WEST, Thomas

More may be added to the earlier biography.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 812-13.

In view of the evident focus of much of West’s career of office-holding on East Anglia, it seems likely that (like his erstwhile master, Thomas Jayet†), he also hailed from the region.7 Ibid. iii. 492. If so, he was probably the man resident at Sudbury who was substantial enough to be distrained for knighthood both in 1439 and 1458. This man had acquired substantial landholdings in Little Wratting, Haverhill, Withersfield and Steeple Bumpstead by a marriage to the widow of the Suffolk esquire Philip Caxton at some point after the latter’s death in December 1430.8 CIPM, xxiii. 630. He was evidently living at Sudbury, where he owned several properties, by 1436, when he headed the feoffees taking control of a communal plot of land, and is occasionally encountered there as a feoffee, party to property transactions and as a witness to the wills of his neighbours.9 Suff. RO (Bury St. Edmunds), Sudbury bor. recs., EE501/6/48; Sudbury Archdeaconry Wills 1439-1474 (Suff. Rec. Soc. xliv), i. 740; PCC 20 Godyn; C1/26/439.

Although in the later stages of his career West was styled a gentleman and even an esquire, it was as a merchant that he came to prominence during the 1430s and 1440s, and it may have been his mercantile activity which brought him to the Crown’s attention and ultimately led to his appointment as clerk of the market to the royal household. In the 1440s he was engaged in the Baltic trade, and for a time may have been represented in Prussia by his son William, whom he had apprenticed to the London mercer Robert Sherborne. Apparently, however, relations between father and son were often strained and some 40 years later West’s executors claimed that William had been of such demeanour, evil disposition and living, wasting his master’s goods, that his father had never trusted him.10 C1/112/80-3; 175/61-64.

The varied tasks allotted to West in the King’s service included in 1441 the seizure of the heiress of the Lincolnshire landowner Sir Robert Roos* of Gedney on the treasurer’s instructions.11 E403/743, m. 3. By this date he was already listed among the esquires of the King’s hall and chamber who received an annual livery from the Wardrobe.12 E101/409/9, 11, f. 38v; 16; 410/1, f. 30; 3, 6, f. 40; 9, f. 42v. It was not long after his appointment to the office of clerk of the market that West was first chosen as one of the four spokesmen of the King’s household servants. By 1447 the Crown’s insolvency had allowed these servants’ wages to fall into cumulative arrears of almost £3,500 during the treasurership of Sir Roger Fiennes* alone. In October of that year West and three fellow members of the Household (Bartholomew Halley*, George Heton* and Hugh Kyngston) were assigned the customs of the south-western ports until the debt should be settled. Yet the grant came with the proviso that the debts of over £7,000 still owing to the executors of Sir John Radcliffe* should be settled first, and before the Household’s representatives could receive anything their grant was invalidated by a change of the customs collectors. In February 1449 the increasingly desperate Household servants sought redress by means of a petition to the Commons, which was probably championed in the House by West and Halley, both of whom were Members of the Parliament. In response to the petition, West and his three associates were appointed to receive the requisite sums from a range of royal revenues, and although the task of securing full payment proved a slow one, it had been accomplished by the summer of 1452.13 RP, v. 157-9 (cf. PROME, xii. 69); SC8/27/1343; E159/224, recorda Hil. rot. 5; 226, brevia Easter rot. 3; E403/779, m. 1; 781, mm. 1, 5, 6; 785, mm. 1, 2, 5; 786, mm. 1-3, 9; 788, mm. 1, 3; 796, m. 1.

Perhaps through his acquaintance with Sir John Fastolf, by the early 1440s West had become known to his friends the Pastons, and acted for the judge, William Paston, in the matter of the purchase of East Beckham.14 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 430; C.F. Richmond, Paston Fam., The First Phase, 100. At other times, however, it was Fastolf’s own interests that West served, notably as a feoffee and a surety at the Exchequer. On 26 Jan. 1456 (after the death of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, the last surviving executor of the duke of Bedford), Fastolf wrote to his ‘right trusty frendes’ West (then a Member of the Commons), Nicholas Molyneux and John Paston* concerning the recovery of the debts owing to the duke’s estate that

if it were thought that the most spedyest and seurest wey were to have it doon by act of Parlement, than I desire and pray you, as my singuler trust is in you, that ye wille do make a substanciall bille in my name upon the said mater and for the said cause, to be grounded and devised by avis of substanciall lerned men, as Thomas Yonge and othir suche, and of civille lawe, and the said bille to be put up to the Kyng, whiche is chief supervisor of my said lordis testament, and to the Lordes spirituelle and temporelle, as to the Comyns, of this present parlement, so as the iij astates may graunte and passe hem cleerly. And the said bille may be grounded with so grete resons by your wysdomes and good enformacion, and so rightfull and of conscience, that it shall not be denyed ne letted to passe amonges the Lordes spirituell and temporell neythir amonges the Comyns whan it comyth before hem. And if this said bille, after it is devised and made, and sent me a copy of hit, hit shold be to me a singuler confort … And I wolde that this bille were devised by my lord of Caunterbury is avis and agreement.15 Paston Letters, ii. 439.

