A
Drogheda merchant in Scotland in 1404
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
Overseas trade across
the waves of history has allowed countries to export goods and products they
have in surplus in return for importing goods they don’t have. But trade
between countries has its risks particularly in times of international tension
or simple misinterpretation of the laws between the merchants and the local
officials. In 1404 Thomas Walton, a merchant from Drogheda (within English area
of control in Ireland), decided to take advantage of a recent truce between
Scotland and England in March 1404 to do a bit of trading in Scotland and
return with money or goods that he could sell in Drogheda.[1] But
his trading mission didn’t go according to plan as local officials in Scotland
had other ideas.
Thomas Walton of
Drogheda is first mentioned in the surviving records in 1381 when he and John
Asshewell of Drogheda acted as mainprize (or guarantors) for the abbot of
Furness Abbey who was given custody of 1 carucate and 40 acres of land in Co.
Meath.[2] The
Walton family had a long association with Furness Abbey as in 1376 Robert de
Walton and William Travers of Furness appointed Brother Roger, monk of Furness,
and Thomas Skynner, burgess of Drogheda, as their attorneys in the manor of
Beaubec in Ireland which Walton and Travers had rented from Richard de Preston
of Beaubec.[3]
In 1389 a person called
Thomas Walton got letters of general attorney under the name of John Drak but
it is unclear he was our man in Drogheda or another Thomas Walton.[4]
Meanwhile Thomas Walton of Drogheda received a boost for his merchant business before
1391 when the king allowed the burgesses of Drogheda to export old cloth, wool,
hides and other wares including corn but not in the forbidden season.[5] Among
the other members of the family to benefit from this opening of trade was John
Walton, merchant of Drogheda, who in 1319 was trading with Flanders.[6] He
was possibly the same John Walton who in 1408 was elected mayor of Drogheda.[7]
It is possibly that
Thomas Walton of Drogheda was in his home town in January 1395 to see King
Richard II of England and Lord of Ireland accept the homage and fealty of
O’Neill the younger of Ulster and his people. King Richard was back in Drogheda
in March 1395 to receive the homage of the lords of Meath and Breifne. Although
the royal visit may have been good for the local economy, Thomas Walton was
possibly hoping for the reopening of the export trade which was suspended
before and during the royal visit.[8]
Laurance gate of medieval Drogheda
By the end of the
fourteenth century Thomas Walton was a successful merchant of Drogheda with
extensive overseas trade connections. It appears that Thomas Walton had a
number of ships under his command as in a petition to the English government he
said that he went to Scotland in March 1404 to trade in ‘one’ of his ships.[9]
This success in
business gave Thomas Walton as social standing. In February 1400 William
Walton, who was staying in England, nominated Thomas Walton and Henry Clarkston
as his Irish attorneys for one year. In April 1400 William Walton again
nominated Thomas Walton along with Richard Bermingham as his Irish attorneys.
In May 1403 Thomas Walton was again nominated as William’s attorney in Ireland
with Henry Claxton (possibly the same Henry Clarkston of 1400).[10] In
July 1402 Richard Burgh, staying in England, nominated for three years Thomas
Walton of Drogheda and Henry del Chambre as his Irish attorneys.[11] On
8th May 1403, to help in his own merchant business, letters of
general attorney were granted to Thomas Walton.[12]
In the wider Meath area
other members of the Walton family appear in the records. In 1385 Joan, the
widow of David Walton, succeeded to a house in Trim but William Walton claimed
the property. A petition of Joan to King Richard II in November 1385 resulted
in an order giving her custody of the house and barring William Walton from
access.[13]
In 1399 the new
Lancastrian king, Henry IV, seems to have established his control of Ireland,
building on the work of Richard II but serious problems of rebellious Irish and
poor royal revenues remained. By the end of 1402 royal soldiers, stationed at
Drogheda, were demanding permission to return to England as their wages
remained unpaid. In February 1404 Sir Stephen Scrope, lord deputy of Ireland, suddenly
left the country without leaving any effective government and the poor royal
revenues were insufficient to hire soldiers. By the spring of 1404, as Thomas Walton
prepared to sail for Scotland, Ulster was in flames and the English settlers
driven to the coast. Yet by August the Earl of Ormond had successfully restored
the borders of Ulster.[14]
Meanwhile in March 1404
a truce was made between Scotland and England and Thomas Walton decided to take
advantage of this to do some trading.[15] Yet
the window for trade was short as in March 1406 Prince James of Scotland was
kidnapped by the English and held captive for eighteen years (James succeeded
as King James I of Scotland in April 1406 but remained uncrowned).[16]
In 1424 James was married to Joan Beaufort, niece of Bishop Henry Beaufort.[17]
In the early fifteenth
century Scotland conducted much of its overseas trade with the Netherlands and
France as Ireland was part of the English dominions.[18] Yet
some trade did happen between Scotland and Ireland although not always
directly. In 1395 for example, a Waterford ship was hired by a merchant from La
Rochelle to take wine to Scotland.[19] Scotland
was not as safe place for Irish merchants.
After the truce between
Scotland and England in March 1404 which was widely proclaimed on 26th
March, Thomas Walton set sail for Scotland with various unspecified saleable
merchandise. On arriving in the port of Loghrian (Lochryan) in the lordship of
Douglas a group of armed men led by Alexander Campbell seized the ship and its cargo
on the instructions of the abbot of Glenluce.[20] The
cargo was worth 100marks.[21] It is not clear why the ship and goods were seized; anti-English feeling in Lochryan, simple thief or poor documentation. Thomas
Walton appears to have been unsuccessful at getting redress in Lochryan and by
November 1404 he sent a petition to King Henry IV of England seeking remedy. On
12th November 1404 the king’s council at Coventry drew up letters
instructing officials to give help.[22]
Glenluce Abbey
To help future trade
and to aid the recovery of his ship and goods, Thomas Walton decided to get a
licence from Henry IV to trade with Scotland. It is unclear if the problems at
Lochryan were caused by Thomas Walton not previously securing a trading licence
but the occurrence of the petition for remedy at the same time that Thomas
Walton requested a trading licence give the possibly of a connection between
the two events.
