John Fresshe

Successful trading made Fresshe an extremely wealthy man. He did not confine himself to mercery but particularly involved himself in the lucrative wool trade to the continent. The quantities could be substantial: in 1385 he was licensed to send 13 sarples of wool to Calais. As a mercer, he employed "a full complement"[2] of apprentices. In 1392, for example, these were William Walderne, Walter Cotton, Thomas Grene and Thomas Welle.[16] They did not only learn the Mercer's trade from Fresshe; he also used them as his agents in Calais to further his wool trading; one such example is his apprentice William Waldern, who performed such a duty for Fresshe in 1388. Fresshe also bought and sold for his colleagues, and Walderne's mission was brokering Nicholas Brembre's wool abroad.[note 2] Fresshe also traded luxury cloth worth hundreds of pounds to Calais and Portugal.[2]

Fresshe not only made money but looked after it too. Although he seems to have been a ready lender, he was also a ready litigant when it was necessary to recover the loans. Between 1381 and 1383 he commenced nine debt recovery lawsuits, recovering over £90. He brought one such suit against his wife's cousin, John Langrich.[2]

Following the revolt, Walworth lost the mayoral election. His successor was John Northampton, a radical[18] with a populist agenda.[19] Fresshe, as a leading Mercer, was caught up in the political confrontation between Northampton and the victualling companies.[20] Indeed, says Rawcliffe, Northampton's election posed a serious challenge to Fresshe, and even "threatened to terminate [his] promising career".[2] Northampton was temporarily successful in his campaign against the victuallers.[21] Some aldermen, including a number of Northampton's political enemies, had been suspected of assisting the rebels of 1381.[22] Northampton petitioned to have them brought to trial on a treason charge,[23] although nothing was done until October 1382.[21][note 3] Fresshe and four others—William Tonge, vintner, John Horn, fishmonger Adam Karlille and Walter Sibil, also of the Fishmongers' Guild[23] were accused of helping the rebels to enter London.[24] They were also accused of attacking the Guildhall in an attempt to seek out and burn the Jubilee Book on 14 June.[25][note 4] Northampton and his supporters had "engineered these proceedings as a means of undermining the party of the merchant capitalists"[2] (as the victualling guilds have been described).[29] Fresshe, although not charged as severely as his colleagues,[2] was subsequently imprisoned alongside them[8][30] in the Tower of London.[2] Fresshe's imprisonment subsequently excluded him and the others from civic office for the next year.[31] Northampton, though, only served a single term of office,[13] and Fresshe and his colleagues were pardoned within a few months when their fellow Mercer[8]–and Fresshe's business partner–Nicholas Brembre became mayor.[8] After another inquisition, all four men were "unanimously" found to be innocent of all charges.[2]

Knightrider Street sign, London, in 2006. In John Fresshe's day, the street had various spellings, including Knyghtridestrete;[44] Knyghtriderestrete, Knyghtryderestrete, Knyghtrederistret and Knightriders streete.[45]

Sometime before March 1373 Fresshe married Juliana Plucket, daughter of William Langrich and widow of Fresshe's fellow Mercer Nicholas Pluket. They had three daughters, all of whom made good marriages. The eldest, Christine, had married a royal official, one John Squiry, Escheator of Essex. Another married grocer and alderman[2] Walter Newenton,[46] who would be sheriff of London from 1411 to 1412.[47] Margaret[48] married Walter Cotton,[49] one of Fresshe's old apprentices, and who, says Rawcliffe, "prospered as a result, becoming an alderman and sheriff, like his master before him".[2] Newenton and Cotton were also Fresshe's feoffees and executors; the latter and Margery, received the rent and reversion of Fresshe's tenements in Cheapside in his will.[48]

John Fresshe was active in the Mercer's trade up until his death,[2] which occurred on 6 September 1397.[46][note 8] Rawcliffe has described him as "among the wealthiest merchants in London", a judgement illustrated by his will. Fresshe left over £600 to be distributed among his relatives, friends and colleagues. His wife received his plate and his eldest daughter an annuity of 50 marks.[2] He left a quitrent from a tenement in Knightrider Street, to John Newton, rector of St Benet Sherehog on Poultry. This was to provide for a chantry,[50] and this portion of the bequest has been noted as being one of only two that the church received that were designated specifically to the maintenance and upkeep of the physical fabric of the building.[51] Fresshe directed that he should also be buried in the church's St. Sith's chapel; for this, he left an additional bequest of nine marks. This paid for a chaplain to celebrate mass for four years, "for his soul, the souls of his wife and children and all Christian souls".[52] John Stow indicated that, after death, Fresshe had a monument to him within the Church.[53] Fresshe had supported St. Benet Sherehog since at least 1395, when he and grocer William Chichele–brother of Henry, later Archbishop of Canterbury–had made it a joint-grant.[2][note 9] Fresshe's Inquisition post mortem was held in 1398.[54]

Apart from his early appointments as tax collector and alderman–the latter which lasted until his death–Fresshe performed many other official duties for the city and the crown. Only men who had previously been elected Sheriff could also stand for mayor, and thus Fresshe was Sheriff of London and Middlesex from September 1384 – 1385. In 1384 he was also elected to the common council, and in November that year, he was also appointed gaol deliverer for the city.[2] Fresshe was elected mayor in October 1394 for a year,[55][56] when he was replaced by William Moore, vintner.[57] Not all of his positions were in the city. Sometime around Easter 1386, he received the Forestership of Waltham Hundred, Essex.[2] This office was a hereditary position he inherited by right of his wife, although they seem soon after to have conveyed the forestership to the Abbey of Waltham soon after.[5] On 12 December 1390 the King made him a Constable of the Westminster Staple. Fresshe held this post until 7 July 1393. The previous year he had also been appointed to a commission to confiscate the goods and property of the Count of Vertus. Fresshe had a portfolio of Essex estates and properties which had been brought to him by his wife, whose father had been a substantial landholder in the county. These included two messuages and 250 acres (100 ha) in Barking. In the north of the county, she inherited a small estate in Nazeing, and in the south, the manor of North Ockendon and lands in Cranham. The estate that Fresshe held by his wife may have been worth much more than the stated amount of £6. In London, she brought him a house in Cordwainer Street as part of her dower. Fresshe continued to augment his Essex holdings in his own right, purchasing the watermill and land in Havering-atte-Bower, and becoming lord of the manor of Dovores, an area which stretched from Havering to Bowers Gifford.[2]