There is no evidence to show whether any such bill was ever drawn up, and if so, whether its championship in the Commons fell to West, by then an experienced parliamentarian.

Although West was on good terms with the earl of Oxford’s clients, the Pastons, relations with John de Vere himself at times appear to have been strained. The earl and his two brothers, Sir Richard and Sir Robert de Vere* had been among Philip Caxton’s feoffees, but more than 20 years after Caxton’s death had still not re-granted the family lands to his widow and her new husband, West.16 C1/21/31-33.

While Edward IV’s accession did not result in automatic reprisals against the members of Henry VI’s household, West nevertheless faced personal difficulties. In July 1462 the Essex esquire Thomas Deyncourt accused him of having taken the opportunity of King Edward’s absence in the north in April 1461 to steal £100-worth of plate and cloth, as well as £140 in cash from his goods then in the London parish of St. Mary Woolchurch, and after a series of procedural delays, litigation in the Exchequer of pleas continued into the autumn.17 E13/147, rots. 8d, 9d.

West made his will on 16 Feb. 1467. He asked to be buried inside the church of the Dominican friary of Sudbury, next to the north door, the image on his gravestone to be surrounded by three escutcheons of his arms. His executors were instructed to procure a papal bull, to be displayed above his grave, promising 100 days of indulgence to anyone who would say a Paternoster, an Ave Maria, and a Credo there or at the cross on Ballingdon bridge. Every priest present at the placebo and dirige on the eve of West’s burial was promised 12d., while each clerk who attended wearing his surplice was to receive 4d. As much as £60 was set aside for the costs of the burial, but, so the testator stipulated, if it should cost more, more should be spent. West’s daughter, Maud Muschampe, was bequeathed 100 marks and a silver cup, his godchildren were each left 6s. 8d. and further legacies were assigned to his servants, but – perhaps on account of his low opinion of his son and heir – he stipulated that the residue of his lands and possessions was to be sold and the money spent on good works for the benefit of his soul. The bulk of these works centered on Sudbury. The church of St. Peter’s benefited most. Previously merely a chapel of ease, under the terms of West’s will it was to be paneled around the walls and entirely paved with marble. A ringing loft was to be constructed and a table placed by the high altar. Of the testator’s goods, the church was to receive two basins and two ewers of silver which were to stand on the high altar on principal feast days, as well as a bed cloth of tapestry work, which was to lie before the image of Our Lady. In addition, the church was assigned a new mass book and 40s. in money. Six priests were to say masses for the souls of West, his family and friends, receiving an annual stipend of ten marks for a term of 20 years. Further prayers for West’s soul were to be said at Archbishop Sudbury’s college of St. Gregory, to which 13s. 8d. were assigned, while each individual priest was to have 6s. 8d. In addition, the college was to receive the sum of £20 and two silver potell pots in return for keeping the testator’s obit for a term of 20 years. Similarly, each of the six regular priests of the friary at Sudbury was to have 10s. for celebrating a trental for West and his parents. For yet more prayers the prior was assigned 13s. 4d., each priest among the friars was to have 6s. 8d. and each novice 3s. 4d. The friary was also to have the testator’s best brass pot and his best ‘banker’ with its six cushions, as well as an annuity of 40s. for a term of ten years towards the upkeep of the friary buildings. The parish church of All Saints in Sudbury received 40s. for the same purpose. Further afield, the sum of 40s. was assigned to the repair of the church of Great Cornard, and 20s. to the nuns of Hedingham in return for prayers for the souls of West and his parents. For the Essex church of Twinstead, a pair of latten candlesticks was to be specially bought. Five marks were assigned to each of the friaries of Clare, Babwell, Chelmsford and Colchester, the Dominican friaries at Cambridge, Ipswich and London, and the London Austin Friars, in return for which each house was to provide a mass for West’s soul, each priest present receiving 12d. and each novice 4d. In addition, 40 trentals of St. Gregory were to be said by the houses which had received these bequests.

Legacies to the church aside, West provided for the rebuilding of Ballingdon bridge, and the repair of the highway between the ‘Boromgate’ of Sudbury and Chilton. His household goods were to be distributed in alms, and 20s. was assigned to each of 120 maidens from Sudbury and the wider county, while for a term of 20 years 3s. 4d. was to be distributed to the poor people of Sudbury every Friday. Furthermore, West’s three renters at ‘Boromgate End’ were to provide alms for the poor in perpetuity and were to be administered and kept in good repair by the chaplain Alexander Cook, to whom the adjacent ‘duffehouse’ was assigned for this purpose for term of his life.

Along with Cook, West appointed Master Robert Spylman, warden of Sudbury College, William Chapman, Robert Dene, Richard Mody of Newton, and William Skalder as his executors, while John Green III* of Gosfield (who had sat in the Commons of 1455 alongside West, and subsequently as Speaker) was to be supervisor. The task the executors faced was nothing short of formidable: West’s monetary bequests alone totalled more than £1,400, and litigation over the deceased man’s debts was to occupy his executors for many years after probate was granted on 18 July 1467.18 PCC 20 Godyn; C1/12/230; 112/80-83; 175/61-64.