Sir Martin Bowes (1496/97 – 1566) was a very prominent and active civic dignitary of Tudor London whose career continued through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.C.E. Challis, 'Bowes, Sir Martin (1496/7–1566)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004), superseding Born into the citizenry of York, Bowes was apprenticed in London and made his career at the Royal Mint, as a master-worker and under-treasurer, and personally implemented the debasement of English currency which became a fiscal imperative in the later reign of Henry.'Renaissance and Debasement', in J.H.M. Craig, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948 (Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp. 101–115. Google preview: pp 111–15. Internet Archive: pp. 101–02 (free subscription necessary for additional views).
Through a lifetime's association with the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, of which he was many times Upper Warden, he progressed to be a Sheriff of London in 1540–1541 and to be Lord Mayor of London for 1545–46, the last full term of mayoralty in Henry's reign. A survivor through the changes of national religious policy (and attendant persecutions), in the term of his mayoralty fell the second interrogation and condemnation of the Protestant Anne Askew, who was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1546. In 1547 and 1553, (during the reign of Edward VI), and later in 1554 and 1555 and again in 1559, he represented the City of London in Parliament.H. Miller, 'Bowes, Sir Martin (1496/97-1566), of London, Woolwich and North Cray, Kent', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558 (from Boydell and Brewer 1982), History of Parliament Online.N.M. Fuidge, 'Bowes, Sir Martin (c.1497–1566), of London, Woolwich and North Cray, Kent', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558–1603 (from Boydell and Brewer 1981), History of Parliament Online.
The Catholic Queen Mary was dependent upon the stability, wealth and compliance of the City in its central role in the governance and commerce of the capital, while the City itself, desirous of reform, looked to its elders for guidance and opportunity through the dangerous alterations of policy. Bowes's flexibility in religious matters, his reforms of the London Hospitals and his continuing involvement with them, his various benefactions (not least to the Langbourne ward of which he was alderman for twenty years), and his long representation of his Company's interests, which he carried safely through to the Elizabethan era, characterize one of the great (if controversial) London city fathers of his age.
Origins Martin Bowes was born into a family well-established in the civic life of the city of York in earlier generations. The merchant William Bowes the elder, MP for York in 1413 and 1417, was Lord Mayor of York in 1417 and 1428, and in around 1430 rebuilt the parish church of St Cuthbert at Peaseholme Green; in 1443 a younger William Bowes was also mayor.'A Catalogue of the Mayors and Bailiffs, Lord Mayors, and Sheriffs of the City of York from anno 1273, 1 Edward I, and upwards, to the present year (1735)', in F. Drake, Eboracum: or, The History and Antiquities of the City of York, from its original to the present times: Together with the History of the Cathedral Church, and the Lives of the Archbishops of that See (&c.) (W. Bowyer for the author, 1736), p. 362 (Internet Archive). Reputedly, Martin was born in the old timbered house, the Bowes family home in Peaseholme Green, at the sign of the Black Swan.'The Black Swan, Peaseholme Green', York Civic Trust photographs "Jorvik" website, by "Horace".
Although Bowes's father Thomas Bowes was not engaged in civic office, he was probably the same Thomas Bowes, goldsmith, to whom the Freedom of the City of York was granted in 1498.'Admissions to the Freedom of York: Temp. Henry VII (1485–1509): Thomas Bowez, goldsmyth', in F. Collins (ed.), Register of the Freemen of the City of York, Vol. 1: 1272–1558 (Andrews & co., Durham 1897), pp. 210–233 (British History Online). By his own account Martin Bowes, who was born in the parish of St Cuthbert's, was brought up by his parents in York until the age of 14, when (in 1511) he was sent up to London as a youth of limited means,'Letter from Sir Martin Bowes, presenting a sword to the city', in A. Raine (ed.), York Civic Records, Vol. V, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, Vol. CX (1944), p. 20 (Internet Archive). and was apprenticed to the citizen and Goldsmith, Robert Amadas (died 1532).
His master was a Deputy Master of the Mint, and Master of the Jewel Office, and this career path for Martin was no doubt foreshadowed by a former Thomas Bowes, also born in Peaseholme, who had died in 1479 while holding office in the London Mint.Will of Thomas Bolves [Bowes] of London (P.C.C. 1479, Logge quire). The Goldsmiths' Company had produced several luminaries and benefactors a generation previously, including Sir Edmund Shaa and Sir John Shaa, Thomas Wood and Henry Worley, and also John Mundy who, having witnessed the Evil May Day riots in Cheapside in 1517 (as Bowes must have done), served as Lord Mayor in 1522. Martin Bowes became a liveryman of the Goldsmiths in 1524/25, immediately following the obit of Sir Edmund Shaa.W.S. Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company: being gleanings from their records, 2 vols (Eyre and Spottiswoode, for the Company, London 1896), I, p. 43 (Internet Archive).
In Henry's time The London mint In 1526 (by which year Bowes had already embarked upon his first marriage, to Cecily Eliott) Amadas appointed Bowes his deputy at the Royal Mint, of which he became one of the three or four master-workers. These men, together with the Treasurer William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy, were entitled to equal shares of the Mint's profit. The arrangement caused friction between the master-workers and their superior, who claimed to have been denied his fair share.C.E. Challis, 1993 A New History of the Royal Mint (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 208. . The official allowances paid to the master-workers were considerably lower than they had formerly been, during the Yorkist period, and the managers made up for this by "seizing every opportunity to make the Mint pay".New History of the Royal Mint, p. 210 (Google). In 1530 Lord Mountjoy attempted to hold the two Deputy Masters, Robert Amadas and Ralph Rowlett (died 1543), to account,See, for example, The National Archives, Chancery Pleas: Blount v Rowlet, ref. C 1/697/27 (Discovery Catalogue). View original at AALT, image 40. but they brought counter-claims at law: by 1533, Amadas having died (buried in St Mary Woolnoth),Will of Robert Amadas, Goldsmith of London (P.C.C. 1533, Hogen quire): see Transcript with notes by Nina Green, 'The National Archives PROB 11/25/85' (oxford-shakespeare.com pdf). Mountjoy had resigned his patent and Bowes and Rowlett became joint Masters of the Mint.C.E. Challis, The Tudor Coinage (Manchester University Press/Barnes and Noble, New York 1978), pp. 20–82, passim.J.D. Alsop, 'The Mint Dispute 1530–32', British Numismatic Journal Vol. LI (British Numismatic Society, London 1981), pp. 197–99 (Society's pdf).
Civic opportunities Bowes was, meanwhile, advancing in civic affairs, progressing through two Warden-ships of the Goldsmiths' Company in 1532–33 and 1534–36, and in 1536, having served as auditor, was chosen an alderman for the Aldgate ward.(Martin Bowes), in A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 29 (Internet Archive). Accepting this, his petition was granted that he should not be called upon to serve as Sheriff for three years to come. His status as alderman gave him a special importance within the Company of Goldsmiths, and he served his first term as Prime Warden (a role which he resumed under Edward, Mary and Elizabeth) in 1537–38. He had built, and now occupied, that distinguished residence mentioned by John Stow in Lombard Street, near the parish church of St Mary Woolnoth, among the "diverse faire houses, namely one with a verie faire forefront towards the streete, builded by Sir Martin Bowes, Goldsmith." The back gate opened towards the conduit in Cornhill.J. Stow, A Svrvay of London (John Windel, Printer to the Citie of London, 1603), p. 204 and pp. 192–93 (Google). In 1539/40 the advowson of this church, which had belonged to the Priory and convent of St Helen (Bishopsgate),See 'Benedictine nuns: St Helen's, Bishopsgate', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of London, Vol. 1: London Within the Bars, Westminster and Southwark (VCH, London 1909), pp. 457–61 (British History Online). was granted to him, and later remained to his descendants.R. Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense, 2 vols (Benj. Motte, for Chr. Bateman, Benj. Tooke, Ric. Parker, Jon Bowyer and Hen. Clements, London 1708–11), I, pp. 461–63 (Google).J.M.S. Brooke and A.W.C. Hallen (eds), The Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of S. Mary Woolnoth and S. Mary Woolchurch Haw (Bowles and Sons, London 1886), p. x (HathiTrust).
Wives and lands His first wife Cicely having died leaving him with two, perhaps three sons, she was buried at St Mary Woolnoth: Bowes remarried by 1538 to Anne Barrett of Aveley (Essex), upon whom he sired several more children through the 1540s, including Joan (1541), Francis (1542), William (1543/44), another Francis (1545), Charity (1548) and Henry (1550).Registers of S. Mary Woolnoth and S. Mary Woolchurch Haw, pp. 2–6 (HathiTrust). However, in 1541 he lost a daughter Elizabeth, and in 1543 he lost his ward Elizabeth Strong, a gentlewoman; one Francis was buried on the day of the second Francis' baptism.Registers of S. Mary Woolnoth and S. Mary Woolchurch Haw, pp. 179–81 (HathiTrust).
By grants and alienations of land, Bowes was already acquiring estates in Kent during the 1530s. He had lands at Plumstead, having been granted Suffolk Place Farm (formerly property of Charles Brandon) at Bostall from the king in 1535/36: by which means Plumstead, Bostall and Woolwich later descended in capite to George Barne.History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, II, pp. 210, 215–16 (Google).'1308. Grants in October 1541, nos. 41 and 42', in J. Gairdner and R.H. Brodie (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. 16: 1540–1541 (HMSO, London 1898), p. 605 (British History Online). By the king's grant he also had the manor of North Ash (at Ash, Axtane Hundred), with the advowson of Ash which had belonged to the Order of St John of Jerusalem (suppressed 1532),J.P. Wadmore, 'The Knight Hospitallers in Kent', Archeologia Cantiana XXII (1897), pp. 232–74 (Kent Archaeology pdf), at pp. 237–38. and the manor of Halywell, formerly a possession of the Priory of St John Baptist at Shoreditch.History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, II, pp. 466–67, 473 (Google).
Shrievalty, 1540–1541