Thomas Usk, Civil Servant & Poet

We know little of Thomas Usk's early life except that he was born in London. The name Usk appears in several records, but we cannot link the various folk with that surname together. He became a civil servant and left us some writings. He produced a poem called "The Testament of Love" (the illustration here is from one manuscript). He also wrote a certain amount of biographical detail, from which we know more about his later life.

He admits to having Lollard leanings as a young man, and the populist/Wycliffite leanings of John Northampton were attractive to him. He subsequently hitched his wagon to the rising star of Northampton who became mayor of London in 1381, and was instrumental in implementing Northampton's plans. He even says he supplied money to some of the people in this circle of reformers.

When fortunes change in 1383 with Northampton's defeat by Nicholas Brembre, however, Usk's public identity as a member of the reform crowd made life in England unsafe. He fled to the continent, but had to appeal to his former confederates for money to be able to live abroad. He found that the camaraderie he was experiencing while in England was a one-way street, and the road didn't go in his direction. He had to return to England for lack of funds.

In August 1384, back in England now, he was arrested as an accomplice to the seditious group headed by Northampton and taken to Newgate prison. He was released when he promised to tell everything he knew about the workings of Northampton's administration.

Northampton was brought before the king and council and discovered that the chief witness against him was Usk. Enraged, Northampton denied everything and challenged Usk to single combat. (Northampton had been known to have a temper, and long before becoming mayor he had been involved in public altercations, one of which even led to his imprisonment for. time.)

King Richard II was outraged by this behavior and sentenced Northampton to be hanged. We are told that the intercession of the queen, Anne of Bohemia, turned the sentence to life in prison. This was 18 August. Usk received a pardon from the king on 24 September.

Usk wrote that his new alliances did not seem to trust him, despite his recanting of Lollardy and new loyalty to Brembre. He survived, however, and was named under-sheriff of London in October 1387. Unfortunately, that was not the happy ending he might have hoped for.

Richard had to deal with a rebellion by his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, one of whose principal advisors was Nicholas Brembre. Usk had once again hitched his wagon to the wrong star. He was arrested along with Brembre and others.

This brings us to something that has been mentioned but not described, the Merciless Parliament of 1388. Tomorrow we'll examine that event and the final fate of Thomas Usk.

Criminal Northampton

After the populist mayor of London John Northampton was defeated in the election of 1383 by Nicholas Brembre, Brembre worked to overturn all of Northampton's efforts to help the common people. When Northampton led a large group to protest the return to the status quo, he was arrested and imprisoned in Brembre's house.

The charge was sedition, for speaking against the established order. Northampton and two confederates, John More and Richard Norbury, were tried and found guilty. One of Northampton's servants during his term as mayor, Thomas Usk, turned informant on Northampton.

Northampton appealed to John of Gaunt, but received no support. A death sentence for the three men was commuted to 10 years in prison. To prevent any kind of collusion between them, they were sent to separate facilities, all at least 100 leagues (1 league = 3 miles) outside of London. Northampton wound up at Tintagel.

Northampton only served a couple years: he was pardoned by Richard II (Richard had supported Northampton when running for his first term as mayor, but did not support him against Brembre), but not allowed to return to London.

Then came the Merciless Parliament in 1388, which (among other things) led to the execution of Brembre and Thomas Usk. In 1395 Northampton's London citizenship was restored. The end of his life was comfortable: at his death he left property worth £5000. He was a benefactor of the Charterhouse monastery, a Carthusian establishment. He died in 1398 and was buried in the church of the Hospital of St Mary de Elsyngspital in London.

Who was Thomas Usk, the man who informed on Northampton? He was a minor civil servant, but also a poet, writing a work that was once assumed to have been by Chaucer. I'll tell you more about this minor poet tomorrow.

Nicholas Brembre

Proving that "what goes around comes around"—although we should probably just allude to the medieval concept of the Wheel of Fortune—one-time Nicholas Brembre, who had persecuted former mayor John Northampton, would himself be persecuted by the Merciless Parliament, mentioned here.

Brembre started as a member of the Grocers' Company, one of the Great Twelve Liveries in London, and made a lot of money in the wool trade. Like many other important and active male citizens, he was an alderman, a sheriff, and became mayor (for four terms). 

His origins are unknown, but he married the daughter of a wealthy vintner, and became the guardian of his father-in-law's youngest daughter upon the elder man's death. Brembre owned property in London, including "two large houses and several blocks of shops, four cellars, eleven chambers, two stables, a wharf, and a crane" [source] His many connections to other important guild members and his dominance in the wool trade made him very wealthy and very important to the city. The Comptroller of Customs at the time was Geoffrey Chaucer, who would have overseen Brembre's accounts.

His first term as mayor was in 1377. John of Gaunt had proposed a bill that the mayor of London be replaced with someone appointed by the king. This caused great unrest in London, and riots. The mayor, Adam Staple, was deposed, and the city put Brembre forward as a candidate that Gaunt might approve. That turned into Brembre's first term as mayor. He was succeeded by William Walworth in 1381, but Walworth was succeeded by Northampton.

Brembre defeated John Northampton for mayor in 1383.

Northampton had challenged the established order and made helping the common people his goal. At a time when the merchant guilds were some of the most powerful political as well as economic influences, Northampton broke up their monopolies, which made the guild leaders (like Brembre) his enemies.

Brembre's return to the office meant overturning Northampton's reforms and restoring monopolies. Northampton led a large protest against the changes brought about by Brembre, an assembly of about 500 people marching through the city. Brembre and his people confronted them, and Northampton was told to accompany Brembre. Northampton refused, and was arrested for sedition and imprisoned in Brembre's house.

Northampton's friend John Constantine organized a general strike: several shops closed in protest of Brembre's policies. Brembre had Constantine executed for insurrection. (The illustration is Brembre's petition to the Crown in April 1384 to have his decision about Constantine's fate ratified.)

As for Northampton, we'll follow up on his fate next time with a third installment on the man who tried to help his fellow man against the power of the wealthy.

Mayor Northampton

Despite his past as a troublemaker being involved in public brawls, even being imprisoned in the Tower for a time because of one in 1371, John Northampton became an Alderman for the Cordwainer Ward in 1375 to 1377, and was a member of Common in 1376 during the Good Parliament, helping to impeach Richard Lyons. In 1376 he also became one of the two annually elected sheriffs of London.

Then he became Mayor of London in 1381 for two years. He was a populist at a time when the common people felt they were being neglected and taken advantage of by the ruling class and the wealthy. John's term was distinguished by attempts to help the citizens. He opposed monopolies in the selling of fish, bread, ale, wine, and poultry, allowing tradesmen from outside the city to compete with London merchants.

He also made a decision directly affecting currency. He had £80 minted as 76,000 farthings. A farthing was a quarter of a penny (discontinued in 1961). He insisted that bread be sold in measures that allowed a person to buy an amount of bread for a single farthing. This was a huge boon to those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Tradesmen were ordered to accept farthings as payment.

He also made ordinances against fraud and deceit in business; see recent posts here and here for examples of his administration punishing fraud and unfair business practices. He also made laws against prostitution.

Unfortunately, populist policies are difficult to maintain in a monarchy, even after the enormous movement in 1381 that we call the Peasants' Revolt. In the mayoral election of 1383, John Northampton was replaced by Nicholas Brembre, who was an ally of King Richard II, the boy king who had survived and suppressed the Peasants' Revolt.

Brembre had Northampton arrested for sedition, that is, speaking out against the established order of things. Northampton was accused of provoking an insurrection.

Before we go on and see Northampton's fate, I want to talk about Brembre, who was a very influential figure in London. See you next time.

(In lieu of any available pictures of John Northampton, the illustration is of one of the most famous mayors of London, Dick Whittington.)

The Good Parliament

1376 was a time of unrest in England under King Edward III. The court was considered corrupt, the wealth gap was increasing, the common people felt oppressed, taxation to support Edward's wars with France were leading to defeats, the king's mistress, Alice Perrers, was seen to have a corrupting influence on him and the court, etc.

Parliament had not been called for two and a half years, and it was a necessary first step if Edward wanted to raise a tax to keep the wars going. There were concerns about calling it now when the Commons might cause a great fuss that could lead to radical changes. 

And that's exactly what it did.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter de la Mare, opened the Parliament on 28 April with a speech that criticized the military failures, the corruption of the court, and called for accountability of the Exchequer.

Edward asked for money for the military, but Commons refused to support a further tax unless there was a change in the top administration. One particular target was Richard Lyons. A wealthy landowner and merchant in wine, wool, cloth, iron, and lead, Lyons was perpetrating economic frauds to line his already full pockets. In this he had a confederate, Baron William Latimer, the king's chamberlain.

The Parliament removed them through a process called impeachment, a familiar term to us, but the first time such a process had been used in English law. Lyons sent a £1000 gift to Edward, the Black Prince, but it was refused and Lyons imprisoned.

