THIRSK, John

Thirsk was perhaps the most important figure to represent York in Henry VI’s Parliaments. A wool merchant, he served several spells as mayor of the Calais staple during a crucial period of the Wars of the Roses and, as such, he emerged in the 1460s as an important supporter of the Yorkist regime. His origins, however, are obscure. He may have been related to the fuller William Thresk who purchased the freedom of the city in 1379-80, or to another William, a tailor, who was admitted in similar fashion in 1403. Robert Thresk, the son of the latter, entered the freedom by patrimony in 1412-13. John, for his part, was evidently not a son of a freeman, for he had to purchase the freedom in 1427, probably on the occasion of his marriage to Christine, the sister of the wealthy stapler, Richard Russell, who before his death in 1435 appointed Thirsk as one of his executors.11 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 77, 107, 119, 139; CP40/739, rot. 314d.

The marriage also guaranteed Thirsk an early entry into York’s governing elite. He was appointed as one of the city’s chamberlains in February 1433, and further office followed quickly. In September 1435 he was chosen sheriff, and as such he was called upon in November to purvey goose feathers for the making of arrows in anticipation of the defence of Calais from Burgundian attack. In the following month he was also charged with collecting the parliamentary subsidy in the city. It is likely that he already had a personal interest in Calais affairs, following his brother-in-law by becoming a merchant of the staple, although the extent of his commercial activities at this point is obscure. By this stage of his career he had not amassed any great wealth and he was assessed at only £5 p.a. towards the parliamentary subsidy he had been authorized to collect.12 E179/217/42. At the end of his shrievalty Thirsk joined the ranks of the city’s council of 24 and is recorded as attending his first meeting as such in December 1436. By January 1442, when he attested the city’s parliamentary election, he had become one of the aldermen and in the following month he was himself elected mayor. His mayoralty was uneventful, although he was appointed to two ad hoc commissions and he supervised the assessment of the new alien subsidy. Early in 1445 he was elected to attend the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 25 Feb., his companion on this occasion being his fellow alderman and old colleague as sheriff, Richard Bukden*. The two men received wages for 30 days spent at Westminster in February and March 1445, and returned to York on 20 Mar. (five days after the session’s close). Both travelled again to Westminster for the second session, spending 44 days away from home from the beginning of April. For the third session they received wages for another 63 days each, and they also returned to Westminster for the final session, although the lack of a surviving chamberlains’ account for the subsequent financial year makes it impossible to tell whether they remained for the duration (until April 1446). On 10 Nov. 1445 Thirsk had secured letters patent granting him life-long exemption from serving as mayor and in other offices in York and elsewhere, but local affairs may have provided the background for this grant. The Parliament coincided with the city’s attempts to settle a long-running dispute with the abbey of St. Mary over the latter’s placement of fishgarths in the river Ouse. Bukden and Thirsk played a pivotal role in York’s efforts to secure favourable judgements in the King’s courts in this matter, as well as over the parties’ respective rights to sell victuals in the city. Gifts were given to various lawyers and royal servants, including the King’s attorney John Vampage* and Thomas Urswyk II*, as well as the former treasurer of England, Lord Cromwell.13 York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 34, 55; CPR, 1441-6, p. 395.

Despite the letters patent exempting him from civic office, Thirsk was soon once again playing a full part in York’s affairs. In January 1447 he again attested the parliamentary election; two months later he served on a commission of oyer and terminer; in February 1448 he was named to a commission to deliver the city’s gaol, and in July he was among the aldermen commissioned to inquire into allegations of treason made against John Marton. On 20 Jan. 1449 Thirsk was present in the council chamber to witness his own election to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Westminster the following month. He was returned alongside another wealthy York stapler and then mayor, John Karr*.14 C219/15/5, 6. Concerns over both the wool trade and the defence of Calais were to be voiced in the forthcoming assembly, and the election of Thirsk and Karr to Parliament was almost certainly connected with their personal mercantile interests. Both men set out from York on 5 Feb., a week before the Parliament began, and they remained at Westminster until 13 Apr. They received wages of £13 4s. each for 65 days, at the customary rate. Illness, however, prevented Thirsk from taking his seat among the Commons for the Parliament’s second and third sessions, and it was Karr alone who represented the city’s interests in May, June and July. Even if the affairs of the staplers were important to both of York’s representatives, they did not neglect the city’s business: as well as making gifts to lawyers, they were paid 20s. ‘pro copia diversorum actorum parliamenti’ for the city’s records.15 York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 67-68; York City Archs., chamberlains’ accts. 1449-50, CC1a, f. 12v. On 12 Oct. 1450 Thirsk was returned to Parliament for the third time, alongside another prominent merchant and alderman, William Holbeck*. Unfortunately, on this occasion nothing is known of his activities at Westminster, or the length of his stay during the Parliament’s three sessions which lasted until May 1451, but doubtless the affairs of the Calais staple again preoccupied him during his time among the Commons.

