STOCTON, William II

Although the Stoctons were an established merchant family in late medieval York, William’s parentage has not been established with absolute certainty. He has been said to have been the son of another William Stocton (d.1441), who married twice but no concrete evidence to support this hypothesis has come to light. Kermode, app. 4. Matters are further complicated by the existence of several namesakes in York at this time. The jeweller William Stocton had a synonymous son who was admitted to the freedom of York in 1436-7 as a goldsmith, and it was one of these two men who was father to Roger who for his part gained the freedom by patrimony in 1441-2: Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 151, 158. Indeed, it seems probable that the later MP was the mercer who purchased his freedom in 1420-1. Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 129. Within a short time, he was leasing a shop and rooms on Ouse Bridge from the mayor and aldermen at an annual rent of 26s. 8d., York Memoranda Bk. iii. 61. and by the second half of the 1420s he was serving on local juries in the city. CIPM, xxiii. 112. By 1430 Stocton was active in overseas trade, in that year exporting nine unfinished cloths from Kingston-upon-Hull, E122/61/32. and by March 1432 he was prominent enough among the city’s mercers to be chosen as constable of the Mercers’ Company, a position he held for the customary term of one year.

By this time Stocton had married and in 1433 he and his wife, Alice, were admitted to the city’s prestigious guild of Corpus Christi. Alice was the widow of Roger Selby, a spicer and brother of the three-times mayor of York, William Selby†, and the match must have taken place immediately following her first husband’s death. Reg. Guild Corpus Christi, York (Surtees Soc. lvii), 33. Stocton’s eldest son was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1446: Freemen of York, 165. Stocton’s marriage and his position within the Mercers’ Company guaranteed him a role in the government of the city and in February 1434 he was chosen as one of the chamberlains. Even so, at this stage in his career Stocton does not appear to have been possessed of great wealth, and in 1436 he was assessed at only £6 p.a. towards the parliamentary subsidy. E179/217/42. In June 1437 he was named as sheriff of York following the sudden death of one of the incumbents, Roger Gray, and it may be presumed, like other chamberlains and sheriffs, he joined the council of 24 at the end of his term of office (although no evidence survives of his activities in this capacity).

Stocton became increasingly well connected among York’s merchant elite. In 1435 John Aldstaynmore*, the wealthy alderman and merchant of the Calais staple, appointed Stocton and another merchant, William Holbeck*, as co-executors of his will alongside his brother Thomas Aldstaynmore and another kinsman, Henry Aldstaynmore. John Aldstaynmore evidently foresaw problems, as he appointed a third merchant, Thomas Warde, to give counsel to his executors, and also called upon the senior alderman, Nicholas Blackburn, to oversee their activities. York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, ff. 406-8; J. Kermode, Med. Merchants, 114, 301. With the death of Thomas Aldstaynmore soon after relations between the surviving executors rapidly deteriorated, pitting Holbeck and Stocton against Henry Aldstaynmore, who – along with his niece Agnes – spent the next decade or so seeking to recover what they felt to be their rightful inheritance from the two merchant-executors. York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 414. In May 1438 Henry petitioned the chancellor of England to the effect that Holbeck and Stocton (along with John Bolton* and William Bedale* who had been appointed by the mayor of York to arbitrate in the dispute) had brought vexatious suits before the mayor and aldermen. He alleged that the four merchants had conspired to gain control of the majority of Aldstaynmore’s considerable fortune and estate (valued at over £1,600) and, because of their ‘grett powere and reulle and þe insufficience of the seid suppliant’, he had been committed to the city gaol. C1/9/168; 10/296. In 1446-7 Aldstaynmore’s niece, Agnes, and her husband, William Brund, also sued Stocton, then mayor, in the court of Chancery. They alleged that Holbeck had forcibly entered the property bequeathed to Agnes in Aldstaynmore’s will. In a resulting assize of novel disseisin (presided over by Stocton as mayor) Holbeck had presented forged title deeds thus disinheriting Agnes. They called for Stocton, who ‘was present with þe forsaid John day and nyght lang afore his diyng and atte his diyng and atte all tymes was moste priue in knawelege in the premysses & all other thynges pertenyng to the said John’, to be summoned into Chancery to declare the truth of the matter. C1/14/25; 15/87.

Stocton had joined the ranks of the aldermen by 10 Dec. 1442, when he was present at the council meeting that decided to review the city’s boundaries, and in February 1446 he was elected mayor of York. On 16 Jan. the following year, shortly before the end of his mayoral year, he was elected as one of the city’s MPs to attend the Parliament summoned to meet at Bury St. Edmunds the following month. C219/15/4. Nothing is known for certain of his business there, nor the duration of his stay, but one of the tasks entrusted to York’s parliamentary representatives may have been to secure letters patent for the York stapler and their fellow councillor, John Karr*, exempting him from civic office. CPR, 1446-52, p. 49. Indeed, it may have been to represent the interests of the city’s wool merchants that Stocton took his seat among the Commons. Although no evidence survives of the size of his wool exports at this time, he was certainly then among the more prominent members of the Calais staple company. In July 1449 he was named to an embassy, headed by the lieutenant of Calais, John, Lord Dudley, to treat with the duke of Burgundy and the Four Members of Flanders. The embassy was a crucial one, designed to offer concessions to the Flemings in order to prevent Duke Philip from breaking his truce and threatening Calais. Stocton was one of 13 staplers who joined the embassy to negotiate with their Flemish counterparts over trade disputes. DKR, xlviii. 380; PPC, vi. 76-85; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 523-4. Moreover, he also played a part in the financial inducements offered to the Burgundians. During the embassy it was decided that the sum of 4,000 marks should be offered in compensation for certain Flemish merchandise seized in England. This sum was advanced to the Crown by the staplers and in June 1451 letters patent were issued allowing the latter to recover their debts by shipping wool free of customs. Repayment was delayed and in October 1454 new letters patent were issued. By these Stocton was empowered to recover outstanding debts of £113 15s. 10½d. from the customs due at Kingston-upon-Hull, in partnership with another York stapler, Richard Lematon*. In 1455 he exported at least 119 sacks of wool from Kingston-upon-Hull to recover these debts. Customs Accts. Hull, 1453-90 (Yorks. Arch. Rec. Ser. cxliv), 13, 15-16. Stocton also contributed towards loans made by the staplers to provide for the payment of the wages of the Calais garrison. In March 1450, along with other northern staplers, he was allowed to recover loans totalling 1,200 marks made to Henry, Viscount Bourgchier, and Ralph, Lord Sudeley, for the defence of Calais by shipping wool free of customs from Hull. In the Parliament of 1455 the staplers petitioned for the cancellation of certain obligations, including two to Stocton, made for the repayment of loans made to the treasurer and victualler of Calais. CCR, 1454-61, pp. 14-15; CPR, 1446-52, p. 323; 1452-61, pp. 210-12; PROME, xii. 370-2.

On his return from Parliament Stocton continued to play a full part in the government of York. In July 1448 he was named to the commission appointed to investigate allegations of treasonable words against John Marton. Little evidence survives of his activities during the 1450s, but he continued to attend council meetings and in 1453, and again in 1460, he attested the parliamentary elections. C219/16/2, 6; York Memoranda Bk. ii (Surtees Soc. cxxv), 113, 202. It may be a measure of the trust he enjoyed among his neighbours that in the volatile political atmosphere of February 1461 he was elected to a second term as mayor of York, and it was in this capacity that in May he was appointed by the new Yorkist rulers to a commission of oyer and terminer to investigate treasons committed in the locality. That November he was also empowered to arrest ‘seditious vagabonds’ in the city, but it was the end of his mayoralty in the early weeks of 1462 that proved particularly troubled: the details of the apparent obstruction of the mayoral elections by the city’s commons remain obscure, but Stocton’s successor John Thirsk* appears to have assumed the office only reluctantly, and in November 1462 Stocton accompanied Thirsk to Pontefract to meet Edward IV regarding the affair. York City Chamberlains’ Acct. Rolls, p. 113.

Some evidence survives of Stocton’s private affairs. He continued to be active in overseas trade, and retained his position within the York Mercers’ Company until his death, contributing towards the costs of their annual Corpus Christi pageant. York Mercers, 63, 71. His commercial activities also involved him in litigation. In Michaelmas term 1445 he had been sued in the court of common pleas by the Berwick merchant, Thomas Robertson, for not repaying a loan of £10. CP40/739, rot. 133. Similar litigation reveals the extent of his trading network. In October 1464 the London merchant, Edmund Wyse, was pardoned his outlawry for not answering Stocton for a debt of £40, and a year or so later it was Stocton’s turn to be outlawed for not answering the London mercer and former alderman, Geoffrey Feldyng*, and John Croke of debts of £60 18s. 4d. and £15 13s. 4d. respectively. He obtained a pardon in April 1466. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 315, 502. It was probably with regard to similar debt litigation that in January 1458 he had made a gift of his goods and chattels to John Ince of York, as well as enfeoffing him with all his property in the city. York Memoranda Bk. iii. 205. He maintained the associations made earlier in his overseas ventures: in the early 1460s he was trading with Richard Lematon in Carlisle. Sel. Cases in Chancery (Selden Soc. x), 144.

Stocton’s family is rather less well documented. His known son, John (a merchant) was admitted to the freedom of York by patrimony in 1446. It is uncertain whether the weaver William Stocton admitted to the freedom by patrimony in 1447-8 was a son of this, or another William Stocton: Freemen of York, 165, 167. After 1458, following the death of his first wife, he married the widow of another prominent mercer, Robert Collynson. It is unclear whether or not they had children. Stocton died intestate in 1471 and administration was granted to his widow on 20 Nov. that year. She survived him for over 30 years. In her will of 1503, she asked to be buried in her parish church of All Saints, North Street, next to her two husbands, disposed of a tenement in North Street and made bequests for her soul totalling £49. York registry wills, prob. reg. 4, f. 173v; 6, f. 70.