_Thomas Betson_
A MERCHANT OF THE STAPLE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
Some men of noble stock were made, some glory in the murder blade:
Some praise a Science or an Art, but I like honourable Trade!
--JAMES ELROY FLECKER
_The Golden Journey to Samarcand_
The visitor to the House of Lords, looking respectfully upon that august
assembly, cannot fail to be struck by a stout and ungainly object facing
the throne--an ungainly object upon which in full session of Parliament,
he will observe seated the Lord Chancellor of England. The object is a
woolsack, and it is stuffed as full of pure history as the office of
Lord Chancellor itself. For it reminds a cotton-spinning, iron-working
generation that the greatness of England was built up, not upon the
flimsy plant which comes to her to be manufactured from the Far East and
West of the world, nor upon the harsh metal delved from her bowels, but
upon the wool which generation after generation has grown on the backs
of her black-faced sheep. First in the form of a raw material sought
after eagerly by all the cloth-makers of Europe, then in the form of a
manufacture carried on in her own towns and villages, and sent out far
and wide in ships, wool was the foundation of England's greatness right
up to the time of the Industrial Revolution, when cotton and iron took
its place. So if you look at old pictures of the House of Lords, in
Henry VIII's reign, or in Elizabeth's, you will see the woolsack before
the throne,[1] as you will see it if you visit the House today. The Lord
Chancellor of England is seated upon a woolsack because it was upon a
woolsack that this fair land rose to prosperity.
The most remarkable body of traders in England during the Middle Ages
were the Merchants of the Staple, who traded in wool. The wool trade had
for long been the largest and most lucrative body of trade in the
country, and it was one in which the Kings of England were particularly
interested, for their customs revenue was drawn largely from wool and
wool fells; and, moreover, when they desired to borrow money in
anticipation of revenue it was to the wool merchants that they turned,
because the wool merchants were the wealthiest traders in the country.
For these and other reasons the Government adopted the custom of fixing
staple towns, which acted as centres of distribution through which the
export trade was forced to go. The location of the Staple was altered
from time to time; sometimes it was at Bruges, sometimes at Antwerp,
sometimes in England; but usually it was at Calais, where it was first
fixed in 1363 and finally established in 1423. Through the Staple all
wool and wool fells, hides, leather, and tin had to pass, and the
organization of the system was complete when the body of wool merchants,
in whose hands lay the bulk of the Staple trade, were finally
incorporated in 1354, under the governance of a mayor. The system was a
convenient one for Crown and merchants alike. The Crown could
concentrate its customs officers in one place and collect its customs
the more easily, particularly as a method was gradually developed by
which the custom and subsidy on wool was paid to the Royal officials by
the Fellowship of the Staple, who then collected it from the individual
members. The merchants, on the other hand, benefited by the
concentration in trade: they were able to travel in groups and to
organize convoys to protect the wool fleets from pirates who swarmed in
the narrow seas between England and France; as members of a powerful
corporation they could secure both privileges and protection in
Flanders. Moreover, the wool buyers also benefited by the arrangement,
which rendered possible a careful surveillance by the Crown and the
Company of the Staple of the quality of the wool offered for sale, and a
series of regulations against fraud. It must be remembered that in days
when trade stood in need of a protection which the Government was not
yet able to give it, there was nothing unpopular in the idea of giving
the monopoly of the staple trade to the members of a single company.
'Trade in companies is natural to Englishmen,' wrote Bacon; and for four
centuries it was the great trading companies which nurtured English
trade and made this country the commercial leader of the world.
The wool trade throve in England until the close of the Middle Ages, but
throughout the fifteenth century the staplers were beginning to feel the
competition of another company--that of the famous Merchant Adventurers,
who, taking advantage of the growth in the native cloth manufacture
during the previous century, had begun to do a great trade in the export
of cloth. This was obnoxious to the staplers, who desired the
continuance of the old system, by which they exported English wool to
the Continent, where at Ypres and Ghent, Bruges and Mechlin, and the
other famous cloth-working cities of the Netherlands, it was woven into
fine cloth. This cloth manufacture gave to the Netherlands a sort of
industrial pre-eminence in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, and it was
dependent entirely upon a good supply of English wool, for the next best
wool in Europe--that of Spain--was not satisfactory unless mixed with
wool of English growth. Hence the close political tie between England
and Flanders, the one needing a customer, the other an essential raw
material; for, as a fifteenth century poet said,
the lytelle londe of Flaundres is
But a staple to other londes, iwys,
And alle that groweth in Flaundres, greyn and sede,
May not a moneth fynde hem mete and brede.
What hath thenne Flaundres, be Flemmyngis leffe or lothe
But a lytelle madere and Flemmyshe cloothe?
By drapynge of our wolle in substaunce
Lyvene here comons, this is here governaunce;
Wythought whyche they may not leve at ease,
Thus moste hem sterve, or wyth us most have peasse.[2]
In those days the coat on the Englishman's back was made out of English
wool, indeed, but it had been manufactured in Flanders, and the staplers
saw no reason why it should ever be otherwise. As to the Flemings, the
political alliances which commercial necessities constantly entailed
between the two countries gave rise among them to a proverb that they
bought the fox-skin from the English for a groat and sold them back the
tail for a guelder;[3] but it was the sheepskin which they bought, and
they were not destined to go on buying it for ever. The great
cloth-making cities of the Netherlands were finally ruined by the growth
of the English cloth manufacture, which absorbed the English wool.
However, in spite of the growing prosperity of this trade, which had by
the beginning of the sixteenth century ousted that of wool as the chief
English export trade, the Company of the Merchants of the Staple was
still great and famous throughout the fifteenth century.
Many were the wealthy and respected staplers who were in those days to
be found directing the destinies of English towns, mayors of London and
provincial ports, contractors and moneylenders to an impecunious king,
so rich and so powerful that they became a constitutional menace,
almost, it has been said, a fourth estate of the realm, with which His
Majesty was wont to treat for grants apart from Parliament. Many are the
staplers' wills preserved in registries up and down England and bearing
witness to their prosperity and public spirit. Many are the magnificent
brasses which preserve their memory in the parish churches of the
Cotswolds and other wool-growing districts of England. At Chipping
Campden lies William Grevel with his wife, 'late citizen of London and
flower of the wool merchants of all England', who died in 1401, and his
beautiful house still stands in the village street. At Northleach lies
John Fortey, who rebuilt the nave before he died in 1458; his brass
shows him with one foot on a sheep and the other on a woolpack, and the
brasses of Thomas Fortey, 'woolman', and of another unknown merchant,
with a woolpack, lie near by. At Linwood, at Cirencester, at Chipping
Norton, at Lechlade, and at All Hallows, Barking, you may see others of
the great fraternity.[4] They rest in peace now, but when they lived
they were the shrewdest traders of their day. Of wool, cries the
poet Gower,
O leine, dame de noblesce
Tu est des marchantz la duesse,
Pour toy servir tout sont enclin--
'O wool, noble dame, thou art the goddess of merchants, to serve thee
they are all ready; by thy good fortune and thy wealth thou makest some
mount high, and others thou bringest to ruin. The staple where thou
dwellest is never free of fraud and trickery, wherewith man wounds his
conscience. O wool, Christians no less than pagans and Saracens seek to
have thee and confess thee. O wool, we should not be silent about thy
doings in strange lands; for the merchants of all countries, in time of
peace, in time of war, come to seek thee by reason of their great love,
for whoever else hath enemies thou art never without good friends, who
have given themselves to thy profitable service. Thou art cherished
throughout the world, and the land where thou art born may do great
things by reason of thee. Thou art carried throughout the world by land
and sea, but thou goest to the wealthiest men; in England art thou born,
but it is said that thou art but ill governed, for Trick, who hath much
money, is made regent of thy staple; at his will he taketh it to foreign
lands, where he purchaseth his own gain to our harm. O fair, O white, O
delightful one, the love of thee stings and binds, so that the hearts of
those who make merchandise of thee cannot escape. So they compass much
trickery and many schemes how they may gather thee, and then they make
thee pass the sea, queen and lady of their navy, and in order to have
thee envy and covetousness hie them to bargain for thee.'[5]
The daily life of a Merchant of the Staple is not a difficult one to
reconstruct, partly because the Golden Fleece has left so many marks
upon our national life, partly because the statute book is full of
regulations concerning the wool trade, but chiefly because there have
come down to us many private letters from persons engaged in shipping
wool from England to Calais. Of all the different sorts of raw material
out of which the history of ordinary people in the Middle Ages has to be
made, their letters are perhaps the most enthralling, because in their
letters people live and explain themselves in all their individuality.
In the fifteenth century most men and women of the upper and middle
classes could read and write, although their spelling was sometimes
marvellous to behold, and St Olave's Church is apt to become 'Sent
Tolowys scryssche' beneath their painfully labouring goose quills, and
punctuation is almost entirely to seek. But what matter? their meaning
is clear enough. Good fortune has preserved in various English archives
several great collections of family letters written in the fifteenth
century. Finest of all are the famous Paston Letters, written by and to
a family of Norfolk gentlefolk, and crammed with information about high
politics and daily life.[6] Less interesting, but valuable all the same,
are the letters of the Plumptons, who were lords in Yorkshire.[7] But
for our purposes the most interesting are two other collections, to wit,
the correspondence of the Stonors, whose estates lay chiefly in
Oxfordshire and the neighbouring counties; and the Cely papers, kept by
a family of Merchants of the Staple.
These two collections give us a vivid picture of wool staplers in their
public and private lives. The Cely papers cover the years 1475 to 1488,
and it so happens that during that period William Stonor (he became Sir
William in 1478) also became interested in the wool trade, for in 1475
he married Elizabeth Riche, the daughter and widow of wealthy city
merchants. The Stonors had great sheep runs on their estates in the
Chilterns and Cotswolds, and William readily perceived the advantage of
his alliance with Elizabeth's family, who were interested in the wool
trade. Consequently he entered into a partnership with a friend of his
wife's, a Merchant of the Staple in Calais, named Thomas Betson, who is
the subject of this study, and until Elizabeth's death in 1479, he took
an active part in the export trade. Thomas Betson died in 1486, and was
thus an exact contemporary of those other Merchants of the Staple,
George and Richard Cely, whom he must have known; indeed, William Cely,
their cousin and agent, writes from London to George in Calais in 1481,
advising him that he has dispatched 464 fells to him in the _Thomas_ of
Newhithe, 'and the sayd felles lyeth nexte be afte the maste lowest
under the felles of Thomas Bettson'.[8] By the aid of the 'Stonor
Letters and Papers', which contain many letters from and concerning him
during the years of his partnership with Sir William, and of the 'Cely
Papers', which are full of information about the life of a Merchant of
the Staple at Calais, Thomas Betson may be summoned before us by a
kindly magic until he almost lives again. So he deserves to do, for he
is one of the most delightful people revealed to us in any of the
fifteenth-century letters; for honest charm he has no rival save the
attractive Margery Brews, who married John Paston the younger, and
shows up so pleasantly beside the hard Paston women.
Perhaps the reason why our hearts warm immediately towards Thomas Betson
is that our first meeting with him plunges us immediately into a love
affair. His first letter to William Stonor is dated April 12, 1476, and
informs William that their wool has come in to Calais. 'Right
worshipfful Syr,' it begins, 'I recomaund me unto your good
maystershipe, and to my right worshipffulle maystresse your wiffe, and
yf it plese your maystershipe, to my maystresse Kateryn.'[9] Ten days
later he writes again from London, on the eve of sailing for Calais,
thanking Stonor for his 'gentle cheer and faithful love, the which alway
ye bear and owe unto me, and of my behalf nothing deserved[H],'
announcing that he has sent a present of powdered[I] lampreys from
himself and a pipe of red wine from his brother, and adding this
postscript: 'Sir, I beseech your mastership that this poor writing may
have me lowly recommended to my right worshipful mistress, your wife,
and in like wise to my gentle cousin and kind mistress Katherine Riche,
to whom I beseech your mastership ever to be favourable and loving.'[10]
Who was this Katherine Riche to whom he so carefully commends himself?
Katherine Riche was William Stonor's stepdaughter, one of his wife's
children by her first husband; she was Thomas Betson's affianced bride,
and at this time she was about thirteen years old.
[Footnote H: Henceforth I shall modernize spelling, for the reader's
convenience.]
[Footnote I: I.e. pickled.]
Modern opinion, which is happily in favour of falling in love, and of
adult marriages, is often shocked by the air of business which pervades
matchmaking in the days of chivalry, and by the many cases of grown men
married to little girls not yet out of their teens. In those days it was
held that a boy came of age at fourteen and a girl at twelve (a
discrepancy which the great canon lawyer, Lyndwood, the son of a
stapler,[11] attributed to the fact that ill weeds grow apace!). For
reasons of property, or to settle family feuds, or simply to assure
their own future, babies in cradles were sometimes betrothed and even
married; all that the Church required was that children should be free
when they came of age (at the ages of fourteen and twelve!) to repudiate
the contract if they so desired. Nothing seems to separate modern
England from the good old days so plainly as the case of little Grace de
Saleby, aged four, who for the sake of her broad acres was married to a
great noble, and on his death two years later to another, and yet again,
when she was eleven, to a third, who paid three hundred marks down for
her.[12] There is an odd mixture of humour and pathos in the story of
some of these marriages. John Rigmarden, aged three, was carried to
church in the arms of a priest, who coaxed him to repeat the words of
matrimony, but half-way through the service the child declared that he
would learn no more that day, and the priest answered, 'You must speak a
little more, and then go play you.' James Ballard, aged ten, was married
to Jane his wife 'at x of the clocke in the night without the consent of
any of his frendes, bie one Sir Roger Blakey, then curate of Colne, and
the morowe after, the same James declarid vnto his Vnckle that the said
Jane [beyinge a bigge damsell and mariageable at the same tyme] had
intised him with two Apples, to go with her to Colne and to marry her.'
Elizabeth Bridge _née_ Ramsbotham, says that after her marriage to John
Bridge, when he was eleven and she thirteen, he never used her
'lovinglie, insomoche that the first night they were maried, the said
John wold Eate no meate at supper, and whan hit was bed tyme, the said
John did wepe to go home with his father, he beynge at that tyme at her
brother's house.'[13]
Sometimes, however, medieval records throw a pleasanter light on these
child marriages. Such was the light thrown by the Ménagier de Paris's
book for his young wife, so kindly, so affectionate, so full of
indulgence for her youth; and such also is the light thrown by the
charming letter which Thomas Betson wrote to little Katherine Riche on
the first day of June in 1476. It is a veritable gem, and it is strange
that it has not attracted more notice, for certainly no anthology of
English letters should be without it. I set it down here at length, for
it brings to warm life again both Thomas Betson and Katherine Riche:
Mine own heartily beloved Cousin Katherine, I recommend me unto you with
all the inwardness of my heart. And now lately ye shall understand that
I received a token from you, the which was and is to me right heartily
welcome, and with glad will I received it; and over that I had a letter
from Holake, your gentle squire, by the which I understand right well
that ye be in good health of body, and merry at heart. And I pray God
heartily in his pleasure to continue the same: for it is to me very
great comfort that he so be, so help me Jesu. And if ye would be a good
eater of your meat alway, that ye might wax and grow fast to be a woman
ye should make me the gladdest man of the world, by my troth; for when I
remember your favour and your sad loving dealing to me wards, for sooth
ye make me even very glad and joyous in my heart; and on the tother side
again, when I remember your young youth, and see well that ye be none
eater of your meat, the which should help you greatly in waxing, for
sooth then ye make me very heavy again. And therefore I pray you, mine
own sweet Cousin, even as you love me, to be merry and eat your meat
like a woman. And if ye will so do for my love, look what ye will desire
of me, whatsoever it be, and by my troth, I promise you by the help of
our Lord to perform it to my power. I can no more say now, but on my
coming home I will tell you much more between you and me and God before.
