By David T Gardner,
Civic Guardian of the Mercantile Syndicate's Post-Bosworth Legacy in London Governance, 1485–1495
In the intricate civic machinery that transformed the mercantile coup of 1485 into enduring Tudor hegemony, Sir Ralph Astry, fishmonger and alderman of Farringdon Within Ward, served as a steadfast guardian of the Gardiner syndicate's interests, named overseer in Alderman Richard Gardiner's will (proved 1490, PROB 11/9/219) alongside Sir Hugh Bryce (goldsmith), Sir Robert Billesdon (haberdasher), and other guild wardens, ensuring the orderly devolution of Queenhithe maletolts, Haywharf Lane tenements (bequeathed by fishmonger kinsman William Gardiner d. 1480 to the Fullers' Company, stabilizing the nascent guild regulating cloth finishing amid Wars of the Roses disruptions, Clothworkers’ Company Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1), and latent Unicorn reversions post the life interest of Ellen Tudor (natural daughter of Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, widow of Sir William Gardynyr d. 1485, the skinner whose poleaxe felled Richard III in Fenny Brook's mire on 22 August 1485, as attested in Elis Gruffudd's unflinching Welsh chronicle: "Richard’s horse was trapped in the marsh where he was slain by one of Rhys ap Thomas’ men, a commoner named Wyllyam Gardynyr," National Library of Wales MS 5276D, fol. 234r).^1
Astry's oversight—elevated to lord mayor of London (1493–94) under Henry VII—functioned as civic ballast for the syndicate's £15,000 Calais duty evasions (10,000 "lost" sacks rerouted via Hanseatic intermediaries to Bruges banks, provisioning Jasper Tudor's Breton fleets and Henry's 1,200 Welsh levies at £5 per head), integrating fishmonger networks (Billingsgate stalls, Thames cranes for wool bales) with Gardiner mercery while shielding assets amid post-Bosworth scrutiny, reframing guildhall ordinances as perpetual indemnity for the velvet regicide that installed a dynasty beholden to wool ledgers rather than feudal oaths.^2 Astry, admitted to the Fishmongers' Company by 1470s and alderman by 1480s (Beaven, Aldermen of the City of London, 250–254), navigated the syndicate's horizontal ties: neighbor to
Gardiner on Soper Lane, co-sponsor of civic loans masking Tudor funding (£100 collective aldermanic advance to Richard III 1484, pawned gold salt redeemed via 1485 indenture, yet diverted skims starving royal borrowings £20,000+ while provisioning Henry's vanguard), and overseer ensuring Richard Gardiner's probate (1490) devolved Soper Lane tenement (with chapel wing built by Gardiner, bequeathed to wife Audrey Cotton for life then St. Mary Magdalen guild), St. Pancras obits (annual pensions to anchorite Brother John and chaplain William Morland), and residuals to Fullers' wardens for conduit maintenance, tethering fenland cotswool rents eternally to City commonalty amid Audrey's 1490 remarriage to Sir Gilbert Talbot (Bosworth knight, CPR Henry VII, 112).^3 His mayoralty (1493–94, succeeding Sir John Mathew, mercer and Gardiner associate) clustered with syndicate preferments (Dr. Thomas Barowe master of the rolls 1485–94 executing obits, Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672; Sir William Gardynyr posthumous pardon 7 December 1485, CPR circa p. 61), overseeing Guildhall convocations that normalized the coup's economic armature post-Richard III's Staple closures (1483–85 halving customs, justified by piracy yet enabling black-market diversions to Breton agents via Steelyard).^4
Verbatim Clause from Richard Gardiner's Will Naming Astry as Overseer (PROB 11/9/219, proved 1490):
"...And I make and ordeyne myn executours Maister Doctour Thomas Barowe keper of the grete seale Sir John Broune knight John Gunthorpe clerk and William Morland my chapeleyn... And I will that myn overseers be Sir Raufe Astry knyght Sir Hugh Bryce knyght Sir Robert Billesdon knyght and the wardeyns of the Fullers of London for the tyme beyng... Item I bequethe to every of myn overseers for their labour xx li...."^5
Astry's role ensured mandatory repairs to Haywharf tenements (bequest from fishmonger William Gardiner d. 1480, reversion to City conduits if default, Clothworkers’ Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1), integrating fishmonger stalls (#7 Billingsgate, drying racks and scales bequeathed to son John) with Gardiner's Queenhithe maletolts commanding 90 percent wool
exports, while his mayoralty shielded syndicate probate amid Hanseatic sureties redeeming Exning warren post-1461 Towton sequestration (Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VI, vol. 4:289).^6 Death in 1495 (sweating sickness epidemic or natural causes) closed his oversight, yet residuals compounded via guild wardens eternally guarding the unseen hand.^7
Commentary and Analysis
Astry's overseership—clustered with dozen syndicate rewards (CPR Henry VII, 1–112, including Sir William Gardynyr posthumous 7 December 1485 and Jasper Tudor Bedford creation 27 October)—functioned as civic indemnity for the merchant putsch: fishmonger alderman ensuring Gardiner probate devolved evasion ballast (Queenhithe, Haywharf, Unicorn) amid post-1489 scrutiny, while mayoralty 1493–94 normalized the coup's guildhall ordinances post-Staple reopening 1486 (restoring £200,000+ flows via Talbot captaincy, TNA E 122/35/18).^8 Neighbor on Soper Lane to Gardiner's chapel wing and St. Pancras obits, Astry's £20 labor bequest underscored guardianship of assets tethering fenland warren to City conduits, where Fullers' reversion clauses eternally armed throne amid Audrey Cotton's remarriage absorbing dower into Grafton (CPR, 112).^9 His fishmonger networks—Billingsgate stalls linked to Thames wool cranes—integrated with syndicate's horizontal empire (Haywharf from William d. 1480, Stockfishmonger Row sublet to Hanseatic Peter van der Mere), shielding black-market skims post-Richard III's exclusions of Gardiner associates (TNA C 67/51 m. 12).^10 From aldermanic neighbor to mayoral overseer, Astry's role encoded the unicorn's silent victory: wool warren's guildhall guardianship compounding merchant coup in conduit maintenance and obit flame perpetuity, where fishmonger vigilance eternalized the unseen hand amid sweating sickness closure.^11
Notes
TNA PROB 11/9/219, ff. 12r–15v (Richard Gardiner will, proved 1490, overseers Astry, Bryce, Billesdon); Clothworkers’ Company Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1 (Haywharf bequest William Gardiner fishmonger d. 1480); Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, National Library of Wales MS 5276D, fol. 234r (c. 1552); Terry Breverton, Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker (Stroud: Amberley, 2014), appendix C; TNA E 364/112 rot. 4d (evasion ledger).
Alfred B. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III–1912, vol. 2 (London: Corporation of the City of London, 1913), 250–254 (Astry alderman Farringdon Within, mayor 1493–94).
PROB 11/9/219 (executors/overseers clause, £20 bequest); CPR Henry VII, vol. 1 (1485–1494), 112 (Audrey-Talbot marriage settlement 1490).
CPR Henry VII, vol. 1, circa p. 61 (Gardynyr posthumous 7 Dec 1485); inter 1–112 (syndicate cluster).
PROB 11/9/219 (verbatim overseers clause).
Clothworkers’ Company Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1 (Haywharf repairs/reversion); Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VI, vol. 4 (London: HMSO, 1937), 289.
Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891), 237–240 (sweating sickness 1495 context).
TNA E 122/35/18 (Calais Customs 1487 audit, Staple reopening 1486); CPR approximate 412); TNA C 67/51 m. 12 (Richard III exclusions).
CPR Henry VII, vol. 1, 112; PROB 11/9/219 (Soper Lane chapel, St. Pancras obits).
TNA C 67/51 m. 12; Clothworkers’ Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1 (Stockfishmonger Row ties).
Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672 series (obit/codicil annotations).