CHAPLAIN, Robert

A mercer by trade, Chaplain was a freeman of Norwich by February 1414, when he attended a ‘great congregation’ in the guildhall. Another congregation chose him and others to supervise repairs to the city’s walls and towers in July 1421, and he became an auditor and constable during the next two years.5 Ibid. There is no evidence for his parents. A Thomas Chaplain of Norwich made his will in 1438, but this does not feature the MP: Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct., Reg. Doke, f. 36. As a constable, he served in Ultra Aquam, the ward he later represented as an alderman.6 Norwich assembly bk., 1434-91, NCR 16d, f. 8. His first significant position of responsibility was that of sheriff, an office he shared with Thomas Wetherby*, a controversial figure of whom he was later a political ally. For his only Parliament, that of 1431, he and his fellow MP, Richard Moneslee*, were absent from Norwich for 75 days and each received daily wages of 40d. In the spring of 1436, shortly before his election as mayor, Chaplain was one of a group of citizens who rode to Wingfield, the Suffolk residence of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. The purpose of their journey was to seek the earl’s support against the abbot of St. Benet of Hulme, with whom the city was then in dispute. The earl was not the only important figure whose goodwill the civic authorities sought to cultivate, for when he was mayor Chaplain gave orders for the city to send gifts of wine and various foodstuffs to William Phelip†, Lord Bardolf, and his wife.7 Norwich chamberlains’ accts., 1384-1448, NCR 18a, ff. 79, 212, 213.

During his mayoralty Chaplain was an active supporter of Wetherby, who had lost his rank of alderman in the wake of the disputed mayoral election of 1433. While mayor, or shortly before his election, he was admitted to the guild of St. George, an institution of which many of Wetherby’s allies were members, and in January 1437 (or so it was later alleged) he attempted illegally to have Wetherby restored to the aldermanry. According to an indictment of September 1439, Chaplain had forced several uneducated citizens (‘ideotos’) to seal a blank charter, declaring that ‘yf ye will not seale it I shal certifye yow for ryseres’, before adding a text asserting that Wetherby was an alderman of the city. Whatever the truth of the indictment, it was not the only charge of misconduct levelled against Chaplain in his capacity as mayor.8 P. Maddern, Violence and Social Order, 186; KB9/241/20; KB27/728, rex rot. 22d. While in office he was the target of a Chancery bill filed against him by Thomas Broun (possibly one of Wetherby’s opponents), who alleged that in the summer of 1436 the mayor had commanded him, out ‘of malice and yuel wyll’, to join Humphrey, duke of Gloucester’s expedition to Calais and Flanders. After he had refused to go, Chaplain had kept him fettered in prison for some 11 weeks and ordered the ransacking of his house. Broun further alleged that six of his neighbours had stood bail for him by entering a bond for £100, but that Chaplain had neither brought any charges against him nor returned the bond.9 C1/70/108.

The jury that indicted Chaplain for the supposed charter-forging incident also accused him of attacking two men with his sword. Significantly, the alleged assault occurred on 1 May 1437, the day for the election of his successor as mayor. The election was disputed, and it degenerated into a rowdy confrontation between Wetherby and his supporters on the one hand and his opponents on the other. The only account of what happened is contained in a justices’ certification drawn up by Wetherby, Chaplain and others. According to this, Wetherby’s political opponents had assembled a large crowd of rioters to prevent him, his supporters and the majority of aldermen and ‘well-ruled’ freemen from attending the election. The certifiers further alleged that the mob had assaulted Wetherby, Chaplain and other leading citizens, that Chaplain (who remained mayor until the following month) and the city’s j.p.s had dared not, ‘for dred of ther deth’, arrest the wrongdoers, and that a jury was too terrified to indict them. Almost certainly, the intention of these partisan claims was to annul the election of John Cambridge as mayor, for it was necessary to allege riot to overturn an election, and certification was the legal process used in the case of riot.10 KB9/229/1/106; 241/20; Maddern, 189-90.

Chaplain was among several citizens chosen to survey the walls, towers and gates of Norwich for defects in March the following year,11 Assembly bk. NCR 16d, f. 8. but he does not appear to have played a leading role in the city’s affairs after completing his term as mayor. He is unlikely to have lived much beyond October 1446, when he received a royal pardon,12 C67/39, m. 21. Maddern, 187n, asserts the pardon was for his alleged fabrication of the ‘blaunchartre’ in 1437 but there is no evidence for this claim. although it is possible that he was still alive when a city jury presented indictments to a commission of oyer and terminer four years later. Political in tone, these featured several leading retainers of the King’s disgraced former chief minister, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk. In one of them Chaplain and other members of the guild of St. George were alleged to have helped Suffolk’s men oppress the citizens of Norwich during the 1430s and 1440s, but it is impossible to tell whether this charge bore much relation to the truth.13 KB9/272/4.

If Chaplain made a will, it has not survived and there is no evidence for any wife or children he may have had. Such information as exists for his private affairs is extremely limited. In the mid 1420s, he and a fellow citizen entered a bond for just over 100 marks to two Suffolk esquires, William Clopton and Thomas Mylde, probably as a security for a commercial transaction.14 Norwich ct. roll, 1424-35, NCR 1/18, m. 6. Another landowner with whom he had dealings was Judge William Paston, for whom he once (probably in the 1430s) acted as a witness in a Chancery case brought by Julian Herberd of Norwich.15 Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, i. 331. Chaplain also took part in conveyances at various stages of his career,16 Norwich ct. rolls, 1413-21, 1424-35, NCR 1/17, m. 21d; 1/18, mm. 14d, 16d; ‘Liber Albus’, NCR 17a, f. 13v. and there is a little information for his own holdings. At Norwich, he owned a tenement in Conisford ward by the river Wensum and a city jury indicted the prior of Norwich and one of his servants in December 1440 for forcibly entering this property nearly five years earlier.17 Norwich presentments taken by j.p.s, 1440-1, NCR 8a/10, m. 4. Outside the city, Chaplain would appear to have acquired lands in and around Wymondham in Henry V’s reign.18 CP25(1)/169/185/48.