LUKE, John

A fifteenth-century minute book kept by the borough of Dunwich indicates that Luke had reached his majority by 1407, since it records that he paid 2d. towards a tax granted to the King by the Parliament of that year. It also records that he contributed to subsequent taxes – including fines imposed by the borough authorities as well as royal levies – as a resident of the parish of All Saints. His father does not feature among the parish’s taxpayers after 1410, suggesting he died shortly after that date. Luke also paid 4s. to the land tax imposed by the borough authorities in 1421-2, so that they could pay the Crown to have Dunwich’s charter confirmed. Later in the same decade, he contributed to an extraordinary tax the borough used to support the cost of sending MPs to the Parliament of 1427, and to the building of the east quay of Dunwich.2. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 52, 62, 67, 73-75, 107, 132, 142.

The minute book also shows that Luke was active in borough affairs before he held office there. At some stage in the accounting year 1410-11, the town authorities paid him 2s. 6d. in expenses for a visit to London but the nature of his business in the City is unknown.3 Ibid. 70. He subsequently returned to the capital, since in January 1413 he and Thomas Clerk† were paid £5 9d. to cover their costs while in the City. In the event, this was not enough, for their total expenditure was £5 11s. 3d. and the corporation had later to reimburse them for the shortfall.4 Ibid. 84.

Several of the accounts recorded in the minute book contain evidence of Luke’s activities as bailiff. At one point early in Henry V’s reign, for example, he was paid 6d. for his work when he rode to consult John Norwich about the sessions at Bury St. Edmunds.5 Ibid. 93. Presumably the sessions were quarter sessions. Norwich was not a j.p. but he may have been a lawyer. He served as an ad hoc commr. in Suff.: e.g. CPR, 1408-13, p. 375; 1413-16, p. 345. His duties as bailiff also brought him into contact with the King’s uncle, Thomas Beaufort, who had acquired the fee farm of the town in 1407. When three of Beaufort’s servants came to Luke’s house to collect half a last of herring (probably in lieu of a cash payment towards the farm owed to their lord) at some stage during the accounting year 1424-5, Luke and his fellow bailiff, William Barbour, paid them 9d. to cover the costs of their journey to Dunwich.6 Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 127. In the same accounting period, Luke received 3s. 4d. for riding on two occasions to Castle Rising in west Norfolk and on another to Norwich on unknown business, as well as a further 20d. for a visit to Ipswich, ‘to make a fine in front of the justices’.7 Ibid. 128. The minute book also shows that when he was elected to the office of bailiff in 1427 and again in 1429 he and his associate were faced with a fine (five marks on the first occasion) if they declined to accept it.8 Ibid. 131, 137. It seems that many burgesses were reluctant to take up the burdens of the office by this date, perhaps obliging Luke, for want of alternative candidates, to serve as many terms as he did as bailiff. A general decline in interest in town government among Dunwich’s residents was perhaps partly responsible for the reorganization of the borough’s council in 1419, nearly three years before he joined it. A reduction in the number of council members was part of the reorganization, probably in an attempt to increase accountability.9 Ibid. 8, 100-1.

The minute book is less informative about Luke’s career as an MP, although it does tell us that he and Philip Canon*, his fellow burgess in the Parliament of October 1416, jointly received £2 8s. 4d. ‘against Parliament’, but it is unclear whether this sum was for their wages as MPs.10 Ibid. 96.

The minute book also records some of Luke’s private activities. In April 1412, he and William Barbour acquired a four-year farm of a common marsh from the borough, at an annual rent of 16s. Later, in July 1425, he acquired a lease from the corporation of ten plots of land in All Saints’ parish, consisting of arable, meadow, heath and reed, which had once belonged to Augustine Illes†, a prominent burgess of the 1330s and 1340s. Like several other burgesses, he had a direct stake in the local fishing industry, since he and Edmund Gedeneye of Sizewell were joint owners of a fishing boat.11 Ibid. 80, 82, 123.