MAKIN, John (by 1470-1535/36), of Colchester, Essex.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1470. m. by 1521, Agnes, wid. of Robert Rookwood.2

Offices Held

Chamberlain, Colchester 1498-9, bailiff 1503-4, 1509-10, 1516-17, 1523-4, 1528-9, 1531-2, alderman by 1516; commr. subsidy, Essex 1512, Colchester 1515, 1523, 1524; collector for war loan, Essex 1524.3

Biography

John Makin, who was born at Layer Marney in Essex, was admitted a freeman of Colchester during 1490-1; he continued to hold land in Layer until 1499 and probably later, but lived in Colchester, where he traded as a grocer. His Membership of the Parliaments of 1512 and 1515, for which the returns are lost, has been deduced from a settlement of 26 Sept. 1516 allowing him and John Clere 26s.8d. a year each out of the income of Colchester’s mill at New Hythe until he had received £16 10s. and Clere £17. The inference that Makin and Clere were being paid for sitting in Parliament is borne out by the precedent of 1490, whereby the town had granted its Members for the two previous Parliaments the same amount yearly from the same source until their wages were paid. As with Clere the sum promised to Makin exceeded that due to him at the standard rate of 2s. a day for the Parliament of 1515 alone, but fell short by a third of that for the Parliaments of 1512 and 1515. His appointment as a subsidy commissioner in 1512 and 1515 may be seen as confirming his Membership of both Parliaments, which would also have been consonant with the King’s call for the re-election in 1515 of the previous Members. In 1519 Makin sued out a pardon for having bought land at Rainham four years before without a licence from the crown. His career at Colchester can be traced until 1535-6, when he is last glimpsed serving as an ex-officio justice of the peace in the town, and he was probably dead by the autumn of 1536 when a namesake, perhaps a son, lost the suffix junior previously used to distinguish him from the older man.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: D. F. Coros

Notes

  • 1. Colchester town hall, Oath bk. f. 118v ptd. Colchester Oath Bk. ed. Benham, 148-9.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from admission as freeman. Colchester Oath Bk. 151.
  • 3. Colchester Oath Bk. 141, 143, 145, 149, 152, 154, 155; Statutes, iii. 84, 169; LP Hen. VIII, iii, iv.
  • 4. Colchester Oath Bk. 139, 141, 148; Trans. Essex Arch. Soc. n.s. xiii. 15 seq.; Essex RO, D/DRGI/90; Colchester Red Ppr. Bk. ed. Benham, 124-31; Morant, Essex, i. 88; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. ed. Reaney and Fitch, 134, 202, 206; Colchester town hall, Benham mss 23 passim.