(Unfortunately for the rule of law, the Black Prince died later that year. The king's fourth son, John of Gaunt, who was in many ways running the country at that point, pardoned Lyons. But no matter: he was a known "bad penny," and even though he served as a member of Parliament later in 1380, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 made him a target and beheaded him.)

The death of the Black Prince caused some anxiety in the Parliament: they were concerned that Gaunt would claim the throne (Edward III was clearly failing physically and mentally), so they summoned the Black prince's son from France and declared that he would be recognized as the heir to Edward III.

The House of Lords gave in to the demands of Commons, impeaching Lyons and Latimer, curtailing the indirect authority exercised by Alice Perrers. The king was forced to accept new councilors. When done however, the House of Commons still refused to authorize any more money for war. This annoyed the House of Lords and lost the Commons some good will.

Parliament closed on 6 July. Gaunt tried to reverse some of its changes the next year. Peter de la Mare was imprisoned, Latimer was recalled to duty, Alice Perrers was allowed back to the king's side. In 1377 Gaunt summoned a new parliament to declare the 1376 Parliament void. The two are forever known as the Good Parliament and Bad Parliament for the one's attempt to address grievances and the latter's attempt to ignore the beneficial changes.

One member of the House of Commons who voted to remove Lyons was John Northampton, whom we introduced yesterday. John was a troublemaker himself, but that didn't stop him from becoming mayor of London. Tomorrow we'll see how he did at that job. (The illustration is of the Painted Chamber, added to Westminster by Henry III and possibly where Parliament met in 1376. It no longer exists.)

John Northampton

John Northampton was a citizen of London his whole life, from a decent-sized family (two brothers and two sisters). He became a cloth merchant and a member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, founded in 1361 and one of the Great Twelve Livery Companies (among the 114 that operated in London). At its founding he was named one of the "upholders," so he was probably well-known and respected at the time.

He had some trouble with the law, however. Records from 1365, 1369, and 1371 show he was warned to keep the peace and refrain from affrays in the streets. An affray was a fight that becomes so large that it frightens others. The 1371 incident was so serious that King Edward III summoned the mayor (John Bernes, himself a mercer and member of the same guild) and aldermen and leaders of the guilds to swear to keep the peace. John Northampton and eleven others were imprisoned in the Tower of London for a time.

Despite all this, he was considered a good enough candidate for sheriff that he gained the position in 1376, along with Robert Launde (there were always two sheriffs at a time, elected each year).

He was a supporter of John of Gaunt. Gaunt was a supporter of John Wycliffe, who was known for his "radical" views about the equality of men and the need for reform of the Church to embrace a simpler lifestyle. This connection makes some wonder if Northampton's religious views aligned with Wycliffe and against the current Church hierarchy.

England at this time was experiencing widespread unrest. The common people were dealing with crippling taxation, misgovernment, and evidence of corruption in the ruling class. Then came the Good Parliament in 1376, after which Northampton was part of a cohort that ousted Richard Lyons. Tomorrow I'll explain the Good Parliament, who Richard Lyons was, and why he had to go.

Criminal Cases, Part 3

When the Mayor of London says you have to dress for dinner, you dress for dinner. On the Feast of Pentecost in 1382, the Mayor of London and the Aldermen were to meet at the Church of St. Peter in Cornhill. From there they would make a procession through the City to the Church of St. Paul in Walbrook.

The Mayor and Aldermen had agreed beforehand that everyone in the procession should be dressed with a cloak lined with green taffeta (silk).

The Alderman of the Ward of Walbrook, John Sely, appeared in a cloak that was not lined with anything, much less green taffeta.

Whereupon, by advice of the Mayor and other Aldermen, it was then adjudged, and assented to, that the said Mayor and other Aldermen should dine with the same John at his house, and that, at the proper costs of the said John, on the Thursday following; and further, the said John was to line his cloak in manner aforesaid: and so it was done. And this judgment shall extend to all other Aldermen, hereafter to come, without sparing any one, if any person among them shall act contrary to the Ordinance aforesaid. [link]

So his "punishment" was to put on a dinner for everyone in the procession, which could have been expensive, and to make sure he had a green silk lining, too!

The posts of the past few days on Criminal Cases all came during the term of the Lord Mayor of London, John Northampton. This was early in the reign of King Richard II, when there was much dissension among the guilds and the common people about how the country was running. (Less than a year earlier, the Peasant's Revolt had caused a great deal of turmoil in the country, as well as a few deaths. A post with links to several posts about the Revolt can be found here.)

Northampton had also been a sheriff, but as mayor he was a reformist, trying to make changes to the workings of government. Tomorrow we'll look at his career, its rise and fall.