Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pulteney, John de
PULTENEY or POULTNEY, Sir JOHN de (d. 1349), mayor of London, was son of Adam Neale de Clipston of Weston, Sussex, and grandson of Hugh de Pulteney, of Pulteney, Poutenei, or Pultonheith, in Misterton, Leicestershire. His father succeeded to the estate at Pulteney in 1308, and had married Maud de Napton. John de Pulteney was mainpernor for certain merchants on 9 Nov. 1316, and is mentioned as a citizen of London on 5 May 1322 (Close Rolls, Edward II, 1313–18, p. 443, and 1318–23, p. 322). He was a member of the Drapers' Company, and by the beginning of the reign of Edward III had acquired a considerable position as a merchant at London. On 23 Jan. 1329 he was one of twenty-four good men of the city who were chosen to wait on the king at St. Albans, and were there ordered to inquire whether the city would punish those who had sided with Henry of Lancaster (Ann. Lond. ap. Chron. Edward I and Edward II, i. 241). On 13 Dec. 1330 he had licence to alienate to the master and brethren of the hospital of St. Bartholomew certain shops, &c., in St. Nicholas at Shambles to endow a chantry, and on 18 Jan. 1331 had a grant of lands in recompense for debts due from Edmund, earl of Kent, being on each occasion described as citizen of London (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, ii. 22, 41).
He was mayor of London in 1331 and 1332, and the king's escheator in the city (ib. pp. 118, 338; Fœdera, ii. 805, 819). On 27 Jan. 1332 he was on a commission of oyer and terminer as to the staple of wools established by certain merchants at Bruges in defiance of the statute, and on 10 March was guardian of the peace for Middlesex. On 20 Oct. he was appointed on a commission of oyer and terminer in Essex, and on 12 Dec. on a similar commission in Middlesex and Surrey (ib. ii. 845; Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. III, ii. 283, 288, 386–8). In 1331 he obtained a charter of privileges for the citizens of Louvain, and on 2 Feb. 1334 was employed in negotiations with Flanders. In 1334 he was again mayor of London, and on 21 April was on a commission of oyer and terminer in Middlesex (ib. p. 577). In this same year the aldermanry of Farringdon was devised to him by Nicholas de Farndon; but if Pulteney held it at all, it can only have been for a short time (Sharpe, Cal. Wills, i. 405, ii. 59 n.) On 12 Aug. 1335 he was appointed one of the leaders of the Londoners in case of an invasion, and on 26 Aug. had directions as to the arrest of Scottish vessels at London (Fœdera, ii. 917, 920). During 1336 he was frequently employed on commissions of oyer and terminer in Middlesex and Kent (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. III, iii. 283, 293, 374–375, &c.).
In 1337 he was for the fourth time mayor of London, and was knighted in February, when Edward, prince of Wales, was made Duke of Cornwall (Chron. Edward I and Edward II, i. 366). On 19 March he had a grant of a hundred marks yearly for his better support in the order of knighthood (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. III, iii. 419). In 1338 he was employed on an inquisition as to the decay of business at Westminster (Fœdera, ii. 1059). In March 1340 he was appointed with William de la Pole [q. v.] and others to discuss the ‘chevance de Brussel’ with the merchants (Rolls of Parliament, ii. 113 b), and on 18 Oct. had permission to send 160 sacks of wool free of custom to Bruges as provision for the ransom of William de Montacute, first earl of Salisbury [q. v.] (Fœdera, ii. 1139). Pulteney's management of commercial matters had not satisfied the king, and when Edward suddenly returned to England on 30 Nov., he was one of those who were for a time put under arrest, and was imprisoned at Somerton Castle (Murimuth, p. 117; Aungier, p. 85). He died on the Monday after Trinity Sunday 1349; by his will he gave directions that he should be buried at St. Lawrence, Candlewick Street, and according to a statement made by the chapter of St. Paul's in 1439 his wish was carried out (Rolls of Parliament, v. 9); but Stow says he was buried at St. Paul's (London, i. 260); and another account implies that he was buried at Coventry (Cotton MS. Vesp. D. xvii. f. 76).
Pulteney acquired great wealth, and, like other merchants, often advanced money to the king (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, ii. 225, 275, 338, 345, iii. 311, 321–2, 413, 416, 432). On 15 Sept. 1332 he had a grant of the manors of Ditton Camoys, Cambridgeshire, and Shenley, Hertfordshire; he also acquired property at Newton-Harcourt, Leicestershire (ib. ii. 340, 402, 417, 491, 543, 559, iii. 5, 250, 252). In 1347 he obtained the manor of Poplar and other property, including the messuage called Cold Harbour in the parish of St. Lawrence. On the site of the latter he built a house on a scale of great magnificence, which after his death was the residence of Edward, prince of Wales, down to 1359 (Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, p. 14). Eventually the house became royal property, and after belonging to various owners was pulled down in 1600. By his will Pulteney made numerous charitable bequests. In September 1332 he had obtained a letter from the king to the pope for a chantry in honour of Corpus Christi, which he proposed to found by the church of St. Lawrence, Candlewick Street (now Cannon Street); this was in 1336 enlarged to form a college for a master, thirteen priests, and four choristers (Fœdera, ii. 845; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. 1458; Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. III, iii. 60, 262, 308, 319, 325; Bliss, Cal. Papal Registers, ii. 383, 536, 542; cf. Rolls of Parliament, iv. 370, v. 9). He also built the church of Allhallows the Less, Thames Street, founded a chantry for three priests at St. Paul's Cathedral, and a house for the Carmelite friars at Coventry (Dugdale, Hist. of St. Paul's, p. 381; Hist. of Warwickshire, p. 117). His wife Margaret, daughter of John de St. John of Lageham, whom he married before 1330 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, ii. 22), afterwards married Sir Nicholas de Loveyn. His son, William de Pulteney, was born in 1341, and died on 20 Jan. 1367 without issue. His heir was his cousin Robert, son of Ellen, sister of John de Pulteney, by William Owen. Robert Owen de Pulteney was ancestor of the later Pulteneys of Pulteney and of Shenley; William Pulteney, earl of Bath [q. v.], was descended from him, as also were the earls of Harborough, barons Crewe, and the present Earl of Crewe. Pulteney's arms were argent, a fesse dancette gules, in chief three leopards' faces sable. The parish of St. Lawrence Pountney, anciently known as St. Lawrence, Candlewick Street, owes its later name to its connection with John de Pulteney.
[Aungier's French Chron. of London, pp. 64–7, 85 (Camden Soc.); Greyfriars Chron. ap Monumenta Franciscana, ii. 152–3; Munimenta Gildhallæ, ii. 448–9; Fabyan's Chronicle; Rymer's Fœdera, Record edit.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. App. i. 2, 6, 7, 14, 47, 52, 55; Sharpe's Cal. of Wills in the Court of Husting, i. 609–10; Stow's London, edit. 1720, i. 260–1, ii. 189, 206, v. 109; Pennant's London, ii. 209; Wilson's Hist. of St. Lawrence Pountney, pp. 25–72; Nichols's Leicestershire, iv. 319; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 474; other authorities quoted.]