Simon Eyre was preferred ahead of him for Walbrook Ward.30 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 296, 300. Curiously, Malpas now abandoned his quest for an aldermanry, and on 16 Nov. came before the court of aldermen to ask to be exonerated from his liability to join their ranks, a petition which was granted ‘for many reasons moving the court’. What exactly these reasons were, is unclear: Malpas was certainly wealthy enough to shoulder the financial burdens of the office, the usual excuse put forward by unwilling candidates.31 Jnl. 4, f. 50v. It is possible that a growing hostility towards him among London’s ruling elite, perhaps stemming from his expanding network of ties with government ministers and officials, but perhaps also related to his reputation as a usurer and ruthless businessman, played a part, yet in February 1445 he was still sufficiently well regarded to be appointed to a committee charged with raising money for the defence of the city. Whatever his reasons, just three years later, in 1448, he had changed his mind and was a candidate for the aldermanry of Lime Street Ward, vacant after the death of Robert Clopton. The election was delayed from February until 1 Apr. 1448 when he, along with three other men, was presented by the men of the ward. On this occasion, Malpas was elected, but it seems that he owed his election to a direct intervention by the King, a circumstance clearly unpalatable to the existing aldermen who made a point of stipulating that their acquiescence to the royal wishes should not be used as a precedent for depriving the mayor and aldermen of their right to choose aldermen on future occasions.32 Ibid. ff. 63v, 208v, 213v.

During what turned out to be a short-lived tenure of his aldermanry, Malpas endeavoured to move to the ward of Cornhill, the location of his main residence and of the shops of a number of prominent drapers. Again he was unsuccessful, losing out in March 1449 for a second time to Simon Eyre.33 Jnl. 5, f. 8v. Before long, however, failure to be chosen alderman of his own ward was to be the least of Malpas’s problems. The loss of Normandy to the French in the following year brought into the open a groundswell of popular discontent with the conduct of the King’s government, and in the early summer of 1450 found an outlet in a series of uprisings in the southern counties. In June, an army of Kentish rebels led by Jack Cade arrived on the outskirts of London and caused alarm in the city. With the departure of the King for Kenilworth on the 25th, the civic government was left to face them without royal support, and so tried to find ways of avoiding an attack. Malpas and Robert Horne were singled out as likely scapegoats. Perhaps as a result of the dubious circumstances of his election to the aldermanry, Malpas in particular was associated in the public imagination with the regime of the unpopular and recently murdered duke of Suffolk, and was among those of de la Pole’s supposed henchmen parodied in a popular dirge current at the time.34 Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 103. On 26 June, according to one chronicle, a large crowd came to the Guildhall, and ‘while the mayr satte the commons cryed fore upon Philip Malpas to haue hyn discharged of his Cloke and so he was forthwith; and Robert Horn, an other alderman, by Instigacion of the people was there arrestid and commyttid to Newgate’.35 Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 160. See also Gt. Chron. London ed. Thomas and Thornley, 183; Six Town Chrons. ed. Flenley, 106, 132-3; jnl. 5, f. 38v.

Malpas clearly knew that he was in danger, and while the rebels remained outside the city he took the opportunity to escape. His departure from London and the other measures taken by the city provided a breathing space during which time his son-in-law, Cook, was sent by the authorities to negotiate with Cade. These talks came to nothing and on 3 July the rebels entered London and as well as executing those ‘extorcioners’ found still to be there, they began to loot and despoil the houses of other hated figures. One of their targets was Malpas’s ‘Green Gate’ in Cornhill, where they were said to have taken

in specyalle moche mony, bothe of sylvyr and golde, the valowe of a notabylle some, and in specyalle of marchaundys, as of tynne, woode, madyr, and alym, whythe grette quantyte of wollyn clothe and many ryche jewellys, whythe othyr notabylle stuffe of fedyr beddys, beddyng, napery and many a ryche clothe of arys, to the valewe of a notabylle sum.36 Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 191-2.

The effect of the looting, according to another chronicler, was to increase the uncertainty in the city, especially among ‘those that were substanciall’ and who thus feared the consequences for their own possessions.37 Chrons. London, 161.

