CANDLESBY, Hugh, of Cambridge.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Jan. 1397

Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Cambridge Sept. 1380-1, 1319-1400.1

Biography

Nothing is known of the property Candlesby held in Cambridge, save that it included a tenement adjoining the market, in the parish of Holy Trinity.2

During his first term as bailiff he was one of the more important burgesses to side with the mob in the risings of 1381, indeed, he led it in attacks on persons and property in that troubled summer. He was named in a petition to the King by the clerks of Corpus Christi college, who complained that rioters from the town had trespassed on their premises, plundered their possessions and threatened their lives. Following this petition Candlesby, John Herries*, his fellow bailiff, and Edmund Lister, the outgoing mayor, were summoned to appear in Parliament in December to account for their actions. They denied their part in the riot, but judgement was given against them on the evidence of certain deeds in which they had forced the clerks to sign away the university’s privileges and submit to the borough’s jurisdiction. Candlesby himself received a royal pardon on 25 Feb. following, but it was in part his conduct that cost the town its liberties, which were declared forfeit for the time being.3

Candlesby had business dealings with the parson of Capel (Surrey) whose executor he sued in 1385 for failure to make good the testator’s debt to him of £5 odd. Perhaps Candlesby had sold him some cloth or other goods for which he had failed to make payment. Besides his involvement in the cloth trade (which caused him to be assessed for alnage in the 1390s), he also evidently dealt in other produce, for in 1393 the King made a grant of two tuns of wine formerly belonging to Candlesby but forfeited on the ground that he had sold them ungauged. He is not recorded after 1407-8 when he was caught in a similar misdemeanour: several lengths of cloth for blankets were seized by the alnager when he attempted to sell them without paying the subsidy.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

  • 1. Add. 5833, f. 132.
  • 2. CCR, 1402-5, p. 297.
  • 3. CPR, 1381-5, p. 143; RP, iii. 106-7; JUST 1/103 m. 4; C67/29 m. 28; C.H. Cooper, Annals Cambridge, i. 122.
  • 4. CPR, 1385-9, p. 31; 1391-6, p. 336; E101/338/3, 5.