DARELL, John

More has been discovered about Darell’s second wife, Florence Chichele, since the earlier biography was written.3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 752-3. She had been twice widowed. Her first husband, Thomas Burton, the London grocer who had been a business partner of her father and uncle Robert Chichele† in making shipments of wool and grain overseas, had died intestate before October 1418.4 DKR, xliv. 548, 552; Cal. Letter Bk. London, I, 202. After a brief marriage to Sir Nicholas Pecche, she married Darell, bringing with her property in London together with very substantial quantities of Burton’s moveable goods, as is revealed in the record of a lawsuit of 1421. In this suit Robert Whittington, a London draper, claimed that the Darells owed him £400 on a bond made between him and Burton. They denied the charge, stating that in 1416 Burton had transferred possession of all his goods, chattels and the rents from tenements in Walbrook to his father-in-law Chichele and others to hold for 60 years, and that they had handed them over to the widowed Florence. The jewelry, plate, armour, crops and livestock listed in the plea roll must have been of considerable value.5 CP40/643, rot. 462.

Given his close friendship with Geoffrey Lowther* and Richard Clitheroe* it is not surprising that Darell’s professional services were eagerly sought by the Kentish Cinque Ports. In January 1429, for example, the jurats of Lydd entertained him with bread and wine and presented a gift of three mallards, and in 1437-8, shortly before his death, he was the recipient of gifts of wine from New Romney, probably in relation to the choice of town bailiff, an office in the gift of his wife’s uncle the archbishop of Canterbury.6 Lydd Recs. ed. Finn, 18, 70; E. Kent Archs., New Romney recs., assmt. bk. 1384-1446, NR/FAc 2, ff. 127, 129. Along with Lowther and Clitheroe, he also had a long association with the authorities in charge of Rochester bridge. In the early 1420s he had made a gift of 40 marks towards the bridge’s repair,7 Traffic and Politics, ed. Yates and Gibson, 80. and by 1426 he was a member of its governing council of trustees, being appointed to audit the wardens’ accounts for that year and again in 1430-1. In 1435-6 the wardens rode to Canterbury to seek the counsel of Darell and Lowther, probably on the matter of a disputed legacy left by Clitheroe’s uncle Richard†. Darell promised a bequest to the bridge and shortly after his death the wardens solicited the friendship of his widow with gifts of wine.8 Rochester Bridge Trust, wardens’ accts. 1426-7, 1430-1, 1435-6, 1438-9, F 1/36, 39-41. The bequest in question was the sum of £20 and ten years’ profits from his mill at Northfleet (which he and his wife held on a lease given them by Archbishop Chichele). The mill provided the wardens with £10 13s. 4d. in 1442-3, but only £7 6s. 8d. in the year ending Michaelmas 1449, when the grant expired.9 Reg. Chichele, ii. 568-71; Traffic and Politics, 81-82.