On about 6th
November 1404 Thomas Walton petitioned the chancellor of England for a licence
for one year to export from Ireland to Scotland wheat, flour, and other
victuals and merchandise.[23]
The chancellor of England at the time was Henry Beaufort who was the second and
illegitimate son of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford. Henry Beaufort joined
the priesthood and held a few clerical positions before 1398 when he was
appointed by papal provision to the bishopric of Lincoln. After his half-brother,
Henry of Lancaster, became King Henry IV of England, Bishop Beaufort moved into
national politics. In 1403 Bishop Beaufort was made chancellor of England and
member of the king's great council.[24]
On 27th September 1404 Bishop William de Wykeham of Winchester (and
a former chancellor of England in the 1360s) died.[25] Shortly
after Bishop Beaufort was nominated to the bishopric of Winchester and in 1405
he resigned the chancellorship on his consecration as bishop.[26]
Much of Ireland’s
exports in the medieval period were in the form of raw materials such as fish,
timber, hides, wool and grain. The main period for grain exports was the
thirteenth and early fourteenth century after which there was a serious
decline. By 1437 Bristol was shipping grain to Ireland and by 1475 a ban was
place on Irish grain exports because of shortages.[27]
Thus in November 1404 as Thomas Walton petitioned for a licence to export wheat
to Scotland he was one of the last grain exporters in the country.
Yet the despite the
royal letter of November 1404 offering to help Thomas Walton, no immediate help
was secured. In 1400 King Henry IV asserted that he was the suzerainty lord of
Scotland but took it no further.[28]
Therefore the writ of the English king only partially extended into Scotland in
areas favourable to the English. It would appear that Lochryan in the lordship
of Douglas was not a favourable area. Instead Thomas Walton spent many years
waiting for redress. Early in 1412 he again petitioned the English government
for redress against Alexander Campbell and Ector his brother. On 18th
February 1412 Henry IV gave a licence to Thomas Walton to travel to Scotland,
during the truce, to sue for restoration, or to send deputies. For the journey
and their stay in Scotland Thomas Walton was allowed to buy eight crannocks of
wheat, two crannocks of peas and one pipe of wine for their sustenance.[29]
No later petitions by
Thomas Walton seeking redress appear among the published English government
records. It is hoped that he did get compensation but on the other hand he
could have just given up hope and accepted his loss and went trading with other
countries instead. After 1412 Thomas Walton of Drogheda disappears from the
records while other members of the Walton family continued the connection with
Drogheda such as William Walton in 1451.[30]
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[1] Bain,
J. (ed.), Calendar of Documents relating
to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London (General Registry
House, Edinburgh, 1888), vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 674
[3] Dryburgh,
P. & Smith, B., ‘Calendar of Documents relating to medieval Ireland in the
series of Ancient Deeds in the National Archives of the United Kingdom’, in Analecta Hibernica, No. 39 (2006), pp. 3-61,
at pp. 29, 30
[5] Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II,
1389-1392, p. 258
[6] Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II,
1389-1392, p. 258
[8] Otway-Ruthven,
A.J., A history of Medieval Ireland
(London, 1980), pp. 326, 329, 331
[9]
Dryburgh, P. & Smith, B. (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland in the National Archives of
the United Kingdom (Dublin, 2005), p. 170
[10] Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV,
1399-1401, pp. 145, 256; Calendar of
Patent Rolls, Henry IV, 1401-1405, p. 228
[11] Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV,
1401-1405, p. 104
[13] Potterton,
M., Medieval Trim: History and
Archaeology (Dublin, 2005), p. 142
[14]
Otway-Ruthven, A history of Medieval
Ireland, pp. 342, 343, 344
[15] Bain
(ed.), Calendar of Documents relating to
Scotland, vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 674
[16]
Mackie, J.D., A history of Scotland
(London, 1978), pp. 90, 91
[18]
Mackie, A history of Scotland, p. 107
[19]
Childs, W. & O’Neill, T., ‘Overseas trade’, in Cosgrove, A. (ed.), A new history of Ireland, Vol. II: Medieval
Ireland, 1169-1534 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 492-524, at pp. 496
[20] Dryburgh
& Smith (eds.), Handbook and Select
Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland, p. 170, E 28/15/67
[22]
Dryburgh & Smith (eds.), Handbook and
Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland, p. 170, E 28/15/67; Bain
(ed.), Calendar of Documents relating to
Scotland, vol. 4 (1357-1509), p. 601 = Prince Edward landed at Lochryan in
September 1300 with an English army
[23] Bain
(ed.), Calendar of Documents relating to
Scotland, vol. 4 (1357-1509), no. 668; Connolly, P. ‘Irish material in the
class of ancient petitions (SC8) in the Public Record Office, London’, in Analecta Hibernica, No. 34 (1987), pp.
3-106at p. 95
[27]
Down, K., ‘Colonial society and economy’, in Cosgrove, A. (ed.), A new history of Ireland, Vol. II: Medieval
Ireland, 1169-1534 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 439-491, at pp. 484, 485, 486, 487,
488, 489
[28] Mackie,
A history of Scotland, p. 90
[30] Quigley,
W.G.H. & Roberts, E.F.D. (eds.), Registrum
Iohannis Mey: The Register of John Mey, Archbishop of Armagh, 1443-1456 (Belfast,
1972), p. 242
