WISPINGTON, Nicholas

Wispington’s origins are obscure, but he was described as ‘mercator’ when he purchased the freedom of York in 1425. His father, described as ‘Nicholas Wispington, gentleman’, had had property interests in the city, but appears never to have enjoyed the freedom.3 Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 135. The younger Nicholas was active in the overseas trade, and in 1430-1 he shipped 20 unfinished cloths from Kingston-upon-Hull.4 E122/61/32. By this date he had contracted an apparently prestigious marriage. His wife, Joan, was a kinswoman of the alderman and stapler William Ormshead*, who in 1435 named Wispington one of his executors. It is possible that she was a daughter of the wealthy wool merchant, William Bowes, and widow of the former alderman John Blackburn: in his will of 1432 Joan’s presumed father-in-law, Nicholas Blackburn senior, left a debt contracted by two Netherlandish merchants to his son, Robert, and Wispington. The following year Joan was also a beneficiary of the will of Nicholas Blackburn’s widow, Margaret.5 York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, ff. 290, 605. In 1435 John Blackburn’s feoffees settled on Wispington the reversion after Joan’s death of property in The Shambles, and two years later Ormshead asked him to take over his duties as executor of Nicholas Blackburn senior.6 York Memoranda Bk. iii (Surtees Soc. clxxxvi), 113; York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 505. Doubt is thrown on this identification, however, because in May 1437, Joan’s putative father, William Bowes I, asked his son, William II*, to ensure the welfare of the latter’s widowed (and presumably then unmarried) sisters, Joan and Katherine.7 York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 580v. Whatever the true identity of Wispington’s wife, as a mark of the couple’s status they were admitted to the city’s prestigious guild of Corpus Christi in 1431-2.8 Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York (Surtees Soc. lvii), 32. Joan Blackburn may be identified with the ‘Domin[a] Johanna Blakborn’ admitted in her own right in 1428, shortly after her first husband’s death. This, of course, does not preclude her from having been readmitted later with her new husband. Similarly, she made no mention of any children in her will of 1446 (which was concerned entirely with provision for her soul and bequests to her servants), but these would have been provided for in her husband’s will: York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 141.

Civic office followed not long after. In February 1431 Wispington was chosen as one of the chamberlains, and at the end of his year in office he almost certainly joined the council of 24. In September 1433 he became one of the city’s sheriffs, and it was not long before he was elevated to the ranks of the aldermen. On 14 Feb. 1436 he was among those aldermen named to raise a loan for the defence of Calais, threatened by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy. The defence of Calais had a special importance for Wispington, for he was by this date an established member of the company of the Calais staple. In May, along with two other aldermen and staplers, Thomas Gare* and John Bolton*, Wispington delivered a total of £145 to the Exchequer.9 E403/723, m. 2. His family connexions through the Ormsheads and Blackburns had probably facilitated his entry into the staplers’ company and he was soon a well respected member. In 1435, along with two other fellow York staplers John Thirsk* and Richard Lematon*, he acted as executor for the former mayor of the staple, Richard Russell I*.10 CP40/739, rot. 314d; York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 441. Little evidence survives of the scale of Wispington’s wool shipments to Calais, but he was certainly a regular visitor to the town, and was periodically party to litigation in the staple court.11 C47/25/10/12-13.

Wispington was elected, alongside Nicholas Usflete* (with whom he had previously served as sheriff), to the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 12 Nov. No return is extant from the York sheriffs for this Parliament, nor do the city’s chamberlains’ accounts survive to illustrate the MPs’ activities in the Commons, although both men were named alongside the collectors to distribute the customary reductions from the parliamentary subsidy.12 CFR, xvii. 141, 150. Following the end of his parliamentary duties Wispington was soon back in Calais. On his return from the town in September that year he fell foul of the bailiffs of Canterbury. Arriving at Dover, Wispington had declared and paid customs on a small quantity of furs. However, when challenged by the bailiffs of Canterbury it was found that the furs in his possession did not match those listed in the customs collectors’ cocket. The non-cocketted furs were duly seized. On 15 Oct. Wispington appeared before the barons of the Exchequer and argued that the impounded furs were not intended for sale, but were for his own and his servants’ use. The bailiffs were duly summoned and two London skinners were brought in to value the furs at £21 11s. 6d. The barons were not impressed by Wispington’s arguments and ordered him to make fine with the King, which resulted in him delivering the disputed merchandise to Robert Rolleston, keeper of the great wardrobe, on 30 Nov.13 E159/217, recorda Mich. rots. 2d, 6d.

In January 1442 Wispington again witnessed the parliamentary elections in York, and later in the year he was present at a council meeting when it was decided to ride the city’s boundaries.14 York Memoranda Bk. iii. 131; C219/15/2. Little other evidence remains of his public duties or private interests, although his description in his later years as a ‘woolman’ indicates the commodity in which he traded chiefly. Despite his connexions, he does not appear to have been a man of any great wealth: in early 1436, shortly before becoming an alderman, his property was assessed at only £12 p.a.15 E179/217/42. However, his interests also extended beyond the city and the wool trade. In 1442 he was acting as a feoffee for Thomas Goodesbroke, gentleman, of York, and at some point before 1452 he served alongside Sir Maurice Berkeley II* as one of the Lord Fitzhugh’s feoffees for the manor of Kingston, Nottinghamshire.16 CCR, 1441-7, p. 384; CPR, 1452-61, p. 30. The date of Wispington’s death is uncertain. There are no references to him among the York records after December 1442, but he evidently survived into the 1450s. In Michaelmas term 1445 he was involved with other executors of Richard Russell in litigation in the court of common pleas, and in the summer of 1450 he himself was pursued for a debt of £32 13s. 4d. by the London vintner Thomas Haunsard. A licence granted to Lord Fitzhugh’s surviving feoffees in November 1452 suggests that Wispington was still alive at this date. His putative spouse, meanwhile, had died in 1446, making no mention of Wispington in her will.17 CP40/739, rot. 314d; 758, rot. 223d; York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 141.