Like many other York staplers, Thirsk was intricately involved in the financial transactions between the Calais merchants and the English Crown. On 20 Oct. 1449 the King agreed that for a term of four years the staplers might ship specified quantities of wool and woolfells without paying customs until satisfied of the sum of £10,700 owing to them from the Crown. Thirsk, Karr and Richard Lematon* were allowed to recover a total of £315 12s. from customs due at Kingston-upon-Hull; and in March the following year Thirsk, acting with other Yorkshire and Lincolnshire merchants, was licensed to recover his part of the £800 lent for the despatch to Calais of a force under Ralph, Lord Sudeley. Part of this sum, £157 16s., was still outstanding in October 1454, and they then received new licences to ship wool free of customs from Hull.16 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 316, 320. Thirsk was also personally engaged in the efforts to secure the staplers’ trading privileges and markets in the Low Countries. In July 1449 he had been one of a number of merchants named to an embassy to Flanders for renewing the truce and to secure the release of English goods seized in the Low Countries in the aftermath of the attack on the Bay Fleet. Thirsk had contributed towards the cost of this embassy and the sum of 4,000 marks which the ambassadors agreed the merchants would pay for the restitution of their goods, but the repayment of these sums also proved troublesome. In October 1454 he received further letters patent authorizing him to recover the outstanding amount of £32 11s. 6½d. by shipping wool free of customs from Hull in partnership with Thomas Beverley*, and a further £124 5s. 5½d. with the Hull staplers, Robert Auncell* and Hugh Clitheroe*.17 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 210-12; CCR, 1454-61, p. 22.

Throughout the early 1450s Thirsk remained active in civic affairs while becoming increasingly involved in the concerns of the Calais staple. In May 1452 he was named to a commission of gaol delivery, and in February the following year he again attested the parliamentary election. The spring of 1454 saw him commissioned to levy a loan of 100 marks from the city to equip a force to protect the Narrow Seas and the English Channel for English shipping, while the following month he was arresting vessels in Hull to fit out the fleet. The loan of 100 marks was duly collected and, because of the urgency of the situation, delivered not to the Exchequer in Westminster but to the merchants, Richard Anson* and John Acclom*, acting on behalf of the fleet’s commanders, the earls of Salisbury, Worcester and Wiltshire. Thirsk and his fellow collector, the alderman John Shirwode, then received repayment of the loan from the custom collectors in Hull, according to the provision made in the Parliament of the previous year. Nevertheless, the barons of the Exchequer began proceedings against them for the 100 marks and it was not until 26 Oct. 1458 that the King sent a privy seal writ ordering them to stop process.18 E159/235, recorda Mich. rot. 58.

The personal intervention of the King in this potentially troublesome business may have reflected Thirsk’s increasing importance in national affairs. By May 1456, when provision was made for the repayment of further loans from merchants of the staple totalling £2,000, he had become mayor of the staple in succession to Robert White*.19 CPR, 1452-61, p. 279. While White had negotiated the crucial deal by which Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, had entered Calais and the wages of the garrison had been secured by the staplers’ cash, Thirsk faced a new challenge to the Company’s privileges in the form of the increasing number of licences sold from October 1454 onwards enabling individuals to bypass the Calais staple. In 1457, amidst growing disquiet about such licences granted to Italian merchants, English ships from Sandwich and Calais seized Dutch vessels containing Italian goods at Tilbury, while London saw anti-Italian riots. In the following year Thirsk, acting in his capacity as mayor of the Calais staple, joined with the mayor and aldermen of London to inquire into offences against commercial regulations at the Guildhall. Along with the new treasurer of England, the earl of Shrewsbury, he presented many of the accusations, involving both aliens and denizens, himself. The result of these prosecutions was to strengthen the position of the merchants of the staple, confirming their trading privileges and the arrangements made for the repayment of their various loans to the Crown,20 English Trade in 15th Cent. ed. Power and Postan, 310-12; E159/236, recorda Hil. rot. 8. and Thirsk’s personal efforts in bringing these matters to a satisfactory conclusion earned him a reward of £60.21 E403/816, m. 4. Deprived of the income from the sale of licences and faced with mounting pressure from its creditors, the Crown was soon forced to approach the staplers for further loans. On 11 Dec. 1458 the Company agreed to lend £1,000 per quarter to meet the costs of the royal household. Repayment was to be made from the wool customs and an embassy was despatched to the Low Countries to ensure the staplers’ privileges were properly observed. On 31 Dec. and in again in April the following year Thirsk was granted licences to ship wool in accordance with the agreement, but exactly how much money was delivered to the Crown under its terms is unclear.22 English Trade in 15th Cent. 313-14; DKR, xlviii. 436. Indeed, it seems the agreement collapsed as the staplers increasingly lent their support to the Yorkist lords. In Hilary term 1460 the King’s attorney, William Nottingham II*, complained before the barons of the Exchequer that the merchants had failed to deliver the previous instalment of £1,000 (£200 in cash and £800 in obligations) according to the agreement made in December 1458. Along with the Londoners John Walden*, John Tate and John Croke, Thirsk was summoned to appear before the barons on 19 Feb. The merchants disputed the veracity of Nottingham’s claims and their case was still in process when Edward, duke of York, seized the throne in March 1461.23 E159/236, recorda Hil. rot. 8.

The staplers’ sympathies for the Yorkist lords and in particular for the captain of Calais, the earl of Warwick, were perhaps inevitable given the importance of the town and marches to the prosperity of their own trade and the prospects of recovering their loans to the Crown. In May 1458 Thirsk had been appointed to an embassy, led by Warwick, to treat with the duke of Burgundy. Along with other staplers, he advanced £846 6s. 8d. to meet its costs and received a licence to ship wool free of customs to recover the sum.24 CPR, 1452-61, p. 423; Foedera, v (2), 80. The embassy’s outcome provided a boost to the staplers’ position when the duke found in their favour with regard to their long-running dispute with the Merchant Adventurers concerning jurisdiction over English merchants in the Low Countries.25 PPC, vi. 253-4; A.F. Sutton, Mercery of London, 257-9; English Trade in 15th Cent. 315-16. The precise extent to which the Company of the Calais staple assisted the Yorkist lords in their invasion of England in 1460 and subsequent seizure of the throne is now unclear; interestingly, however, at some point in 1460 Thirsk was replaced as mayor of the staple by John Walden. The reasons for this step remain obscure, and it is possible that the day-to-day duties continued to be carried out by Thirsk’s previous deputy, the Reading stapler, John Prout*.26 Sel. Cases before King’s Council (Selden Soc. xxxv), 112. Certainly, Thirsk had returned to York by 22 May 1460, when he was present at a council meeting and where on 1 Sept. he attested the parliamentary election. In the following month he was licenced, along with the city’s recorder, Guy Fairfax, and his fellow alderman, John Shirwode, to establish a perpetual chantry in the church of St. John the Baptist, Hungate, to pray for their souls and also those of Thirsk’s former brother-in-law, Richard Russell, and his wife.27 York Memoranda Bk. ii. 204; C219/16/6; CPR, 1452-61, p. 632.

Nevertheless, there is no suggestion that Thirsk had fallen foul of the new Yorkist rulers: indeed, he soon began to play his part in the establishment of Yorkist rule in the north. In May 1461 he was named to a commission of oyer and terminer to inquire into treasons committed by John Morton (the future archbishop of Canterbury). A year later, Edward IV intervened directly in the election of the new mayor of York. The details of the supposed obstruction of the election by the commons of the city are obscure, but Edward ordered the citizens to elect Thirsk to the office, and wrote to them on 3 Mar. 1462 to thank them for confirming Thirsk’s appointment and remind them of their duty to be obedient to him. The writ was at pains to emphasize Thirsk’s reluctance to take on the office (‘he hath take upon him full sore agenst his wyll, sauf only at the pleaser of us’), and Thirsk appears indeed to have been in London when Edward intervened, forcing the aldermen to send Christopher Berwick to escort the new mayor back to York. During this, his second mayoralty, Thirsk organized the city’s contingent to serve with the earl of Warwick in suppressing the Lancastrian strongholds in Northumberland and in November also welcomed the King himself to the city.28 E28/90; York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 113-15.

Thirsk’s reluctance to serve as mayor of York in 1462-3 may have owed something to his continued preoccupation with the affairs of the Calais staple. With Edward IV’s accession, the staplers’ relationship with the Crown became closer than it had ever been. The merchants continued to lend large sums not only to meet the costs of the Calais garrison, but also to pay for the royal household and the campaigns in the north of England. By April 1463 the outstanding loans totalled some £32,861 and in January 1465 terms for their repayment from the wool customs were agreed in Parliament.29 PROME, xiii. 207-9. Thirsk’s own role in providing these loans and the negotiations which followed must have been pivotal and he was able to secure royal patronage that reflected his importance to the Yorkist regime. In April 1464 he headed a list of staplers who received a pardon for trade offences, and in November the same year he was granted joint custody of the King’s stank on the river Fosse. Two years later he received another licence for his chantry in St. John’s, Hungate, this time with provision to acquire lands in mortmain to the value of £6 p.a.30 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 351, 357, 541. It is possible that these grants were secured while Thirsk was again serving in the Commons as one of the MPs for York. The names of the city’s representatives in the Parliament which assembled at Westminster on 29 Apr. 1463 and lasted until 28 Mar. 1465 are unknown, but Thirsk was a likely candidate for election and, once again, the concerns of the staplers formed an important part of parliamentary business. Four days before the dissolution of Parliament further provision was made for the repayment of another loan of £11,728 not covered by the January agreement.31 CPR, 1461-7, p. 438. During 1466 negotiations between the staplers and the King continued for a more lasting solution for both the repayment of the Crown’s debts to the staplers and the payment of the Calais garrison. Probably during the late summer the parties entered into the so-called ‘act of retainer’, an agreement by which the staplers agreed to receive the entire wool customs and in return meet the costs of the garrison for the next eight and a half years. They were to retain £5,000 p.a. from the customs in discharge of the Crown’s debts to them. Thirsk’s own role in these negotiations was evident from the King’s instructions to the Exchequer in November to immediately satisfy him of debts amounting to just over £46.32 E404/73/1/96; PROME, xiii. 347; English Trade in 15th Cent. 78-79.

Thirsk’s election to the Parliament that assembled at Westminster on 3 June 1467 was clearly connected to the parliamentary confirmation of the agreement made between the King and the staplers in the previous year. He attended the Parliament, which lasted until 7 June 1468, for a total of 54 days ‘ad diversas vices’, ten days more than his colleague, John Marshall†. His activity in promoting York’s interests is in evidence in gifts of 6s. 8d. to the usher and clerk of Parliament, as well as to several of the King’s serjeants-at-arms.33 York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, 127-8. Despite this, it is probable that the majority of his time was spent on business relating to Calais. On 13 Dec. 1466 the treasurer of Calais, Thomas Blount*, and victualler, Ralph Wolseley*, had formally surrendered their offices in favour of Thirsk, who by now was once again serving as mayor of the staple. Both grants were confirmed in the first session of the Parliament and entered on the parliament roll. Nevertheless, the circumstances under which the act of retainer had been negotiated (an essentially private agreement made between the King and the staplers in the council chamber) caused some confusion. Thirsk duly rendered account as treasurer from 5 Apr. 1466, but despite the grant of the office of victualler also being backdated to April this was deemed to be ‘not sufficient in law’ by the barons of the Exchequer and thus no victuals were supplied to the Calais garrison. In the autumn of 1466 Thirsk appeared before the King and council and was commanded to deduct the customary third penny of the garrison’s wages to pay for the victuals, and a writ was eventually sent to the barons in March 1468 ordering them to account with Thirsk for the office of victualler from 13 Dec. 1466.34 E101/197/1; PROME, xiii. 347; CPR, 1461-7, p. 356.

