Family and Education

Offices Held

Biography

The Topcliffes were a well known Scarborough family, although comparatively little evidence survives about George, who must have been quite young when he first entered Parliament in 1415. At all events, he did not sit again for another 16 years, during which period he remained out of the public eye. In 1432, however, he witnessed the will of Ellen, the widow of a local burgess named John Lane. Not long afterwards, two English merchants who had been shipping a cargo of salmon from Aberdeen to London accused him and others of making off with the vessel while they were sheltering in a Scottish port during a storm, and of sharing the merchandise between them. The case reached the court of Chancery, but the outcome is not recorded. George was still alive in January 1442, when he went surety for William Forster* (his former colleague in the Parliament of 1431) on his tenth and last return to the House of Commons.

C1/12/144; C219/15/2; Borthwick Inst. York, York registry wills, iii. f. 343v.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes