SCALES, John

It is likely that Scales was from a family established at Kingston-upon-Hull since at least the early fourteenth century. Richard Scales served as a chamberlain and bailiff of the town in the late 1330s and early 1340s and another John Scales exported wool through the port there in the late 1390s. Kermode, app. 4. Scales, who became a freeman of Hull upon completing an apprenticeship under Thomas Marshall† in 1429, Kingston-upon-Hull bench bk. 1, BRG 1. also pursued a career as a merchant, being styled as such in pardons he acquired in 1452 and 1458. C67/40, m. 13; 42, m. 12. By May 1441 he had married Mary Thwaites, a well connected widow who was probably the sister of the alderman and leading merchant, Hugh Clitheroe. By means of a settlement of August 1448, she shared with Scales an interest in a messuage, three tenements, a large garden, dovecote, pond and eight small gardens in Old Beverley Street. Cal. Hull Deeds, D. 342, 373-5. Although the deed recording the settlement refers to Scales’s wife as ‘Marion’, this is a variant of Mary and there is no other evidence to suggest that he had remarried by that date.

It is likely that Scales had business dealings in London, and he was certainly active in the overseas trade. During the mid 1440s he pursued lawsuits at Westminster against Thomas Crosse, a draper from the City, over a bond for just over £20 that he had received from the latter in 1439. Crosse responded by claiming that he had entered the security under duress, while a prisoner of Scales and his associates at Hull. CP40/738, rot. 453d; 740, rot. 520; 742, rot 113d. Another matter occupying Scales’s attention in this period were the losses that he and Robert Auncell* had suffered at sea when pirates plundered a Hull ship, The Lyon, of their goods, an incident which prompted them and the vessel’s owner to petition the Crown. CPR, 1446-52, p. 41. Scales himself possessed at least one ship, and in August 1449 the aldermen of Hull assigned wheat for the victualling of vessels belonging to him and other shipowners before they set out to sea, possibly on defensive duties on the Crown’s behalf. Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 13. Over a decade later, he was in dispute with another Hull merchant, Thomas Patrington, although the reason for their quarrel, which they submitted to the arbitration of the mayor and aldermen in August 1461, is unknown. Ibid. f. 79.

Before entering the Parliament of 1447, Scales served terms as a chamberlain and bailiff of Hull and became one of the first aldermen of the town. At Michaelmas 1449 he was chosen as mayor of Hull and in October the same year he was appointed to his first ad hoc commission. A powerful group led by Sir John Constable*, the commissioners were empowered to inquire into an act of piracy against a Flemish merchant. CPR, 1446-52, p. 316. The next significant office to come Scales’s way was that of commissary and deputy admiral at Hull in January 1454. The burgesses guarded the right of holding the admiral’s court in their town jealously, and on the day of his appointment he and other aldermen decided to send one of their number, the then mayor, Richard Anson*, to London to negotiate with the Council over their farm of the office. Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 31v. In the summer of 1455 Scales was among those nominated by his fellow aldermen to serve in the Parliament of that year but he was not elected, and he began a further term as mayor at Michaelmas 1456. Four years later, he was returned to his second Parliament, the dramatic assembly in which Richard, duke of York, made a formal claim to the throne. Ibid. ff. 43, 72.

Scales’s fellow Hull MP on this occasion was Richard Anson, a committed Yorkist, and, as Parliament opened on 7 Oct. 1460, Scales offered surety for his fellow MP in the Exchequer, where Anson was charged with illegally shipping overseas 500 marks which he had collected in customs’ revenue at Hull. During the parliamentary recess, Anson fell on the Yorkist side at the battle of Wakefield, but it is not known whether Scales shared his friend’s political sympathies. He seems to have remained at Westminster long after the parliamentary session ended on about 1 Dec., not returning to Hull until the 26th, only a few days before that battle. Ibid. f. 79v; E159/236, recorda Mich. rot. 79.

Scales quickly adapted to the accession of Edward IV, and in the spring of 1461 he and other aldermen rode to offer their submissions to the new King at York. Bench bk. 3a, BRB 1, f. 77. On the following 29 June he was one of the four burgesses nominated for election to Edward IV’s first Parliament, but in the event the commonalty returned William Eland* and John Green†. Later that year, he and other prominent burgesses met the expense of dispatching men to serve the Crown in northern England, and he also contributed towards the costs of sending 20 soldiers to the warden of the East March, John Neville, Lord Montagu, in 1463. Borough records show that he, the mayor John Green and Nicholas Ellis* between them provided a man, fully armed and arrayed, to the latter contingent. On 20 July 1464 it was decided that Scales should serve as deputy mayor until Michaelmas next, a duty for which he was handsomely rewarded to the tune of 36s. 4d. Attending a meeting of the town’s council in November 1465 is his last recorded duty as an alderman. Ibid. ff. 78v, 82, 92, 93.

In his will of 5 Oct. 1467, Scales requested a funeral, burial and obits in the church of the Holy Trinity at Hull, where his wife already lay buried. He assigned the sum of 3s. 4d. to every mendicant friary in the town, left 6s. 8d. towards the rebuilding of the chapel of the local guild of the Holy Trinity and gave 10s. to St. Mary’s chapel. Scales directed his executors to dispose of his not inconsiderable holdings at Hull for the benefit of his soul and those of his wife and daughter, who had also predeceased him. These included the properties in Old Beverley Street as well as tenements in Old Kirk Lane and Champagne Lane. He appointed as his executors three local merchants, Thomas Wilton, William Thornton and John West, and a chaplain, William Bower. Probate was granted on the following 17 Nov. Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 242.