The rebels’ incursion left Malpas’s fortunes in tatters. No longer an alderman, and clearly unpopular with the commonalty, he had little reason to want to return to the capital in the short term. Yet, rather than play down his connexions with the Crown, he chose to extend them and, in particular, to increase dramatically the level of his financial support. On 9 July 1451 he made a loan of some £397 2s., and in 1453-4, after he had returned to London, he stepped up his contributions still further. Having advanced £100 on 5 Mar. 1453, he found a further £1,200 on the following 16 July, after the King’s ministers had requested, and been refused, a loan of £10,000 from the city government. In the following year he provided additional sums of £680, to help pay for the defences of Guînes castle, £1,000, which was allocated to the expenses of the Household, and – towards the end of 1454 – a final £220.38 E401/821, m. 13; 830, m. 39; 831, m. 34; 834, mm. 38, 39; 839, m. 7; E403/785, m. 6; 793, mm. 4, 15-16; 796, m. 15; 798, m. 4; 800, m. 13; W. Smith, ‘R. Finance and Politics, 1450-5’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 97-98, 233, 341, App. VI. In just under two years, therefore, Malpas had contributed almost £3,500 to the Exchequer, loans which were all the more significant as being made by him alone, rather than as part of a consortium.

Although evidently back in London, Malpas maintained a low profile. By the autumn of 1455, however, he had apparently been drawn into yet another dispute, for on 17 Oct. Robert Horne was questioned as to whether he had witnessed an altercation between Malpas and John Broddesworth. It was probably with this in mind, as well as other potential suits that may have faced him, that the previous month Malpas had sued out yet another royal pardon.39 Jnl. 5, f. 267; C67/41, m. 31. Over the next three years he remained relatively inactive in the administration of London, although in September 1457 he was appointed to a finance committee, the first such appointment he had received since 1449. This minor appointment did not, however, herald a return to the civic career which had been so abruptly terminated in 1450.40 Jnl. 6, f. 179. Moreover, Malpas’s political alignment during the final political crisis of Henry VI’s reign is difficult to follow. Although he was among those prepared to stand surety for the duke of York’s long standing servant Thomas Young II to secure his release on bail from the Tower, to which he had been returned on allegations of treason in February 1460 when York’s fortunes were arguably at their lowest ebb, it seems that he took this step on account of personal connexions, rather than political considerations. Malpas’s fellow mainpernors included several men with whom he had been associated in the 1440s and 1450s, such as his grand-daughter’s husband, John Forster, Young’s brother John*, and William Venour,41 CCR, 1454-61, p. 420; P. Nightingale, Med. Mercantile Community, 513. and furthermore, less than a month later, on 3 Mar., he lent 100 marks to the government in support of the keeping of the seas against an expected invasion by the exiled Yorkists at Calais.42 E402/868, m. 22. He must thus have executed an exceptionally nimble about-turn when the Yorkists invaded later in the year, won a victory at Northampton and took control of the King and government. Perhaps this was facilitated by his ties to men like Thomas Young and earlier acquaintance with York himself. Nevertheless, there were evidently some who sought to take advantage of the changed political situation: on 26 Oct. Malpas was summoned to appear in Chancery under pain of £1,000.43 C254/37/46.

