| Notes |
- from the Patent Rolls
18 July 1478 Westminster - Edward IV
Revocation of the protection with clause volumus, for one year, granted on 15 July last to William Federstone, soldier of the town of Calais, alias William Fetherstonhaugh of Sandwich, co. Kent, mariner, alias 'gentilman', staying on the king's service in the company of William Broun, mayor, the constable and the society of merchants of the staple of Calais, treasurers and victuallers of the town and marches, on the safe-custody and victualling of the same, because he delays in the city and suburbs of London, as appears by certificate of John Stokker and Henry Colet, sheriffs.
Calendar of Patent Rolls preserved at the Public Record Office, London
Facebook 12 December 2023 Featherstone Society from Richard Featherstone
A cousin has recently sent this info, which someone may find useful. He came across a brief reference to a 'William Featherstone' - ".....a sea captain in the late 15C - in an excellent naval history 'The Safeguard of the Sea' , N.A.M. Rodger (published by Penguin) 1997, p154ff. To summarise - in 1473-4 he was master of the 'Caricon' blockading St. Michael's Mount whilst in 1480 he was master of the 'Falcon' and convoy commander conveying the Kings' sister, the Duchess of Burgundy (the King at this time was Edward IV ) Previously William Featherstone was in the service of the Earl of Warwick who from the 1450's had worked to establish a permanent cadre of 'naval officers' and a small naval squadron. A 'master' at this time was apparently a professional seaman responsible for the actual sailing of the ship but the role was gradually evolving into one of 'command' - general decision making, directing operations in battle, etc. Rodger's source is in documents at the PRO, London.
Rodger's book is very readable - he writes a good deal about the social history of seamen - and it seems likely that William Featherstone might be a man who moved from merchant ships , chosen for his skills such as navigation, to the King's fleet,
with perhaps an origin somewhere in a coastal district. The PRO refs are E.101/71/5 no.954 and E. 404/77/1 no 33. and I think Rodger got this material from an Oxford D.Phil thesis ' Royal Administration and the Keeping of the Seas 1422-1485'. by C.F.Richmond, 1962....perhaps worth someone looking up the refs to see if there is any locational data on WF's origins?".
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5705e45a-3af9-4006-8942-d82c3633a7c3 Royal administration and the keeping of the seas, 1422-1485
This work is concerned With naval activity between 1422 and 1485 in which the English government was involved, chiefly with that initiated or undertaken by the administration, and with the organisation of any such activity.
The Introduction deals with the nature of the evidence used ~ this being particularly the records of the central government (notably of the Exchequer), certain local records, for instance of King's Lynn and Sandwich, and the various printed sources, such as the Howard Household accounts, the Paston letters, the chronicles of the period, and the other narratives, correspondence and treatises in which the time is comparatively rich - with what was meant in the 15th century by the term ‘the keeping of the sea’, both by the men who used it or had reason to comment on it, and in practice, and (arising from this) what might be called naval strategy.
The accounts of the Stapler's expenses survive for the years 1474-1476 amongst the Exchequer records’. William Fetherston, master of the king's ship Caricon, sailed with that ship in the fleet going from London to Calais in 1474 and saw to the victualling and wages of 200 men in that suip, and the service of his own ship The Mary Grace; and that of the Burnet and again the Caricon with the same complement on the voyage of 1475. Indeed in this last year he was, With John Cole of Gandwich, the organiser of the convoys of London and Ipswich vessels, which probably met off Sandwich and so saiied for Calais. In 1474 Robert Vincent of Dover, was as much the organiser as Fetherston; for he went with his ship in the London fleet and saw to the sending of a beat from Calais to over to give warning of men of war.
Again in 1480 William Fetherston, now master of the king's Falcon, was paid for his service in going with 140 men in that ship on the Boston wool fleet's voyage to Calais, and the Caricon Was on sinidlar duty, probably with the London fleet* RO. B404/77/1/S3, cf. Devon F. Issues of the Exchequer, page 500; P.R.O. E405/68, 69. Once at Calais Fetherston's vigilance continued, as we see fom The Cely Papers, ed. iieli, sdalden, C.oSe, 1900, number 52, from Calais 13th May..
Sometime in 1482 William Fetherston and John Davy, another important king's mariner, and Edmund Ince were appointed ‘guards, convoyers, and wafters for the security of the king's subjects of Norfolk and Suffolk and the ships and fishermen at sea there, against the king's enemies', as on 9th September the king appointed supervisors over them.
