ROUGE, John

A merchant and tailor who was also involved in the wine trade, Rouge was originally from Lavenham in Suffolk. He was no stranger to Colchester when admitted to the freedom of the borough in October 1422. In May 1420, for example, he had sued his receiver, Walter Coket, in the borough court, alleging that Coket had failed to account for wine (worth over £13) left in his charge.10 Guildhall Lib., London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts., 34048/1, f. 330v; Colchester ct. rolls, 1419-20, 1422-3, D/B 5 Cr42, m. 16; 43, m. 3d. It is possible that the MP had connexions with the borough in Hen. IV’s reign, for John Rouge witnessed a deed for Robert Priour in 1412: Mercers’ Hall, London, St. Paul’s school, cart., ff. 208v-209. After becoming a burgess, Rouge acquired a tavern in Colchester and was frequently amerced for breaching the local assize of wine.11 Colchester ct. rolls, 1424-49, D/B 5 Cr45-63. He is likely to have imported his wine from France, although he had dealings with Scandinavia,12 C1/75/75. and with a merchant from Germany or the Low Countries whom he sued for debt in the borough court in 1435.13 D/B 5 Cr52, m. 19.

By the late 1440s Rouge owned a ship although it is not clear whether this was a recent acquisition. It is possible that he had used the vessel to convey grain to Colchester in the winter of 1439-40. During this time of nationwide dearth, the Crown licensed him and other merchants from the borough to purchase barley and other cereals from Norfolk and Suffolk and to transport it, free of customs and other taxes, to Colchester.14 D/B 5 Cr61, mm. 11, 18; 62; mm. 2, 10d; CPR, 1436-41, p. 355. Along with a fellow Colchester merchant, John Broke, Rouge was also the co-owner of the George of Colchester, a ship which suffered a period of impoundment at Bergen in Norway on one ill-fated trading venture of unknown date.15 C1/75/75. Another business partner was William Petworth*. At one stage – again the date is unknown – he and Petworth pursued a suit in the Chancery over the losses they had incurred when a cargo of salt went down in the English Channel. The cargo had been aboard a ship which the defendant, a mariner from Deal in Kent, had been piloting into Winchelsea, Sussex, when it sank, a disaster they blamed on his negligence.16 C1/73/94.

There is a little evidence for Rouge’s property in Colchester. Apart from his tavern, he owned a house known as ‘Le Woodhous’ and various holdings in Stockwell Street, St. Helen’s Street and the market place, along with a tenement which had once belonged to Thomas Godstone*, and, probably, another tenement near the castle.17 D/B 5 Cr52, m. 2; 55, m. 31d; 56, mm. 5d, 6d; 57, m. 25; 61, m. 9; 71, m. 15. He kept sheep and other livestock, although he grazed these on a common pasture.18 D/B 5 Cr63, m. 15. Rouge also acted as a witness or feoffee in property transactions on behalf of several of his fellow townsmen, among them William Strode (who married the sister of his first wife, Joan) and Robert Priour.* Strode appointed him a feoffee of a messuage in Colchester but relations between the two men subsequently deteriorated. In the mid 1440s, Strode sued Rouge in the Chancery for failing to release his interest in the property, but the MP won the case, after proving that the indebted William had transferred it to him.19 C1/13/181-90; 17/299; D/B 5 Cr50, m. 17d; St. Paul’s school, cart., ff. 208v-209, 215-16, 228v-231v.

Rouge began his career as an office-holder in the early 1430s. He was one of the first burgesses to serve as a j.p. for the town, an office introduced by Henry VI’s charter of 1447,20 VCH Essex, ix. 49. and he was elected to the position of bailiff on four occasions. He was also a member of the local guild of St. Helen and one of its wardens in the late 1430s. He gained election to his only Parliament late in his career as an office-holder at Colchester and it is unlikely that he lived much beyond the 1440s.21 The John Rouge who attested the return of Essex’s knights of the shire to the Parl. of 1459 was probably a namesake.