Add MS 78168

EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. I. Accounts of William Gonson and Benjamin Gonson the elder as owners of the merchant ship ‘Matthew Gonson’, al. ‘Matthew’; 1535-1553. Imperfect. These include: (a) detailed bills of lading for goods consigned at Southampton for delivery to Messina, with the trademarks of the individual merchants, 24 Sept. 1535 and 15 July-24 Sept. 1539, as with those carried on the return voyage from Messina by way of the Islands of Crete and Khios, 29 Jan. 1539/40-22 May 1540; - (b) list of wages owing to named crewmen taken on at Southampton and London, 2 Oct. 1535-1 May 1536 and 15 Feb.-15 Aug. 1539, and for voyages to the Levant, 28 Feb.-19 Nov. 1541; - (c) copies of dispatches addressed from shipboard to the ‘Right Worshipfull Master’, 16 Oct. 1541-9 Apr. 1542; - (d) wages due to the ship’s crew on the voyage to Andalusia, 1 Oct. 1542-22 Apr. 1543; - (e) ship’s inventory, 6 Oct. 1541; - (f) wages on the Levant voyage, 1 Oct. 1552-5 July. 1553, the crew being headed by ‘Mr [William] wynter gentleman’ (for whom see Add. MSS 78170, 78181 below, and David Loades, The Tudor Navy, Aldershot, 1992, pp. 155, 159) and ‘Richard graie Capytane’. References are made in the accounts for 1535 to sums already paid by ‘my father in London’, and in the final entry, made at Cadiz in Feb. 1552/3, to ‘Mr Gonson’. During much of the intervening period, beginning in June 1539, the vessel saw service in Henry VIII’s navy. Between April and Sept. 1545 it was employed in the fleet prepared against France (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XIV, I, 1097; XX, I, 543, and II, 27, 62, 88, and 368), and in the latter month was chosen by Sir Thomas Seymour as his flagship (ibid., XX, II, App. 27). At this time it was variously described as comprising 300 and 600 tons and carrying a complement of 350 or 300 men. A different vessel also named ‘Matthew Gonson’ is mentioned in 1517-8 as being employed for transport of goods to the Mediterranean by the merchant Nicolo de Marini de Egra, who died in 1544 (Alwyn A. Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton 1270-1600, Southampton, 1951, p. 241). Formerly Evelyn MS 156.

Partial contemporary foliations in ink run from xii to lxxviiii at beginning and 1 to 35 at end. Text copied mostly in a single hand, with additions made in the final section in another. Imperfect by excision of leaves at various points. Paper, mostly unwatermarked, carries flourished letter W (similar to Briquet, 9150, dated to 1552) in final section. Jotting in ink on the back cover in a late 16^th cent. hand. ‘Rowland Hill of London Merchant 1535-1552’ inscribed on 19th-cent. blue slip pasted to front cover. Limp vellum covers attached to the gatherings by means of three leather straps on the spine. 350 x 250 mm.

William Gonson, Treasurer of the Navy: Accounts: 1535-1545.