And whereas ye, full womanly and like a lover, remember me with manifold
recommendation in divers manners, remitting the same to my discretion to
depart them there as I love best, for sooth, mine own sweet Cousin, ye
shall understand that with good heart and good will I receive and take
to myself the one half of them and them will I keep by me; and the
tother half with hearty love and favour I send them to you, mine own
sweet Cousin, again, for to keep by you; and over that I send you the
blessing that our Lady gave her dear son, and ever well to fare. I pray
you greet well my horse and pray him to give you four of his years to
help you withal; and I will at my coming home give him four of my years
and four horse loaves till amends. Tell him that I prayed him so. And
Cousin Katherine, I thank you for him, and my wife shall thank you for
him hereafter; for ye do great cost upon him, as is told me. Mine own
sweet Cousin, it was told me but late that ye were at Calais[J] to seek
me, but could not see me nor find me; forsooth ye might have comen to my
counter, and there ye should both find me and see me, and not have
faulted of me; but ye sought me in a wrong Calais, and that ye should
well know if ye were here and saw this Calais, as would God ye were and
some of them with you that were with you at your gentle Calais. I pray
you, gentle Cousin, commend me to the clock, and pray him to amend his
unthrifty manners; for he strikes ever in undue time, and he will be
ever afore, and that is a shrewd condition. Tell him without he amend
his condition that he will cause strangers to avoid and come no more
there. I trust to you that he shall amend against mine coming, the which
shall be shortly, with all hands and all feet, with God's grace. My very
faithful Cousin, I trust to you that though all I have not remembered my
right worshipful mistress your mother afore in this letter, that ye will
of your gentleness recommend me to her mistresship as many times as it
shall please you: and ye may say, if it please you, that in Whitsun week
next I intend to the mart ward. And I trust you will pray for me; for I
shall pray for you and, so it may be, none so well. And Almighty Jesu
make you a good woman and send you many good years and long to live in
health and virtue to his pleasure. At great Calais, on this side on the
sea, the first day of June, when every man was gone to his dinner, and
the clock smote nine, and all your household cried after me and bade me
'Come down, come down to dinner at once!'--and what answer I gave them,
ye know it of old.
[Footnote J: Possibly an inn with that name (?).]
By your faithful Cousin and lover Thomas Betson. I send you this ring
for a token.
So ending, Thomas Betson smiled, dropped a kiss on the seal and
inscribed his letter, 'To my faithful and heartily beloved cousin
Katherine Riche at Stonor, this letter be delivered in haste.'[14]
Henceforth there begins a charming triangular correspondence between
Betson and Stonor and Dame Elizabeth Stonor, in which family news and
business negotiations are pleasantly mingled. Dame Elizabeth and Betson
were on the best of terms, for they had been old friends before her
second marriage. A special chamber was kept for him at Stonor, and by an
affectionate anticipation she often refers to him as 'My son Stonor'.
Almost all her letters to her husband contain news of him--how he took
his barge at 8 a.m. in the morning and God speed him, how no writing has
come from him these eight days, how he has now written about the price
to be paid for forty sacks of Cotswold wool, how he recommends him to
Sir William and came home last Monday. Sometimes he is entrusted with
the delicate business of interviewing Dame Elizabeth's mother, a
difficult old lady with a tongue; 'God send her,' says Thomas, mopping
his brow, after one of these interviews, 'once a merry countenance or
shortly to the Minories[K]!' After another he writes to Dame Elizabeth:
'Sith I came home to London I met with my lady your mother and God wot
she made me right sullen cheer with her countenance whiles I was with
her; methought it long till I was departed. She break out to me of her
old "ffernyeres" and specially she brake to me of the tale I told her
between the vicar that was and her; she said the vicar never fared well
sith, he took it so much to heart. I told her a light answer again and
so I departed from her. I had no joy to tarry with her. She is a fine
merry woman, but ye shall not know it nor yet find it, nor none of yours
by that I see in her[15].' It was the faithful Betson, too, who was
chosen to look after his Katherine's little sister Anne when she was ill
in London, and he writes home asking for her clothes--'She hath need
unto them and that knoweth our Lord'--and complaining of the old
grandmother's behaviour: 'If my lady your mother meet my cousin Anne she
will say no more but "God's blessing have ye and mine', and so go her
way forth, as though she had no joy of her[16]." It was Betson, too, who
escorted Dame Elizabeth, when need was, from Windsor to London and wrote
to her husband: 'By the way we were right merry, thanked be God, and so
with his mercy we mean here to be merry for the season that my lady is
here, and when your mastership is ready to come hitherwards, we here
shall so welcome you that the season of your abiding shall not be
noisome, with God's grace[17].' Whereupon Sir William sends a present of
capons by the carrier to assist the merriment, and Betson reports, 'Sir,
I took two capons, but they were not the best, as ye counselled me by
your letter to take, and indeed to say the truth I could not be
suffered. My lady your wife is reasonably strong waxed, the Lord be
thanked, and she took her will in that matter like as she doth in all
other.'[18]
[Footnote K: The convent of Minoresses, or Franciscan nuns, outside
Aldgate.]
There are, indeed, a hundred evidences of the warmth of Betson's
affection for the Stonors and of the simple piety of his character.
Sometimes he ventures to give them good advice. Dame Elizabeth was
somewhat uplifted by her elevation from the ranks of the mercantile
bourgeoisie to a place among the country gentry, and was apt to be
extravagant, nor was her husband entirely guiltless of running up bills.
We hear of the ale brewer and the bread baker calling daily upon his
agent for money, and on one occasion the Stonors owed over £12 to
Betson's own brother, a vintner, for various pipes of red and white
wine and a butt of Rumney[L][19]. So Thomas writes to Dame Elizabeth, on
his way to the mart: 'Our blessed lord Jesus Christ preserve you both in
honour and worship virtuously to continue in God's pleasure and also to
send you good and profitable counsel and grace to do hereafter. This is
and shall be my prayer forsooth every day; your honour and worship of
countenance hereafter sticketh as nigh mine heart as doth any friend,
man or other about you, by my troth, our blessed Lord so help me. I will
avise you, Madame, to remember large expenses and beware of them, and in
likewise my master your husband; it is well done ye remember him of
them, for divers considerations, as ye know both right well. And our
blessed Lord be your comforter and help in all your good work.
Amen.'[20] A month later he hears that William Stonor has been ill and
writes to sympathize with Dame Elizabeth: 'And if I could do anything
here that might be to his pleasure and yours, I would I knew it and it
should be done withouten fail. Truly your discomfort is not my comfort,
God knoweth it. Nevertheless your ladyship must cause him to be merry
and of glad cheer, and to put away all fantasies and unthrifty thoughts,
that comes no good of, but only hurtful. A man may hurt himself by
riotous means; it is good to beware.'[21]
[Footnote L: Greek wine.]
Meanwhile what of little Katherine Riche? She recurs over and over in
Thomas Betson's letters. Occasionally she is in disgrace, for she was
not handy with her pen. 'I am wroth with Katherine,' writes he to her
mother, 'because she sendeth me no writing. I have to her divers times
and for lack of answer I wax weary; she might get a secretary if she
would and if she will not, it shall put me to less labour to answer her
letters again.'[22] But the important thing is that she grows steadily
older, though not quickly enough to please our lover. On Trinity Sunday
in 1478 he writes to Dame Elizabeth: 'I remember her full oft, God
know[eth] it. I dreamed once she was thirty winters of age and when I
woke I wished she had been but twenty and so by likelihood I am sooner
like to have my wish than my dream, the which I beseech Almighty Jesu
heartily when it shall please Him'[23]; and to the lady's stepfather he
writes a month later: 'I beseech you to remember my cousin Katherine. I
would she did well, God knoweth it, and ye deme, as I trow, if I had
found her at home here my comfort should have been the more; but I thank
God of all. My pain is the more; I must needs suffer as I have done in
times past, and so will I do for God's sake and hers.'[24] However,
Katherine was now fifteen years of age and was sufficiently grown up to
wed, and the next letter, written a week later to Dame Elizabeth, shows
us Thomas Betson beginning to set his house in order and getting
exceedingly bothered about laying in her trousseau, a business with
which Dame Elizabeth had, it seems, entrusted the future bridegroom.
