Family and Education

Offices Held

Jt. warden of St. George’s fraternity, Dover by July 1394.1

Dep. bailiff, Dover Mar.-July 1397; jurat Sept. 1390-9, 1400-2, 1405-6, 1407-8, 1410-11, 1418-19; dep. mayor Nov.-Dec. 1414.2

Cinque Ports’ bailiff at Yarmouth Sept.-Nov. 1407.3

Biography

Nicholas was related to Thomas Spicer, the mayor of Dover in 1368-70 (to some of whose land in the hundred of Bewsborough he had succeeded by 1395), and probably also to John Spicer^† who sat for the Port in Richard II’s first Parliament.4 In 1376-7 he was sent to Faversham to collect the 60s.contribution which it owed to Dover as a member-port, and that same year was reimbursed 3s.4d. by the commonalty for wine given at an entertainment for various officials from the castle. John Halle I*, the then mayor, asked him to act as a feoffee of his property in 1381, and he attended a Brodhull on behalf of the town in the following year; and yet it was not until 1394 that he was elected to any of the local offices. Spicer witnessed deeds at Dover between 1392 and 1412.5

In May 1411 Spicer shared in a bond in £200 made to the prince of Wales, then warden of the Cinque Ports, as arbiter on disputes among the townsmen of Dover. He is last recorded in 1421 when two Gascon merchants formally acknowledged in the town court that they owed him and others £8.6

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: A. P.M. Wright

Notes

• 1. Egerton 2088, f. 60.
• 2. Ibid. ff. 88-94, 106, 135, 157, 183, 195; 2091, ff. 17, 18, 24.
• 3. Romney assmt. bk. 2, f. 66.
• 4. Add. 29615, ff. 11, 16; E179/225/4, 237/57.
• 5. Add. 29615, f. 45; CP25(1)108/216/211; Egerton 2091, f. 6; Dover Chs. ed. Statham, 126, 170.
• 6. E159/190, Trin. rot. 7; Egerton 2088, f. 199.