Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Lincoln Sept. 1397-8; mayor 1405-6.1

J.p. Lincoln 18 Mar. 1406-c. Mar. 1407.

Biography

Most of the surviving evidence about Huddleston concerns his involvement in the wool trade. Indeed, he first appears, in October 1395, as the recipient of a royal pardon for all offences concerning illegal or fraudulent wool sales. In October 1399 he exported a total of at least 20 sarplers of wool from Boston to Calais; and in the following February he made a further shipment of two sarplers from the port. That he was commercially successful is clear from his participation with four other Lincoln merchants in a loan of £200 made to the government in August 1404 towards the cost of the wars against the Welsh. Two years later a vessel carrying some of his wool was shipwrecked off the Wash, but he managed to rescue the cargo and was permitted to export it again free of customs. We do not know when Huddleston died, but it seems likely that the Nicholas Huddleston of Lincoln who was involved in litigation for the recovery of a debt of 40s.in the late 1430s was his son or kinsman. This Nicholas had a brother named John, with whom he offered joint securities of £100 in 1442 on behalf of Leo, Lord Welles.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

Variant: Hodeleston.

• 1. Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reps. and Pprs. xxxix. 231-2; CPR, 1405-8, p. 494; 1416-22, p. 45.
• 2. E122/8/4; CPR, 1391-6, p. 628; 1401-5, p. 417; 1436-41, p. 210; 1441-6, p. 130; CCR, 1405-9, p. 43.