Madam, and it like you, I understand by your writing that it will be the
latter end of August or your ladyship can come here to London; and if it
should be so I would be sorry, for I have much to do and I can little
skill to do anything that longeth to the matter ye wot of [evidently the
preparations for Katherine] ... I must beseech your ladyship to send me
[your advice] how I shall be demeaned in such things as shall belong
unto my cousin Katherine, and how I shall provide for them. She must
have girdles, three at the least, and how they shall be made I know not,
and many other things she must have, ye know well what they be, in faith
I know not; by my troth, I would it were done, liever than more than it
shall cost.... And as for the sending hither of my Cousin Katherine,
your ladyship may do therein as it shall please you. I would she knew as
much as you know, forsooth, and then she should do some good and help me
in many things when she come.... Also, madam, as ye write me the
courteous dealing of my master with my Cousin Katherine, etc., truly I
am very glad thereof and I pray God heartily thank him therefore, for he
hath ever been lovingly disposed [unto] her, and so I beseech God ever
continue him and also my Cousin Katherine to deserve it unto him by her
goodly demeanour and womanly disposition, as she can do right well if
her list, and so saith every body that praiseth her.[25]
The note of pride in the last words is as engaging as the impatience of
the harassed male faced with the choosing of girdles. Even more charming
is the letter which he wrote the same day to Sir William Stonor. He is a
little incoherent with joy and gratitude, full of regrets that business
keeps him from Stonor and good wishes for the health of the family. 'I
fare like a sorry piper,' he says. 'When I begin I cannot leave, but
yet once again our blessed Lord be your speed and your help,' Of
Katherine he writes thus:
I understand by the worshipful report of your mastership the
[be]haviours of my cousin Katherine unto you, to my lady your wife and
to all other, etc.; and truly it is to me right joyful and comfortable
gladness to hear of her and I beseech our blessed Lord ever to preserve
her in all virtue and good living to his pleasure, and to reward your
mastership with heaven at your ending, for your good disposition to
herwards in good exhortations giving. And that I wot well of old, or
else truly she could not be of that disposition, virtuous and goodly,
her youth remembered and excused.... Sir, remember your mastership well
what ye have written of my Cousin Katherine; truly I shall when I speak
with her, tell her every word, and if I find the contrary. Our vicar
here, so God help me, shall cry out upon her[M] within this ten weeks
and less, and by that time I shall be ready in every point, by God's
grace, and so I would she were, forsooth ye may believe me of it.[26]
[Footnote M: I.e. call the banns.]
This letter was written on June 24, 1478, and Thomas probably married
his little Katherine in August or September, for when Dame Elizabeth
writes to her husband on October 5, she says, 'My son Betson and his
wife recommend them to you'[27] The poor child was to learn soon enough
some of the sorrows of a wife, for a year later Thomas Betson fell
dangerously ill, and she was nursing him and looking after his business
for all the world as though she were a grave matron and not a bride of
sixteen. Moreover, she must already have been expecting the birth of her
eldest son. William Stonor's attitude towards his partner's illness is
not without humour. He was torn between anxiety for the life of a friend
and an even greater anxiety that Betson should not die without setting
straight the business obligations between them. We hear of the illness
and of Katherine's labours in a letter from one of Stonor's agents to
his master:
Sir, according to the commandment of your mastership, we were at Stepney
by nine of the clock; at such time as we came thither we saw the
gentleman forthwith, and in good faith he made us good cheer as a sick
man might by countenance notwithstanding, for in good faith we saw by
his demeanour that he might not prosper in this world, for Mistress
Bevice and other gentlewomen and his uncle were of the same opinion. And
we desired and prayed him to be of good comfort and so comforted him as
heartily as we could in your name and in my lady's, and so we departed
from the chamber down into the hall, and he fell into a great slumbering
and was busily moved in his spirits. And at eleven of the clock I called
his uncle out of his bed into the gentleman's chamber, and I asked his
advice and my mistress his wife, of the stock and of the demeanour
thereof for the year and the half that is last past. And touching the
stock he confessed that it was £1,160, wherein at the sight of your
acquittance in discharging of him and all his doers that shall be behind
him, the said stock shall be ready. And as for the occupation of it, as
he will answer between God and devil, the book that he bought it by ye
shall be privy thereto; and the book that he sold by ye shall be also
privy to, which two books shall be his judges, which remain in the
keeping of my mistress his wife's hands under lock and key and other
bills and obligations according, concerning the surety for divers
payments to be made to divers merchants, as the said lord saith.... And
as for the plate my mistress Jane [probably Jane Riche, the younger
sister of Katherine] and I have caused it to be taken up and set in
surety, save that that must needs by occupied.
He sends to Sir William for information about two sums of £80 each owed
by Betson to his master and mistress, and adds:
I trust to Jesu he shall endure till the messenger come again; longer
the physicians have not determined. The executors be three persons, my
mistress his wife, Humphrey Starkey, Recorder of London, Robert Tate,
merchant of Calais; notwithstanding I moved him, between him and me and
mistress Jane, that he should break this testament and make my mistress
his wife sole executrix. What will be done therein as yet I cannot
speak, but I shall do as I can, with God's grace.[28]
There is something unexpected and a little vulture-like about this
gathering of creditors and seizing of plate about the death-bed of a man
who had always, after all, shown himself exceedingly affectionate
towards the Stonors and devoted to their interests, and who was now my
lady's son-in-law. The attempt to make the young wife of sixteen sole
executrix, so that she might be completely in her family's hands and
without the counsel of two experienced and disinterested merchants, has
a somewhat sinister air. The intrigues went on, and three days later
the agent writes again. It is pleasant to observe that bad-tempered old
Mistress Croke, Dame Elizabeth's mother, was not unmindful of Betson's
forbearance during those visits when she had railed upon him with her
sharp tongue:
As for the tidings that is here, I trust to God it shall be very good.
On Thursday my lady Croke came to Stepney and brought with her Master
Brinkley to see Betson, and in faith he was a very sick man; and ere he
departed he gave him plasters to his head, to his stomach and to his
belly, [so] that he all that night was in a quiet rest. And he came to
him again on Friday ... and he was well amended and so said all the
people that were about him. Notwithstanding he will not determine him
whether he shall live or die as yet, but he may keep him alive till
Tuesday noon, he will undertake him. The cause that I write to you now
rather was because I had no certainty. Sir, there hath been many special
labours and secret i-made, sithen mistress Jane and I were come, to the
contrary disposition that we come for. I cannot write the plain[nes]s of
them as yet, for my mistress Betson attendeth, all things and counsels
laid apart, to abide and trust in your good fatherhood and in my lady,
and furthermore if he depart the world, ye shall hear tidings of her in
as goodly haste as we may purvey for her. And whether he die or live, it
is necessary and behoveful that mistress Jane depart not from her into
[i.e. until] such time as the certainty be knowen, for in truth divers
folks, which ye shall know hereafter and my lady, both thus hath and
would exhort her to a contrarier disposition, had not we been here by
time. And mistress Jane is worthy of much thank.[29]
However, all the schemings were premature, for Betson happily recovered.
On October 10 the 'prentice' Henham writes: 'My master Betson is right
well amended, blessed be Jesus, and he is past all doubts of sickness
and he takes the sustenance right well, and as for physicians, there
come none unto him, for he hath no need of them.'[30] But another death
was at hand to break the close association between Thomas Betson and the
Stonors, for at the end of the year the kind, extravagant, affectionate
Dame Elizabeth died. It is a surprising fact that her death seems to
have brought to a close the business partnership between her husband and
her son-in-law. Henceforth the only references to Thomas Betson in the
Stonor papers are occasional notes of his debts to Stonor: doubtless he
had bought Sir William's share in their joint business. On March 10,
1480, he acknowledged obligations of £2,835 9s. 0d. to Stonor, and in
1482 he still owed £1,200.[31] It is impossible to guess why the
relationship, which was an affectionate personal friendship as well as a
business tie, should have come to such a sudden end. As the editor of
the _Stonor Letters_ remarks, 'The sincerity and honesty of Betson's
character as revealed in his letters, forbids one to suppose that he was
to blame.'
Such was the more private and domestic side of Thomas Betson's life; but
it tells us little (save in occasional references to the Fellowship of
the Staple or the price of Cotswold wool) about that great company with
which this chapter began; and since he stands here as a type as well as
an individual, we must needs turn now to his public and business life,
and try to find out from more indirect evidence how a Merchant of the
Staple went about his business. The stapler, who would make a good
livelihood, must do two things, and give his best attention to both of
them: first, he must buy his wool from the English grower, then he must
sell it to the foreign buyer. Some of the best wool in England came from
the Cotswolds, and when you are a Merchant of the Staple you enjoy
bargaining for it, whether you want the proceeds of the great summer
clip or of the fells after the autumn sheep-killing. So Thomas Betson
rides off to Gloucestershire in the soft spring weather, his good sorrel
between his knees, and the scent of the hawthorn blowing round him as he
goes. Other wool merchants ride farther afield--into the long dales of
Yorkshire to bargain with Cistercian abbots for the wool from their huge
flocks, but he and the Celys swear by Cotswold fells (he shipped 2,348
of them to London one July 'in the names of Sir William Stonor knight
and Thomas Betson, in the _Jesu_ of London, John Lolyngton master under
God'). May is the great month for purchases, and Northleach the great
meeting-place of staplers and wool dealers. It is no wonder that
Northleach Church is so full of woolmen's brasses, for often they knelt
there, and often the village hummed with the buyers and sellers,
exchanging orders and examining samples. The Celys bought chiefly from
two Northleach wool dealers, William Midwinter and John Busshe. The
relations between dealers and sellers were often enough close and
pleasant: Midwinter even occasionally tried to provide a customer with a
bride as well as with a cargo, and marriageable young ladies were not
unwilling to be examined over a gallon of wine and much good cheer at
the inn.[32] It is true that Midwinter was apt to be restive when his
bills remained for too long unpaid, but he may be forgiven for that.
Thomas Betson favoured the wool fells of Robert Turbot of Lamberton,[33]
and dealt also with one John Tate, with Whyte of Broadway (another
famous wool village),[34] and with John Elmes, a Henley merchant well
known to the Stonors. Midwinter, Busshe, and Elmes were all wool
dealers, or 'broggers'--middlemen, that is to say, between the farmers
who grew and the staplers who bought wool, but often the staplers dealt
directly with individual farmers, buying the small man's clip as well as
the great man's, and warm friendships sprang from the annual visits,
looked forward to in Yorkshire dale and Cotswold valley. It strikes a
pleasant note when Richard Russell, citizen and merchant of York, leaves
in his will, 'for distribution among the farmers of Yorkes Walde, from
whom I bought wool 20 l., and in the same way among the farmers of
Lyndeshay 10 l.' (1435).[35]
The 'Cely Letters' give a mass of information about the wool buying at
Northleach. In the May of the same year in which Betson's partnership
with Stonor would seem to have ended, old Richard Cely was up there
doing business and reporting it to his son, 'Jorge Cely at Caleys'.
I greet you well and I have received a letter from you writ
at Calais the 13th day of May (1480), the which letter I have
well understood of your being at the marts and of the sale of
my middle wool, desired by John Destermer and John Underbay.
Wherefore by the grace of God I am abusied for to ship this
foresaid 29 sarplers, the which I bought of William Midwinter
of Northleach, 26 sarplers, the which is fair wool, as the
wool packer Will Breten saith to me, and also the 3 sarplers
of the rector's is fair wool, much finer wool nor was the
year before, the which I shipped afore Easter last past. The
shipping is begun at London, but I have none shipped as yet,
but I will after these holy days, for the which I will ye
order for the freight and other costs. This same day your
brother Richard Cely is rid to Northleach for to see and cast
a sort of fell for me and another sort of fell for you.[36]
On another occasion he writes: 'By your letter you avise me for to buy
wool in Cotswold, for which I shall have of John Cely his gathering 30
sack, and of Will Midwinter of Northleach 40 sack. And I am avised to
buy no more; wool in Cotswold is at great price, 13s. 4d. a tod, and
great riding for wool in Cotswold as was any year this seven year.'[37]
What a picture it calls up of merchants trotting along the roads and
looking as Chaucer often saw them look:
A Marchant was ther with a forked berd,
In motteleye and hye on horse he sat,
Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bever hat,
His boots clasped faire and fetisly;
His resons he spak ful solempnely,
Sounynge alway thencrees of his wynnyng.
Often at Northleach Betson must have encountered his brethren of the
Staple, the staid old merchant Richard Cely among the rest, and son
George who rides with 'Meg', his hawk, on his wrist, and has a horse
called 'Bayard' and another called 'Py'; and perhaps also John Barton of
Holme beside Newark, the proud stapler who set as a 'posy' in the
stained glass windows of his house this motto:
I thank God and ever shall
It is the sheepe hath payed for all;[38]
though indeed it is unlikely that he came as far south as the Cotswolds
for his wool. Sometimes also Betson meets upon the road his rivals,
stout, self-possessed Flemings and thin sleek Lombards with black eyes
and gesticulating hands, who have no business in the Cotswolds at all,
but ought to be buying wool in the mart at Calais. But they come, and
all good Englishmen are angry at their tricks and angrier still perhaps
at their successful trade. 'I have not as yet packed my wool in London,'
writes old Richard Cely on October 29, 1480; 'nor have I not bought this
year a lock of wool, for the wool of Cotswold is bought by Lombards,
wherefore I have the less haste for to pack my wool at London';[39] and
his son writes to him on November 16 from Calais: 'There is but little
Cotswold wool at Calais and I understand Lombards has bought it up in
England.'[40] It is true that the Celys, other English merchants too,
are not unwilling to conclude private bargains from time to time with
foreign buyers in England. Two years later their agent, William Cely,
writes to advise them that two Flemish merchants are now trying to buy
in England contrary to the ordinance, and that those in authority at
Calais have got wind of it, and therefore his masters must take care and
make Wyllykyn and Peter Bale pay at Calais, 'but as for your dealings
knoweth no man, without they search Peter Bale's books.'[41] The upright
Betson no doubt eschewed such tricks and resented particularly the
clever usurious Lombards, so full of financial dodges to trick the
English merchant, for did they not buy the wool in England on credit,
riding about as they list in the Cotswolds?
In Cotteswolde also they ryde aboute
And al Englonde, and bien wythouten doute,
What them liste, wythe fredome and fraunchise
More then we Englisshe may getyn in any wyse.
And then did they not carry the wool to Flanders and sell it for ready
money at a loss of five per cent, thereafter lending out this money at
heavy usury, mostly to the English merchants themselves, so that by the
time pay day came in England, they had realized a heavy profit?
And thus they wold, if we will beleve
Wypen our nose with our owne sleve,
Thow this proverbe be homly and undew,
Yet be liklynesse it is forsoth fulle trew.[42]
The next serious piece of business Thomas Betson must take in hand is
the packing and shipping of his wool to Calais. Here he found himself
enmeshed in the regulations of the company and the Crown, ever on the
look-out for fraud in the packing or description of the staple product.
