HAWLEY, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 331-2.

The unusual success of the Pamplona merchant John Disco in prosecuting Hawley for the taking of his ship and cargo of oil at sea may have owed much to a string of petitions with which he and his factors bombarded the Henry IV and his council.5 SC8/189/9426; 216/10794.

Among the more curious features of Hawley’s long and distinguished parliamentary career was his return in 1411, when he was himself mayor of Dartmouth, and thus charged with the conduct of the borough election. The sheer number of his parliamentary returns as well as the range of his commercial and administrative activities meant that he was closely connected not only with many of the men with whom he sat in the Commons, but also with those who did not arrive there until after his death. Thus, for instance, he had commercial links with the London draper William Botreaux I*, who like him was a Member of the 1423 Parliament,6 CP40/688, rot. 129; 694, rot. 439. while the later Launceston MP William Mayhew II* served under him in the office of feodary and escheator of the duchy of Cornwall.7 KB27/713, rot. 66d. Yet, it is by no means clear how assiduous an attendee of the Commons this busy administrator was. When sued by the Devon esquire John Shapwick for a debt of £8 under the terms of a bond purportedly sealed at London on 2 Dec. 1423 (during the first session of that year’s Parliament), Hawley claimed to have sealed the bond under duress, as he had at the time been held prisoner by Shapwick and his associates at Truro.8 CP40/705, rot. 321.

If evidence of Hawley’s considerable administrative abilities beyond his frequent official appointments were needed, it might be found in his choice as an executor by men such as the former household esquire Henry Kirkstead.9 KB27/649, rot. 53d.

It appears fairly clear from Hawley’s settlement of one of his principal tenements in the High Street of Dartmouth on his son Nicholas at the time of his departure on pilgrimage that he realized even then that he did not have long to live, and his death, either on this pilgrimage or shortly after, came as no surprise. In March 1437, within a year of his father’s death, Nicholas handed the property over to his prominent neighbour Nicholas Stebbing*.10 H.R. Watkin, Dartmouth, 116.