Malpas’s remarkable conversion was evidently not lost on Queen Margaret, who marked him out as an important enemy, so much so that when the Lancastrian forces threatened London following their victory at the second battle of St Albans in February 1461, he took flight abroad for a second time. While the city governors did their best to persuade her not to attack the city, Malpas did not wait for the outcome of their negotiations. Evidently fearful of reprisals, should the capital fall to Margaret, he embarked for Zeeland on a ship from Antwerp. His travelling companions included John Forster, and two men who had similarly changed their allegiances, Thomas Vaughan* and Master William Hatcliffe, the royal physician Soon after embarking, however, the ship was captured by a French vessel and they were taken to France to be ransomed.44 Chrons. London, 174, 317; Gt. Chron. London, 195; C. Scofield, Edw. IV, i. 147. Malpas and his fellows had had good reason to take ship, for even after being herself driven into exile by the victorious Edward IV, Margaret did her best to lay hands on the fugitives In letters written in the summer of 1461 successively to Charles VII and after his death to Louis XI, she tried to win French support for an invasion, and asked for the revocation of all safe conducts granted to York’s adherents, and particularly for the return, on her promise to pay their ransoms, of Malpas, Vaughan and other ‘rebels’. Fortunately for the English captives, the French refused to co-operate, and in the autumn of that year Edward IV, through the efforts of his ambassador Louis Galet, managed to secure their release, probably by making arrangements for the ransoms of 4,000 marks to be paid out of their own goods.45 Scofield, i. 161-2, 188, 210; John Vale’s Bk. 83.

By February 1462, when Malpas sued out a general pardon from King Edward, he had returned to England, and he now opted for a life of quiet retirement, although he made sure to show his gratitude to the new ruler with a loan of £100.46 C67/45, m. 40; E403/825, m. 12. He was not, however, to enjoy peace for long, for now his son-in-law, Thomas Cook, demanded compensation for goods of his that, as he claimed, had been seized when Malpas’s ship had been intercepted in 1461. Malpas vigorously denied any liability, but evidently without avail, for in his last will and testament, drawn up in April 1469, barely a month before his death, he was still reduced to pleading that

... where as it hath been denied and surmysed by the said Sir Thomas Cooke heretofore yat I the said Philip Malpas was the cause [of] tarying and taking of the goodes of the said Sir Thomas Cook which were takin in a ship which I was in uppon the see whan I last passed over the see. I the said Philip Malpas for my acquitall and discharge in that behalf sey and declare verely upon my conscience yat I was never the cause of suche said tarying or takyng of the said ship and goodes of the sid Sir Thomas Cooke therin. And that the said ship with goodes was never so taried nor takyn in my cause of defaute as I woll answer unto God.

By this time, Cook himself faced troubles of his own, and perhaps mindful of this Malpas made generous provision for his daughter Elizabeth (Cook’s wife) and her children, leaving Elizabeth 500 marks worth of goods, while a similar quantity was to be divided between her four sons. John Forster and his wife Joan, Malpas’s grand-daughter, were given a silver cup each. Also remembered were a nephew and two nieces, the children of Malpas’s sister, as well as his household servants. The testator’s charitable bequests included several to poor parishioners of St. Andrew’s Cornhill, as well as donations to the priory and hospital of St. Mary Spital, recently damaged by fire. To the poor almsmen of the Drapers’ Company he left 40s. p.a. for five years, as well as a standing cup of silver and gilt to the Company as a whole. Generous bequests to London’s prisoners included £25 for bread for five years and money to buy 400 shirts and smocks. In St. Andrew’s church, where he wished to be buried, a chantry was to be established for two years for his soul, the souls of his late wife, Juliana, their parents, and their daughter Philippa Josselyn who had died a few years previously. Philippa’s former husband Ralph Josselyn* was appointed an executor, and bequeathed 100 marks for his efforts.

Of Malpas’s immovable property in London the Cooks were to have the ‘great place’ in Cornhill as well as his property in St. Andrew Eastcheap, the shop in Bridge Street and all the Southwark tenements. The Cock in Cornhill was left to the Forsters, with remainder to Cook and his heirs. The reversion of all these holdings was left to Malpas’s nephew Thomas Ram and his heirs. Ralph Josselyn, despite the fact that Philippa was dead, was bequeathed the manor of Chaldwell for his life, with subsequent reversion to Thomas Cook’s son, Philip. Cook and his wife were also left Bellhouse, Appultons and the other Essex holdings and these were to be divided after their deaths between their younger sons, Thomas, William and John. In spite of these clear instructions, the descendants of Malpas’s two daughters began to squabble over the division of the inheritance just as soon as Elizabeth Cook had died in 1485.47 C1/57/3-4, 9-13; John Vale’s Bk. 97-100.