The wool had to be packed in the county from which it came, and there
were strict regulations against mixing hair and earth or rubbish with
it. The collectors appointed by the company for the different
wool-growing districts, and sworn in before the Exchequer, rode round
and sealed each package, so that it could not be opened without breaking
the seal. Then the great bales were carried on the backs of pack-horses
'by the ancient trackways over the Wiltshire and Hampshire Downs, which
had been used before the Roman conquest, and thence through Surrey and
Kent to the Medway ports by the Pilgrims' Way.' At the different ports
the collectors of customs were ready to enter on their rolls the names
of the merchants shipping wool, together with the quantity and
description of wool shipped by each.[43] Some of the wool came to London
itself, where many of the staplers had offices in Mark Lane (which is a
corruption of Mart Lane) and was weighed for the assessment of the
customs and subsidy at the Leadenhall.[44] In this business Thomas
Betson was helped by Stonor's three assistants or 'prentices', as they
call themselves, Thomas Henham, Goddard Oxbridge, and Thomas Howlake,
for the last of whom he had a warm corner in his heart, because the
young man was gentle to little Katherine Riche. These men were sometimes
at the Stonors' London warehouse and sometimes at their house in Calais,
and they saved Betson a good deal of trouble, being experienced enough
to oversee both the packing of wool in London and its sale in Calais.
To Calais the wool thus packed, and weighed and marked and assessed by
the customs officer, was carried in the ships of Calais itself, or of
the little ports on the east or south-eastern coast of England, many of
which are mere villages today. For ships put out not only from Hull and
Colchester, but from Brightlingsea, Rotherhithe, Walberswick in Suffolk,
Rainham in Essex, Bradwell, Maidstone, Milton, Newhithe, and Milhall. In
August 1478, the Celys were paying the masters of twenty-one different
ships for the freight of their sarplers of wool after the summer
clip.[45] All through the summer the shipping went on, and right up to
Christmas; but during the winter months the merchants were mostly
sending over fells or sheepskins, after the great slaughter of sheep and
cattle which took place at Martinmas, when housewives salted down their
meat for the winter and farmers made delivery of the fells and hides,
for which the staplers had long ago bargained. Very often merchants'
letters and customs accounts give us the names of these doughty little
ships and their cargoes. In the October of 1481, for instance, the Celys
were shipping a consignment of fells:
Right worshipful sir, after due recommendation I lowly recommend unto
you, letting you understand that my master hath shipped his fells at the
port of London now at this shipping in October ..., which fells ye must
receive and pay the freight first by the grace of God, in the 'Mary' of
London, William Sordyvale master, 7 packs, sum 2800, lying be aft the
mast, one pack lieth up rest and some of that pack is summer fells
marked with an O, and then lieth 3 packs fells of William Daltons and
under them lieth the other 6 packs of my masters. Item in the
'Christopher' of Rainham, Harry Wylkyns master, 7 packs and a half
Cots[wold] fell, sum 3000 pelt, lying be aft the mast, and under them
lieth a 200 fells of Welther Fyldes, William Lyndys man of Northampton,
and the partition is made with small cords. Item, in the 'Thomas' of
Maidstone, Harry Lawson master, 6 pokes, sum 2400 pelt, whereof lieth 5
packs next before the mast under hatches, no man above them, and one
pack lieth in the stern sheet; of the six packs fells be some summer
fells marked with an O likewise. Item, in the 'Mary Grace' of London,
John Lokyngton master 6 packs, sum 2400 pelt, lying be aft under the
fells of Thomas Graunger, the partition between them is made with red;
sum of the fells my master hath shipped at this time 26 packs and a half
whereof be winter fells of the country 561 fells and they be marked with
an C, and of summer fells there should be 600 and more, but part of them
be left behind, for we have two packs we could have no appointment for
them, and all the summer fells be marked with an O. Item, sir, ye shall
receive of the 'Mary' of Rainham, John Danyell master, your _male_
[trunk] with your gear and a Essex cheese marked with my master's mark.
And so on, with details of the number of fells shipped in like manner by
the _Michael_ of Hull and the _Thomas_ of Newhithe, where they lay 'next
the mast aftward under the fells of Thomas Betson's', over 11,000 fells
in all.[46]
How invigorating is such a list of ships. Cargoes are the most romantic
of topics, whether they be apes and ivory and peacocks, or 'cheap tin
trays'; and since the day that Jason sailed to Colchis fleeces have ever
been among the most romantic of cargoes. How they smack of the salt too,
those old master mariners, Henry Wilkins, master of the _Christopher_ of
Rainham, John Lollington, master of the _Jesu_ of London, Robert Ewen,
master of the _Thomas_ of Newhithe, and all the rest of them, waving
their hands to their wives and sweethearts as they sail out of the
sparkling little bays, with the good woolsacks abaft or under
hatches--shipmen, all of them, after Chaucer's heart:
But of his craft, to rekene wel his tydes
His stremes and his daungers hym besides,
His herberwe and his moone, his lodemenage,
Ther was noon swich from Hulle to Cartage.
Hardy he was, and wys to undertake:
With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake;
He knew wel alle the havenes, as they were,
From Gootland to the Cape of Fynystere,
And every cryke in Britaigne and in Spayne.
His barge y-cleped was the Maudelayne.
Their ships were doubtless like the _Margaret Cely_, which the two Cely
brothers bought and called after their mother, for the not excessive sum
of £28, exclusive of rigging and fittings. She carried a master,
boatswain, cook, and sixteen jolly sailor-men, and she kept a good look
out for pirates and was armed with cannon and bows, bills, five dozen
darts, and twelve pounds of gunpowder! She was victualled with salt
fish, bread, wheat and beer, and she plied with the Celys' trade to
Zealand, Flanders, and Bordeaux.[47] She must have been about two
hundred tons, but some of the other little ships were much smaller, for,
as the learned editor of the _Cely Papers_ tells us, 'The ships of the
little Medway ports could scarcely have been of thirty tons to navigate
the river safely; the "Thomas" of Maidstone can have been only a barge,
if she had to pass Aylesford Bridge.'[48] But they navigated the channel
and dodged the pirates blithely enough, though often Thomas Betson at
Calais was nervous about the safe arrival of the wool fleet. Like
Chaucer's merchant,
He wolde the see were kept for any thing
Betwixe Middelburgh and Orewelle.
Side by side with George or Richard Cely he must often have strained his
eyes from the quay, with the salt wind blowing out the feather in his
cap, and breathed a thanksgiving to God when the ships hove in sight.
'And, Sir,' he writes once to Stonor from London, 'thanked be the good
Lord, I understand for certain that our wool shipped be comen in ... to
Calais. I would have kept the tidings till I had comen myself, because
it is good, but I durst not be so bold, for your mastership now against
this good time may be glad and joyful of these tidings, for in truth I
am glad and heartily thank God of it.'[49] The 'prentice' Thomas Henham
writes likewise three weeks later: 'I departed from Sandwich the 11th
day of April and so came unto Calais upon Sher Thursday[N] last with the
wool ships, and so blessed be Jesu I have received your wools in safety.
Furthermore, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand this, I
have received your wools as fair and as whole as any man's in the fleet.
Moreover, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand how your
wool was housed ever deal by Easter even. Furthermore, Sir, if it please
your mastership for to understand that the shipman be content and paid
of their freight.'[50] The Celys write in the same strain too: 'This day
the 16th of August the wool fleet came to Calais both of London and
Ipswich in safety, thanked be God, and this same day was part landed and
it riseth fair yet, thanked be God.'[51] Their letters tell us too what
danger it was that they feared. 'I pray Jesu send you safe hither and
soon,' writes Richard to his 'right well beloved brother George', on
June 6, 1482. 'Robert Eryke was chased with Scots between Calais and
Dover. They scaped narrow.'[52] There are many such chases recorded, and
we hear too of wool burnt under hatches or cast overboard in a
storm.[53]
[Footnote N: I.e. Shrove Thursday.]
