POGE, Thomas (d.1428), of Nottingham.

A merchant stapler with business connexions in London, Hull, York, Nottingham and Calais, Poge is first recorded, living in the diocese of Lincoln, when he obtained a papal indult in March 1415 to have his own portable altar, and a year later he stood surety at the Exchequer for the recently appointed sheriff of Lincolnshire, Nicholas Tourney. He appears in a pardon of outlawry granted in January 1419 to a ‘housewyve’ and a merchant of York as having sued them, albeit unsuccessfully, for a substantial debt of £74, and further indication of the extent and importance of his trading concerns is provided by his nomination, three months later, by Thomas Tickhill, citizen and mercer of London, to act with another London mercer and stapler, William Estfield, as his executor.CPL, vi. 498; CFR, xiv. 191; CPR, 1416-22, p. 161; North Country Wills (Surtees Soc. cxvi), 252. In April 1420, the year of his first return to Parliament, Poge acquired an interest in property in Nottingham, as co-feoffee with Ralph Mackerell, esquire, and William Neville of South Leverton, of a tenement in Pilcher Gate, although it seems likely that he had established himself in the merchant community of the town somewhat earlier. In the following spring Poge was present at the local parliamentary elections as one of the pledges for his fellow merchants John Alestre and Robert Glade, and on 19 May, while that Parliament was in progress, he and Geoffrey Kniveton, the queen’s bailiff in the shire, took out a 20-year Exchequer lease of a small area of pasture outside the east gate of the hospital of St. John the Baptist in Nottingham, at a rent of 4d. p.a. Nottingham Archs. ct. roll 1316 m. 16d; C219/12/5; CFR, xiv. 385.

Poge was appointed mayor in 1421, and returned to the Commons for a second time during his term of office. His next mayoralty began when Robert Glade died in office in the winter of 1423-4, although he must have immediately set off back to Westminster for the last session of the Parliament then in progress. It took him and other members of the Calais Staple nearly two years to secure from the King’s Council a licence to export, free of subsidies, a quantity of wool equivalent to the cargoes they had lost in two ships which, having sailed from Hull for Calais in the autumn of 1424, had foundered at sea. The licence was eventually issued under the great seal in July 1426. Poge’s 20½ sacks and 12 stone of wool was the largest individual consignment in question.CPR, 1422-9, p. 348.

Poge made his will on 16 Nov. 1428, leaving £20 each to Lenton priory and York cathedral for forgotten tithes, and as much as £100 for a chaplain to celebrate masses for his soul at Misterton church, Nottinghamshire. Twenty pounds was provided for his funeral expenses and to build his tomb in St. Mary’s church, Nottingham, while the residue of his goods and property were bequeathed to his executors, who included his colleague, William Neville. Sir Thomas Chaworth was named as overseer. Poge died before 3 Dec.Borthwick Inst. York, Reg. Kemp, f. 337d.