Nevertheless, in April 1469 Thirsk was replaced as mayor of the Calais staple by his former lieutenant, John Prout.35 E364/104, rot. C; 105, rot. A. It is likely that Prout had served as his deputy throughout the late 1460s and that Thirsk’s apparent retirement may simply have been due to old age or temporary infirmity, although as recently as July the previous year he had been named among the quorum of a commission to investigate the boundaries of the English Pale.36 SC1/57/104. However, it is also possible that the change in office reflected the shift in allegiance of the Calais establishment under the earl of Warwick, especially as Thirsk’s return to the post coincided with Warwick’s fall. On 14 Apr. 1471 the earl was defeated and killed at the battle of Barnet. Nine days earlier Thirsk had resumed office as mayor of the Calais staple and he also once more took over from Prout the duties of the treasurer and victualler of Calais. The staplers had continued to support King Edward during his exile and on 22 July they were allowed to retain the surplus of the wool customs after meeting their obligations under the act of retainer until September 1474 in repayment of loans totalling £20,276 8s. made during the previous months. The grant also explicitly confirmed Thirsk in office as treasurer and victualler.37 CPR, 1467-77, p. 270. It is unclear when he returned to Calais in person, but he may have crossed the Channel in the company of the new lieutenant of the garrison, William, Lord Hastings, in August, for on 3 Aug. he was named to the commission appointed to take the musters of Warwick’s former garrison and determine the wages due to them prior to their discharge. It is unclear how much time Thirsk spent in Calais in these final years of his life. On 12 June 1472 he was named to a diplomatic commission empowered to treat with the Burgundians to settle the boundaries of the English Pale, although he was not part of the quorum.38 C76/155, m. 26; 156, m. 19. He was, however, also still active in York and in the same year paid his 4d. for membership of the York Mercers’ guild.39 York Mercers (Surtees Soc. cxxix), 66.

Given his prominence in local and national affairs, surprisingly little is known of Thirsk’s private concerns. Despite his standing in the Company of the staple he does not appear to have been a major exporter of wool during the 1460s, although he did continue until his death to ship various other commodities, including woad, iron, corn and alum from Kingston-upon-Hull.40 Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. cxliv), 2-3, 15, 17, 30, 34, 74, 78, 94, 99, 103, 116-18, 124, 181-3. Even though the annual value of these exports never exceeded £100, he was evidently a wealthy man. Although in 1435 he had been assessed in York at only £5 p.a for the parliamentary subsidy, by 1450 this had risen to 56 marks p.a., making him the wealthiest member of the aldermanic class.41 E179/217/42, 56. When, on 10 Jan. 1472, he was included in the general pardon issued to the merchants of the staple he was described as ‘late mayor of York, alias of Burton by Lincoln’, suggesting that he had in the interim acquired property there.42 CPR, 1467-77, p. 316. Whether he did so by purchase or marriage, is unclear, for his marital history can be only partially established, and the identity of his later wives is obscure. Thirsk’s first wife died in 1435, leaving two daughters, Petronella and Elena, who were almost certainly the issue of a previous union.43 York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 424. He then went on to marry one Helen, who may have been a daughter of the prominent Yorkshire knight, Sir Halnath Mauleverer.44 Vis. Yorks. 66-67. This source gives Helen’s wife as ‘Thomas Thirkeld, mayor of the staple’, but the early historian of York, Francis Scaife, suggested that Thirsk was a more likely candidate: HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 846. A third wife, Alice, whose parentage is unknown, died before 1466, by which date Thirsk was married to a fourth spouse, Agnes, who would survive him and who was still alive in June 1476 when his feoffees, the priests William Barbour and John Turnour, delivered seisin of a tenement in Hungate to her.45 York House Bks. ed. Attreed, i. 112.

Thirsk himself died on 5 Apr. 1473, the date from when his successor as mayor of the staple, Thomas Grantham†, rendered account as treasurer and victualler of Calais.46 E364/107, rot. F. His will is not known to survive, but he made provision for the mayor of York to annually offer a penny for his soul in his chantry in St. John’s, Hungate, and in 1476 the incumbent mayor, Thomas Wrangwysshe†, received 12d. for this in accordance with Thirsk’s wishes.47 York House Bks. i. 7. It is uncertain whether Thirsk left surviving issue. The Thomas Thirsk, tailor, made a freeman in 1459-60 and chamberlain in 1479-80, may have been a kinsman, but his admission to the freedom was through purchase rather than patrimony.48 Freemen of York, 180, 202. Equally, the MP’s relationship to the John Thirsk who in 1497 acted as a feoffee alongside Richard York†, is unclear.49 Yorks. Deeds, ix. (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. cxi), 92.