Thomas Betson and the Celys travelled very often across the Channel in
these ships, which carried passengers and letters, and they were almost
as much at home in Calais as in London. When in Calais English merchants
were not allowed to live anywhere they liked, all over the town. The
Company of the Staple had a list of regular licensed 'hosts', in whose
houses they might stay. Usually a number of merchants lived with each
host, the most potent, grave, and reverend seniors dining at a high
table, and smaller fry at side tables in the hall. Sometimes they
quarrelled over terms, as when William Cely writes home one day to
Richard and George in London:
Item. Sir, please it you to understand that here is a variance betwixt
our host Thomas Graunger and the fellowship, of our lodging, for Thomas
Graunger promised us at his coming in to our lodging that we should pay
no more for our board but 3s. 4d. a week at the high table, and 2s. 6d.
at the side table, and now he saith he will have no less than 4s. a week
at the high table and 40d. at the side table, wherefore the fellowship
here will depart into other lodgings, some to one place and some to
another, William Dalton will be at Robert Torneys and Ralph Temyngton
and master Brown's man of Stamford shall be at Thomas Clarke's and so
all the fellowship departs save I, wherefore I let your masterships have
knowledge, that ye may do as it shall like you best.[54]
But Thomas Betson never fell out with his hosts, whose only complaint of
him must have been that he sat long over his love letters and came down
late to dinner.
There was business enough for him to do at Calais. First of all, when
the wool was landed, it had to be inspected by the Royal officers, to
see that it had been properly labelled, and their skilled packers
examined, repacked, and resealed the bales. This was an anxious moment
for merchants who were conscious of inferior wool among their bulging
sarplers. The honest Betson, we may be certain, never cheated, but the
Celys knew more than a little about the tricks of the trade, and one
year, when the Lieutenant of Calais took out sarpler No. 24, which their
agent, William Cely, knew to be poor wool, in order to make a test, he
privily substitutes No. 8, which was 'fair wool' and changed the labels,
so that he was soon able to write home, 'Your wool is awarded by the
sarpler that I cast out last.'[55] No wonder Gower said that Trick was
regent of the Staple,
Siq'en le laines maintenir
Je voi plusours descontenir
Du loyalté la viele usance.[56]
Then there was the custom and subsidy to be paid to the Mayor and
Fellowship of the Staple, who collected it for the King. And then came
the main business of every merchant, the selling of the wool. Thomas
Betson preferred, of course, to sell it as quickly as possible, as the
ships came in, but sometimes the market was slow and wool remained for
some months on his hands. Such wool from the summer sheep shearing,
shipped in or before the month of February following, and remaining
unsold by April 6th, was classed as old wool, and the Fellowship of the
Staple ordained that foreign buyers must take one sarpler of old wool
with every three of new; and although the Flemings grumbled and wanted
to take one of old to five of new, they had to put up with the
regulation.[57] A great deal of Betson's business would be done at the
mart of Calais itself, where he met with the dignified Flemish
merchants, scions of old families with estates of their own, and the
more plebeian merchants of Delft and Leyden, and the wool dealers from
sunny Florence and Genoa and Venice. Among the best customers both of
the Stonors and the Celys (for they are mentioned in the letters of
both) were Peter and Daniel van de Rade of Bruges. Thomas Howlake on one
occasion reports a sale of four sarplers of fine Cotswold wool to them
at 19 marks the sack, with a rebate of 4-1/2 cloves on the sack of 52,
and adds: 'Sir, an it please you, as for the foresaid merchants that
have bought your wool, [they] be as good as any that came out of
Flanders and for that I have showed them the more favour and given them
the more respite of that.'[58]
The staplers, however, did not do business at Calais alone, but rode
also to the great fairs at Antwerp, Bruges, and the country round.
'Thomas Betson,' writes Henham to his master, 'came unto Calais the last
day of April and so he departed in good health unto Bruges mart the
first day of May.'[59]
But so bifel this marchant on a day
Shoop hym to make redy his array
Toward the toun of Brugges for to fare,
To byen there a porcioun of ware--[60]
only it was to 'sellen' a portion that Betson went. He himself writes
Sir William: 'Liketh it you to wit that on Trinity even I came to Calais
and, thanked be the good Lord, I had a full fair passage, and, Sir, with
God's might I intend on Friday next to depart to the mart-wards. I
beseech the good Lord be my speed and help me in all my works. And, Sir,
I trust to God's mercy, if the world be merry here, to do somewhat that
shall be both to your profit and mine. As yet there cometh but few
merchants here; hereafter with God's grace there will come more. I shall
lose no time when the season shall come, I promise you.... And, Sir,
when I come from the mart I shall send you word of all matters by the
mercy of our Lord.'[61] At the fairs Betson would meet with a great
crowd of merchants from all over Europe, though often enough political
disturbances made the roads dangerous and merchants ran some risk of
being robbed. The English traders were commonly reputed to be the best
sellers and customers at the fairs of Flanders and Brabant, though the
Flemings sometimes complained of them, and said that the staplers made
regulations forbidding their merchants to buy except on the last day,
when the Flemish sellers, anxious to pack and be off, let their goods go
at insufficient prices.[62] The author of the _Libelle of Englyshe
Polycye_ boasts proudly of the custom brought by the English to
these marts:
But they of Holonde at Calyse byene oure felles,
And oure wolles, that Englyshe men hem selles...
And wee to martis of Braban charged bene
Wyth Englysshe clothe, fulle gode and feyre to seyne,
Wee bene ageyne charged wyth mercerye
Haburdasshere ware and wyth grocerye,
To whyche martis, that Englisshe men call feyres
Iche nacion ofte makethe here repayeres,
Englysshe and Frensh, Lumbards, Januayes [Genoese],
Cathalones, theder take here wayes,
Scottes, Spaynardes, Iresshmen there abydes,
Wythe grete plente bringing of salt hydes,
And I here saye that we in Braban lye,
Flaunders and Seland, we bye more marchaundy
In common use, then done all other nacions;
This have I herde of marchaundes relacions,
And yff the Englysshe be not in the martis,
They bene febelle and as nought bene here partes;
For they bye more and fro purse put owte
More marchaundy than alle other rowte.[63]
Fairs were held at different times in different places, but there were
during the year four great fair seasons corresponding to the four
seasons in the year.[64] There was the Cold mart in the winter, to which
Thomas Betson rode muffled in fur, with his horse's hoofs ringing on the
frosty roads; there was the Pask (_Pasques,_ Easter) mart in the spring,
when he whistled blithely and stuck a violet in his cap; there was the
Synxon (St John) mart in the summer, round about St John the Baptist's
Day, when he was hot and mopped his brow, and bought a roll of tawny
satin or Lucca silk for Katherine from a Genoese in a booth at Antwerp;
and there was the Balms, or Bammys mart in the autumn, round about the
day of St Rémy, whom the Flemings call St Bamis (October 28), when he
would buy her a fur of budge or mink, or a mantle of fine black shanks
from the Hansards at their mart in Bruges. It was at these marts that
the Merchants of the Staple, jaunting about from place to place to meet
buyers for their wool, did a hundred little commissions for their
friends; for folk at home were apt to think that staplers existed to do
their errands for them abroad and to send them presents. One wanted a
pair of Louvain gloves, the other a sugar loaf, the other a pipe of
Gascon wine ('You can get it cheaper over there, my dear'), the other a
yard or two of Holland cloth; while ginger and saffron were always
welcome, and could be bought from the Venetians, whom the Celys spell
'Whenysyans'. Then, of course, there were purchases to be made in the
way of business, such as Calais packthread and canvas from Arras or
Brittany or Normandy to pack the bales of wool.[65] As to the Celys,
Thomas Betson was wont to say that their talk was of nothing but sport
and buying hawks, save on one gloomy occasion, when George Cely rode for
ten miles in silence and then confided to him that over in England his
