PENRITH, John

The Penriths were a long-established local family. Robert Penrith† represented Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the Parliament of 1348, and Thomas Penrith, a merchant, played an active part in the town’s affairs in the 1420s and 1430s. In 1429 he attested the borough’s parliamentary election; he served as a juror in the inquisitions held in the town on the deaths of the great merchant, Roger Thornton†, in 1430 and of John, duke of Bedford, in 1436; and in 1434-5 he held office as the town’s sheriff.6 C219/14/1; CIPM, xxiii. 377; xxiv. 531; Welford, i. 294. John was probably Thomas’s son, and he had established himself in Newcastle’s affairs by January 1447 when he too attested its parliamentary election. Thereafter he quickly advanced to a position of prominence. In November 1452 he received a royal grant of the office of tronager and pesager within the port (although he held the office for only five months), and at the following Michaelmas he was chosen as the town’s sheriff. Soon after, on 2 July 1455, he was elected to represent the town in Parliament, alongside the wool merchant, Alan Bird*. His own involvement in the wool trade may explain his election, as the concerns of the Calais staple were prominent in this Parliament. 7 C219/15/4; 16/4; Welford, i. 331; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 27, 47.

On 21 Oct. 1456, not long after the conclusion of this Parliament, Penrith secured further advancement with appointment as customs collector in Newcastle, and he was eminently qualified for his election as mayor in September 1458. In the following February, while mayor, he secured from the Crown the farm of the alnage in Northumberland and Newcastle for 24 years (at an annual farm of a modest 11s.), and took a 20-year lease of the ‘King’s Meadow’ by the river Tyne, a lease granted only the previous year to his friend, Alan Bird. 8 CFR, xix. 219, 222, 229; Welford, i. 338. It was doubtless these grants that brought them into conflict with the keeper of the fisheries on the Tyne, John Broun, who had earlier succeeded him as tronager. In April 1459, along with his associates, Bird and John Richardson*, he was accused of assaulting Broun, and preventing him discharging his office of keeper. This was clearly a more important matter than it appears, for Penrith and his fellow accused appeared personally to answer in the Exchequer in every term from Hilary 1460 until the end of the reign, when it remained unresolved. It may also be that the dispute informed the decision of both Penrith and Richardson to stand for election to the Parliament of November 1459, even though the Parliament convened at Coventry rather than Westminster.9 E159/235, recorda Easter rot. 34; C219/16/5.

Whether Penrith supported the Lancastrian regime in this Parliament can only be a matter for speculation. In the following autumn he was removed as collector of customs in the aftermath of the Yorkist victory at Northampton, and in November 1461 he surrendered his grant of the alnage to the Exchequer clerk, William Green.10 CFR, xix. 253; xx. 25. This may suggest that he was held in disfavour by the new government, but it may equally represent no more than the normal turnover of offices.

Little evidence survives of Penrith’s personal affairs, save for his involvement in overseas trade. In 1450 he was among a group of Newcastle merchants, including Bird and Richardson, who secured relief from the customs due on two lost cargoes of wool (on The Peter of Newcastle, lost to storms, and Le Mariknight of Dordrecht, lost to pirates from Dieppe) exported in 1446 and 1449.11 Welford, i. 322-3; E159/227, brevia Hil. rot. 29. In the 1450s and 1460s he continued to ship wool and fells from Newcastle, but the quantities were reasonably small (260 ‘schorlynges’ and three pokes of wool in 1454-5), and he does not appear to have traded in any of the other commodities (coal, iron and lead) frequently exported by his fellow townsmen.12 Newcastle-upon-Tyne Customs Accts. 1454-1500 (Surtees Soc. ccii), 8-19, 54, 80, 82.

Penrith married, although the identity of his wife is unknown. In a Chancery petition of the early 1480s she was said to be a cousin of Robert Folbery†, then recorder of Newcastle. This petition, presented by John Broun, a chapman from Darlington, co. Durham, also sheds further light on Penrith’s business dealings. Broun claimed to have given Penrith woolfells to take to London to satisfy a debt of £11 they jointly owed to another John Broun, a London mercer (neither of these John Brouns are to be identified with the man who had succeeded our MP as tronager). On his return Penrith gave the obligation to his wife, who, instead of cancelling it, after her husband’s death sued an action of debt upon it against the Darlington Broun with the connivance of her erstwhile cousin.13 C1/61/368. The date of Penrith’s death is unknown. The last references to him are probably to be dated to the early 1470s. In April 1471 he joined Peter Bledy in leasing from the mayor and community a close called ‘Whin Close’ in the Castle Field at the not inconsiderable annual rent of 13s. 4d.; and in the following year he attested the town’s parliamentary election.14 Welford, i. 361; C219/17/2. Later references are more likely to relate to his son John, who followed his mercantile profession, exporting wool from the port from at least the late 1480s and serving as sheriff of Newcastle in 1498-9.15 Newcastle-upon-Tyne Customs Accts. 169, 173, 184, 202; Welford, i. 408.