P.R.O. E 101/71/954, 955. There is a copy of Fetherston's indenture, with the notice after it that there was to be a similar indenture for Brampton in the Garse with 200 men, in the British Museum: Cotton Charter XVII, 19. It is initialled by the king - perhaps it was a fair copy for, the Exchequer clerks.
Cole was mayer of Sandwich at this time, and that important port seems to have been his and Fetherston's base for the operations of this year.
William Fetherston of Sandwich was no doubt the son of that Thomas Fetherston, citizen and vintner of London, who was controller of customs at Sandwich in 1447-87. William was captain of Warwick's Mary Grace in the early 1460's, and as early as July 1461 Was on a commission to take mariners for the ventures of that year’.
Clearly experience and ability were always a recommendation for the king's service. Fetherston had both; for he, like Rogers, was truly a profedsional royal servant. After the command he held in 1472 his service really begins. In the winder of
1475-4 he it was (with Brampton) who indented for duty at the siege of St. iichael's Mount, where he captained the king's Caricon, one of the crown's most important vessels throughout the latter part of the reign. Fetherston's force of 400 men in three ships was his own responsibility, and their wages and victuals were paid.
he three years 1474-1476 were full ones for Fetherston. As master of the Caricon throughout this period he Was responsible for repairs on the ship, and for equipping her for service; this was one of his most active times. He was with the wool fleet convoys in 1474-1475, and was on the London one of 1475 the chief organiser and commander, handling all the payments for wages and victuals of the men in the three vessels that sailed as protection for the wool ships. | These were
not great or expensive ventures, but they are shewn, by Fetherston's presence with the Caricon, to be a responsibility that Edward took seriously?. The sumner of 1475 also Witnessed the invasion of Northern France by the English army, and. once again Fetherston was fully occupied, on repairing ships, with John Cole, and only the Caricon, and his own Mar Grace, but also three ships of Cole's and four others, and as a captain assigned with & force to go against the king's enemies at sea. Probably he served with a squadron, perhaps the nine vesses. that he had helped repair and equip, under Dinhem's command in the channel, as the money for paying his men was handed over to him at Sandwich*. .
Fetherston's part in the covering operations against French attack on the transport ships carrying the army to France wags not a large one, but it was a significant one. For he, a royal mariner, was with his ship leading a mercantile convoy and an armed squadron at various times in this year, as well as preparing his own and other vessels at the crown's expense, to serve for the king's money.
Fetherston rather drops out of naval affairs in the late 1470's; indeed it seems that he was a soldier at Calais, on the safe-keeping of the town, or at least he had agreed to such service. However by 1479 again he was master of the Falcon, and it was with this ship that he was so active in 1480, on the Wool convoys and bringing Margaret from Burgundy.
Fetherston's abilities must have been high and well regarded for him to come back to captain one of the king's finest ships, and to be used and trusted in 1480 on such important voyages. By the end of the reign, in 1482, he was master of the king's Elizabeth’, and one of the protectors of the East Anglian fishermen*. In Richard IlI's reign John Davy and William Combersale replaée him as the crown's most hardworked mariners, although in 1483 and 1484 he was commissioned to take mariners for the king's Mary of Greenwich, going to foreign parts in 1483 and on the safe-keeping of the sea in 1484°. But he was by then, 1482-3, member of parliament for Sandwich*, and perheps this office and local affairs took up some of his time.
His career, and probably his life, ended about 1485, as there is no further mention of him after that date, save in 1505 when he was noted as being dead, His career was not altogether a typical one, he was perhaps too successful for it to be that, and he had for instance, never been involved in piracy; though once, in 1472, he important voyages. By the end of the reign, in 1482, aid have gear from a pillaged carvel in his house at Sandwich, but his wife, perhaps jealous for his career, intervened and restitution was made’. He Was, however, representative of the masters of Edward's ships, those who in the 1470's and in the campaigns of the early 1480's were the staff of the royal navy; only he, probably because of his tested ability and loyalty, was more than a mere shipmaster, for he commanded squadrons at sea in 1472, 1473 and 1475 and wes to the forefront of those involved in the protection of the Calais wool fleets and the East Anglian fishermen. He was not an importent shipowner like John Cole, nor a merchant (of any standing) like Avery Cornborough or even Thomas Rogers. He seems simply to have been a seaman and a sea-captain, but with sufficient wit, intelligence and
idea of leadership to be a commander and organiser as well. He Was perhaps the first of a long line of English seamen of professional ability and resource, who Were first and foremost in the king's service rather than their own.
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