grey bitch had whelped and had fourteen pups, and then died and the pups
with her.[66]
Between the counting-house in Calais and the fairs and marts of the
country Thomas Betson would dispose of his wool and fells. But his
labour did not end here, for he would now have to embark upon the
complicated business of collecting money from his customers, the Flemish
merchants, and with it paying his creditors in England, the Cotswold
wool dealers. It was customary for the staplers to pay for their wool
by bills due, as a rule, at six months, and Thomas Betson would be hard
put to meet them if the foreign buyers delayed to pay him. Moreover, his
difficulties were inconceivably complicated by the exchanges. We think
we know something about the difficulty of divers and fluctuating
exchanges today, but we can hardly imagine the elaborate calculations
and the constant disputes which racked the brain of a Merchant of the
Staple in the fifteenth century. Not only did the rates between England
and the Continent constantly vary, but, as the editor of the _Cely
Papers_ points out, 'the number of potentates of all kinds who claimed
the privilege of issuing their own coinage and the frequently suspicious
character of what they uttered as gold and silver, made the matter of
adjustment of values difficult for the Celys, who were evidently obliged
to take what they could get.'[67] Only imagine the difficulties of poor
Thomas Betson, when into his counting-house there wandered in turn the
Andrew guilder of Scotland, the Arnoldus gulden of Gueldres (very much
debased), the Carolus groat of Charles of Burgundy, new crowns and old
crowns of France, the David and the Falewe of the Bishopric of Utrecht,
the Hettinus groat of the Counts of Westphalia, the Lewe or French Louis
d'or, the Limburg groat, the Milan groat, the Nimueguen groat, the
Phelippus or Philippe d'or of Brabant, the Plaques of Utrecht, the
Postlates of various bishops, the English Ryall (worth ten shillings),
the Scots Rider or the Rider of Burgundy (so called because they bore
the figure of a man on horseback), the Florin Rhenau of the Bishopric of
Cologne and the Setillers.[68] He had to know the value in English money
of them all, as it was fixed for the time being by the Fellowship, and
most of them were debased past all reason. Indeed, English money enjoyed
an enviable good fame in this respect until Henry VIII began debasing
the coinage for his own nefarious ends. The letters of the Celys are
full of worried references to the exchange, and much we should pity
Thomas Betson. But doubtless he was like Chaucer's bearded merchant:
'Wel koude he in exchaunge sheeldes [French crowns] selle.'
[Illustration: VII. CALAIS ABOUT THE TIME OF THOMAS BETSON]
To effect their payments between England and the Netherlands the
staplers used to make use of the excellent banking facilities and
instruments of credit (bills of exchange and so forth), which were
placed at their disposal by Italian and Spanish merchants and by the
English mercers, all of whom combined trading with financial operations.
Thus we find William Cely writing to his masters:
[Illustration: VIII. THOMAS PAYCOCKE'S HOUSE AT COGGESHALL]
Please your masterships to understand that I have received of John
Delowppys upon payment of the bill, the which is sent me by Adlington
but £300 fleming, whereof I have paid to Gynott Strabant £84 _6s. 6d_.
fleming. Item, I have made you over by exchange with Benynge Decasonn,
Lombard, 180 nobles sterling, payable at usance. I delivered it at _11s.
2-1/2d_. fleming the noble, it amounteth £100 _17s. 6d_. fleming. Item,
I have made you over by exchange in like wise with Jacob van de Base 89
nobles and _6s_. sterling, payable at London at usuance in like wise; I
delivered it at _11s. 2d_. fleming for every noble sterling; it
amounteth fl.--£50 fleming and the rest of your £300 remains still by
me, for I can make you over no more at this season, for here is no more
that will take any money as yet. And money goeth now upon the bourse at
_11s. 3-1/2d_. the noble and none other money but Nimueguen groats,
crowns, Andrew guilders and Rhenish guilders, and the exchange goeth
ever the longer worse and worse. Item, sir, I send you enclosed in this
said letter, the two first letters of the payment of the exchange above
written. Benynge Decasonn's letter is directed to Gabriel Defuye and
Peter Sanly, Genoese, and Jacob van de Base's is directed to Anthony
Carsy and Marcy Strossy, Spaniards; in Lombard Street ye shall hear
of them.[69]
A week later he writes:
I understand your masterships hath taken up by exchange of John Raynold,
mercer, £60 sterling, payable the 25th day of the month and of Deago
Decastron [Diego da Castro, a Spaniard] other £60 sterling, payable the
26th day of the same month, the which shall be both content at the day;
and as for master Lewis More, Lombard, [he] is paid and I have the bill;
his attorney is a wrangling fellow--he would none other money but
Nimueguen groats.[70]
Many a letter such as this must Thomas Betson have written at his
lodgings, sitting so late over his work that he must needs write to his
friends when he ought to be sleeping and date his letters: 'At London,
on our Lady day in the night, when I deem ye were in your bed, for mine
eyne smarted, so God help me.'[71] And when he came to make up his
annual accounts he had the hardest work of all to do. Here is a portrait
of him at his labours:
The thridde day this marchant up ariseth,
And on his nedes sadly hym avyseth,
And up into his countour-hous gooth he,
To rekene with hymself, as wel may be,
Of thilke yeer, how that it with hymn stood,
And how that he despended hadde his good,
And if that he encressed were or noon.
His bookes and his bagges, many oon,
He leith biform hymn on his countyng-bord.
Ful riche was his tresor and his hord,
For which ful faste his countour dore he shette;
And eek he nolde that no man sholde hymn lette
Of his accountes, for the meene tyme;
And thus he sit til it was passed pry me.[72]
Thus was passed the life of a Merchant of the Staple: in riding to the
Cotswold farms for wool; in business at the counting-houses in Marks
Lane; in sailing from London to Calais and from Calais to London again;
in dealing with merchant strangers at the mart in Calais, or riding to
the marts of Flanders in fair time. The great company sheltered him,
arranged his lodging, kept a sharp eye on the quality of his wool, made
rules for his buying and selling, and saw that he had justice in its
court. It was in this setting of hard and withal of interesting work
that Thomas Betson's love story flowered into a happy marriage. He was
not destined to live long after his recovery from the serious illness of
1479; perhaps it left him permanently delicate, for he died some six
years later, in 1486. During her seven years of married life (beginning,
be it remembered, at the age of fifteen), the diligent Katherine had
borne him five children, two sons, Thomas and John, and three daughters,
Elizabeth, Agnes, and Alice. Fortunately Thomas died very comfortably
off, as his will (still preserved in Somerset House) informs us. He had
become a member of the Fishmongers' Company as well as a Merchant of the
Staple, for by his time the great city companies were no longer confined
to persons actually engaged in the trade which each represented. In his
will[73] Thomas Betson leaves money for the repair of the roof loft in
his parish church of All Hallows, Barking, where he was buried, and
'thirty pounds to the garnishing of the Staple Chapel in Our Lady Church
at Calais, to buy some jewel', and twenty pounds to the
'Stockfishmongers' to buy plate. He makes the latter company the
guardian of his children, leaves his house to his wife, and a legacy of
40_s_. to Thomas Henham, his colleague in Stonor's service, and
characteristically gives directions 'for the costs of my burying to be
done not outrageously, but soberly and discreetly and in a mean
[moderate, medium] manner, that it may be unto the worship and laud of
Almighty God.' Katherine, a widow with five children at the age of
twenty-two, married as her second husband William Welbech, haberdasher
(the Haberdashers were a wealthy company), by whom she had another son.
But her heart stayed with the husband who wrote her her first playful
love-letter when she was a child, and on her death in 1510 she directed
that she should be laid by the side of Thomas Betson at All Hallows,
Barking, where three staplers still lie beneath their brasses, although
no trace of him remains.[74] There let them lie, long forgotten, and yet
worthier of memory than many of the armoured knights who sleep under
carved sepulchres in our beautiful medieval churches.
The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.