OVEREY, William

A native of Ireland, Overey settled in Southampton before October 1388, when in association with John Polymond† he arrested a barge belonging to Sir John Roches†, the former captain of Brest in Brittany, in order to recover sums of money owing for corn supplied to victual the garrison. In response to the proclamation requiring Irishmen to return to their home country on pain of forfeiting their possessions, in July 1394 he paid £5 for a licence to remain in Southampton, where he had established his business as a merchant and was currently serving as the town’s steward.4 CCR, 1385-9, pp. 541-2; CPR, 1391-6, p. 458. By that date Overey was living on the west side of English Street in the parish of Holy Rood, and he later also held property in French Street. His house near St. Michael’s church was built over a vault, which he probably used to store wine and other commodities. Despite his appointment to two ad hoc royal commissions to investigate the withholding of dues to God’s House in Southampton, on occasion he himself failed to pay the rent he owed to the warden, notably 3s. p.a. for this vault; in 1406 this was found to be two years in arrear.5 Soton. recs. SC4/2/156; Cart. God’s House, ii (Soton Rec. Ser. xx), 242-3, 251; CCR, 1405-9, pp. 178, 180. During his second mayoralty Overey took on a lease from John Barflete of two tenements in Bugle Street, next to another building of his, agreeing to pay him 20s. a year. At the same time he himself let out a messuage elsewhere in the town to Laurence and Agnes Goldsmith, for 10s. p.a. for the first 32 years and thereafter at double that amount.6 God’s House deeds, 593; CP25(1)/207/30/43.

Few details of Overey’s trading activities are recorded, although by the late 1390s he had entered a partnership with Geoffrey Hebbe*, a merchant from Chichester. In May 1398 in the staple court at Chichester they received from the Sussex esquire Robert Tauk† a bond in £9 12s. 4½d. Tauk failed to repay them before he died, and it was not until June 1410 that the two creditors were given temporary possession of his manor of Westhampnett and other holdings worth £7 p.a. as compensation. Similarly, in 1399 Overey and Hebbe received a bond for £6 for merchandise sold at the staple to John Slyfhurst of Midhurst and John atte Mill, but in this case their debtors escaped justice for more than five years, and even then although Slyfhurst was imprisoned at Guildford his associate could not be found.7 C131/57/14; 218/20; 219/15, 27; 220/1; C241/193/98. Overey sometimes supplied materials for the building of ships in Southampton Water, most notably wood to construct a balinger for the duke of Bedford’s naval expedition of 1416.8 Navy of Lancastrian Kings (Navy Recs. Soc. cxxiii), 223. In the Michaelmas term of 1422 he was sued by William Chamberlain*, possibly already recorder of Southampton, for having in collaboration with a local carpenter and a mason entered his property by force and stolen timber worth £10.9 CP40/647, rot. 94. Overey’s interest in the Spanish trade is evident from the recognizances in £200 which he and another Southampton man entered to the King in 1425 as a guarantee that the masters of the Seynt Marie and the Seynt Petre, both freighted by merchants from Bilbao, would unload their cargoes only in Southampton, Bristol or London.10 CCR, 1422-9, p. 212.

Overey’s dealings with the Italian merchants who came to Southampton led to his marriage, late in life, to an Englishwoman named Agnes whose former husband, Bartolomeo Marmora, the resident Florentine agent in the port, had taken out letters patent of denization in 1417. Overey brought up her children, who included Laurence Marmora alias Overey, and assisted her to recover debts owed to her late husband Bartolomeo. For instance, in the Easter term of 1425 he and Agnes brought an action in the court of common pleas against a dyer from Newport, Isle of Wight, for the sum of £3.11 Italian Merchants in Southampton (Soton. Rec. Ser. i), 121-2; CP40/657, rot. 402d. More seriously, back in 1418 Marmora had sold 41 bales of woad to John Mascall* for £94, of which £28 was still owing. Mascall himself had died not long after the transaction, so that Overey and his wife had to petition the chancellor, Bishop Beaufort, for redress against his executors.12 C1/6/19-20. After her second marriage Agnes remained on good terms with Italians visiting England: Luca di Maso degli Albizzi, the captain of the Florentine galleys for the Flanders voyage of 1429-30, paid a visit to the Overeys during his stay in Southampton and presented her with a basket he had bought in Majorca.13 Navy of Lancastrian Kings, 15, 241.

Overey was engaged in the affairs of Southampton over a period of 33 years, during which he officiated as mayor for two terms and alderman (and ex officio j.p.) for at least 12. Curiously, it was not until his participation in local government had apparently ended that he was elected to the Parliament summoned to meet at Leicester in February 1426. Perhaps his willingness to travel to Leicester may be explained by his suit against Mascall’s executors and his petition to the chancellor Beaufort. Overey last witnessed a deed in Southampton on 19 Feb. 1433,14 Soton. recs. SC4/2/264. and died within the next two years. The widowed Agnes continued to occupy his properties in Southampton for at least 27 years longer, but the rents she owed to God’s House sometimes had to be pardoned on account of her poverty.15 Cart. God’s House, ii. 242-3, 251; Southampton Terrier 1454 (Soton. Rec. Ser. xv), nos. 167-8, 305-9, 313. She became involved in litigation with the prominent Fleming family over other holdings in Southampton, and in a letter which still survives complained about the behaviour of John Fleming*, the future recorder, who had been harassing her tenants. In the same letter she commended William Soper* (long a prominent figure in the port because of his role in the administration of the King’s navy), for always showing her and her children friendship. Hoping to secure the patronage of the duke of Gloucester, she promised to ‘ever be a trewe bede woman’ to him.16 Hants RO, Clarke Jervoise mss, 18M64/21/28. William Overey left at least three children, John, William and Juliana, who were presumably all still quite young when he died. His eventual heir was his namesake William, who inherited his property in about 1467, after the death of Agnes. This younger William had joined his mother in a recognizance to the Berkshire landowner Edward Langford* esquire in 100 marks, which, contracted in November 1454, they had still not honoured by June 1466.17 C. Platt, Med. Southampton, 254; C241/250/9. He subsequently took a prominent part in Southampton affairs, rising to be mayor like his father before him, and was knighted before the autumn of 1483 when he rose in rebellion against Richard III.18 Ric. III, Crown and People ed. Petre, 136-8. The precise relationship between our MP and Thomas Overey† alias Marmora, the merchant or esquire who represented Southampton in the Parliaments of 1485 and 1491, is not recorded, although Thomas’s alias would point to him being another one of Agnes’s descendants.19 C67/52, m. 5.