He wolde the see were kept for any thing
Betwixe Middelburgh and Orewelle.

Side by side with George or Richard Cely he must often have strained his eyes from the quay, with the salt wind blowing out the feather in his cap, and breathed a thanksgiving to God when the ships hove in sight.  ‘And, Sir,’ he writes once to Stonor from London, ’thanked be the good Lord, I understand for certain that our wool shipped be comen in ... to Calais.  I would have kept the tidings till I had comen myself, because it is good, but I durst not be so bold, for your mastership now against this good time may be glad and joyful of these tidings, for in truth I am glad and heartily thank God of it.’[49] The ‘prentice’ Thomas Henham writes likewise three weeks later:  ’I departed from Sandwich the 11th day of April and so came unto Calais upon Sher Thursday[N] last with the wool ships, and so blessed be Jesu I have received your wools in safety.  Furthermore, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand this, I have received your wools as fair and as whole as any man’s in the fleet.  Moreover, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand how your wool was housed ever deal by Easter even.  Furthermore, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand that the shipman be content and paid of their freight.’[50] The Celys write in the same strain too:  ’This day the 16th of August the wool fleet came to Calais both of London and Ipswich in safety, thanked be God, and this same day was part landed and it riseth fair yet, thanked be God.’[51] Their letters tell us too what danger it was that they feared.  ’I pray Jesu send you safe hither and soon,’ writes Richard to his ‘right well beloved brother George’, on June 6, 1482.  ’Robert Eryke was chased with Scots between Calais and Dover.  They scaped narrow.’[52] There are many such chases recorded, and we hear too of wool burnt under hatches or cast overboard in a storm.[53]

[Footnote N:  I.e.  Shrove Thursday.]

Thomas Betson and the Celys travelled very often across the Channel in these ships, which carried passengers and letters, and they were almost as much at home in Calais as in London.  When in Calais English merchants were not allowed to live anywhere they liked, all over the town.  The Company of the Staple had a list of regular licensed ‘hosts’, in whose houses they might stay.  Usually a number of merchants lived with each host, the most potent, grave, and reverend seniors dining at a high table, and smaller fry at side tables in the hall.  Sometimes they quarrelled over terms, as when William Cely writes home one day to Richard and George in London: