CUTLER, Edward

A mercer and merchant who became a freeman of Norwich in 1434-5,10 C67/49, m. 30; NCR 17c, f. 48. Cutler was one of those citizens who formally submitted to the Crown following disturbances (subsequently known as ‘Gladman’s Insurrection’) in the city in early 1443.11 KB27/746, rex. rot. 29. He appears to have come from a Norwich family, since John Cutler was a citizen there in Henry IV’s reign, and Reynold Cutler became a freeman in 1436-7.12 CP25(1)/169/184/131; NCR 17c, f. 48v. John was still alive when his wife, Margaret, made her will in September 1445. Even if John was Edward’s father, Margaret was probably not his mother, since he does not feature in the will.13 Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct. Reg. Wylby, f. 60. Nothing else is known about Edward’s activities until later that decade (or, perhaps, the early 1450s), when he was a defendant in a Chancery suit brought by John Clerk, a Norwich goldsmith. Clerk alleged that Cutler and others, in the capacity of feoffees, were refusing to allow him possession of property that he had recently bought in the city, but probably this was a collusive action designed to confirm the plaintiff’s title.14 C1/19/94.

It is likely that Cutler served as a common councillor before attaining the rank of alderman. It was in that capacity that he contributed a loan of four marks towards the cost of receiving Queen Margaret when she visited Norwich in April 1453, perhaps while on her way to Walsingham to give thanks for her pregnancy.15 NCR 17c, f. 18v. He was an alderman of Ultra Aquam at that date but from the spring of 1454 he represented another of the city’s wards, Wymer. In September 1454 Cutler and John Clerk, his erstwhile opponent in Chancery, became sheriffs of Norwich. Following their election they were assigned £60 from the city treasury for their future expenses in that office, upon condition that they collected all fines and amercements imposed in the sheriffs’ courts diligently (suggesting that not all of their predecessors had done so in the past).16 NCR 16d, f. 20.

Not long after his term as sheriff had expired, Cutler and four of his servants were defendants in a case heard in the court of King’s bench. The plaintiff in this suit, which came to pleadings in Hilary term 1455, was John Wode, who alleged that on the previous 27 Aug. Cutler and his men had broken into his close at East Barsham, grazed their animals on his pasture and abducted his servant, Thomas Neuton. They replied that Neuton had absconded while a suit for debt which Sir John Fastolf had brought against him in the sheriffs’ court at Norwich was still pending, and that Cutler, in his capacity as sheriff, and his men had followed him to East Barsham (where their horses had eaten Wode’s grass) to arrest him.17 KB27/775, rot. 71.

In mid 1456 Cutler faced the prospect of further legal proceedings in connexion with his shrievalty, for the Exchequer alleged that he, Clerk and the then mayor, John Drolle*, had failed to collect Norwich’s share of a joint loan of £100 which the Crown had requested from the city and Great Yarmouth. Cutler and his associates claimed never to have received a commission for this loan, and their fellow citizens vouched to cover the cost of any legal penalties brought against them. The city also decided that the three men should ride to London in Michaelmas term 1456 to make their excuses and that the common council would raise the sum owed to the King from goods belonging to the corporation.18 NCR 16d, f. 28v. There were strong ties between Norwich and Yarmouth, for the city’s merchants regularly traded through that port. During the late 1450s, it faced the threat of French naval attacks, and the city’s corporation decided to send a force of 200 men to its aid in October 1457. Among those who helped to raise this force was Cutler, who himself traded through Yarmouth, exporting cloth (probably to the Low Countries) and importing a variety of goods, including felt hats, paper, iron, soap and vinegar.19 Ibid. f. 34; E122/151/69, 70, 73; 152/2, 3, 10; 194/9.

The threat to Yarmouth and other English ports reflected the failings of a government beset by military failures abroad and political problems at home. In February 1460, by which stage the country was in a state of civil war, Norwich was obliged to respond to an anti-Yorkist commission of array, and the corporation appointed Cutler and others to assess a tax which they imposed on the city’s inhabitants to finance a force for the King. Political circumstances changed dramatically when the duke of York’s allies seized control of the government in the following summer. They summoned a Parliament for the autumn, to which Cutler gained election as one of the Members for Norwich. Shortly before it opened he and his fellow MP, John Burton II*, sent a letter to the mayor, asking him to send them the city’s common seal. The reason for their request is unknown and it was not readily apparent to those burgesses who considered it. In the end, they decided to discuss the matter further but to send the mayor’s seal to the two men in the meantime. Shortly after the dissolution of the Parliament, which had sat into the new year, Edward IV seized the throne. Within days of his accession, the new King wrote to the authorities at Norwich, ordering them to send a force with all possible haste to his aid. The city responded by levying a local tax to cover the costs of supporting these soldiers, and Cutler was one of those who assessed it. In the following summer, he helped to assess yet another local tax, imposed to cover the costs of an anticipated visit by the King.20 NCR 16d, ff. 42, 46v, 48, 50. Although expected, Edw. IV does not appear to have visited Norf. in 1461: see C.L. Scofield, Edw. IV, i. 197.

Later that year, Cutler returned to Westminster, to take up a seat in the first Parliament of the new reign. Before leaving Norwich, he and Robert Toppe*, his fellow MP, sought assurances that the city would not delay in paying their parliamentary wages. Their concern is understandable, since both men had previously experienced problems in securing parliamentary wages owed to them. During the long recess between the end of the first parliamentary session and 6 May 1462, when Parliament reopened and then immediately dissolved, Cutler and Toppe took part in discussions with the bishop of Norwich, who was trying to ensure good relations between the city and Norwich priory.21 NCR 16d, ff. 50, 51, 52.

Cutler was busy with civic affairs immediately after leaving the Commons for the last time. A few days before the dissolution of Parliament, the city agreed to provide a ship for service in the King’s navy, and he was one of four citizens sent in the summer of 1462 to hire a vessel at Bishop’s Lynn. During the same summer he helped brief the city’s attorneys, William Jenney* and Henry Spelman, in relation to a dispute between the corporation and Norwich priory. Later in the same decade, he participated in negotiations to resolve a quarrel between the city and the burgesses of Great Yarmouth and in discussions with the bishop of Norwich about cleaning the river Wensum. He also took part in welcoming Edward IV when the King came to Norwich in June 1469.22 Ibid. ff. 53v, 54, 62v, 63v, 74v, 78.

The royal visit coincided with the beginning of the political crisis of that year. After leaving East Anglia to deal with a rebellion in the north, the King soon discovered that the situation was much more serious than he had first imagined, and he fell into the hands of the earl of Warwick a few weeks later. By then he had already ordered his unpopular Wydeville in-laws to seek safety, and his brother-in-law, Anthony Wydeville, Lord Scales, retreated to his estate in west Norfolk. Scales escaped the fate of his father (Earl Rivers) and brother (both of whom were executed) but Richard Roos, who had married Robert Toppe’s widow and was a relative of the countess of Warwick, took him into custody later that summer. On 20 Aug., Roos brought Scales into the city, lodging him at the Newe Inne in the parish of St. Peter Mancroft. Charged with his safekeeping, the corporation placed a guard over his chamber over the next few nights. Cutler was included in these arrangements and, from 8 p.m. on 24 Aug. until 8 a.m. the following morning, he and his fellow alderman, Richard Albon, and eight other citizens kept watch at the inn. It is unclear how long Scales remained in Norwich, but he returned to court after Edward IV regained control of his throne in the following autumn.23 C.E. Moreton, ‘Anthony Woodville, Norwich and the Crisis of 1469’, in Much Heaving and Shoving ed. Aston and Horrox, 62-66.

Despite this royal recovery, the King’s position was far from secure and there were further risings in Lincolnshire and the north in early 1470. Before he left London to deal with the trouble, he sent a letter to the authorities at Norwich, ordering them to send as many men as possible to Huntingdon, to await his arrival there, and Cutler helped to assess the city’s inhabitants for a tax sufficient to pay the wages of these soldiers for five weeks. Edward IV’s overthrow in the following autumn occurred during Cutler’s mayoralty, and on 22 Sept., ten days before the King fled to the Low Countries, a city assembly discussed another royal plea for men. The assembly decided to send Edward 32 men under the command of Thomas Abbot, but it is far from clear whether they actually reached their muster point at Leicester.24 NCR 16d, ff. 83, 86. This force was much smaller than Norwich might have provided (nearly two months later Sir John Paston† believed that the city was capable of supporting between 200 and 500 men in harness),25 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 432. but no doubt Cutler and his fellows among the civic oligarchy felt it impolitic to do any more for a King about to lose his throne. The city was equally cautious about committing itself to Edward IV immediately after his return from exile in March 1471. On 1 Apr. that year, Cutler sent a messenger to Leicester and Coventry to seek news about the King’s landing in Yorkshire and subsequent march southwards. After the man returned, he ordered him to London, from where he came back with news of the King’s entry into the City on 11 Apr. and victory at the battle of Barnet four days later. No doubt influenced by the outcome at Barnet, the corporation decided to send a contingent of 37 men under Abbot’s command to the Yorkist army, and this small force fought at the battle of Tewkesbury. While returning from the battle Abbot met the much-travelled messenger, whom Cutler had again dispatched in search of news, at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire.26 Norwich city recs., ‘Liber Albus’, NCR 17a, f. 27v; chamberlains’ accts. 1384-1448, NCR 18a, f. 26.

Having completed his term in the mayoralty, Cutler served a year as alderman of the guild of St. George, Norwich’s principal guild. He ceased to hold any other major office other than that of alderman after 1472, but he was active in civic affairs for several more years. In 1474, for example, he helped to investigate defects in the manufacture of cloth in the city, and he was among those elected to assess Norwich’s inhabitants for a royal tax in the same year.27 NCR 16d, f. 99. He was also busy as an executor of two other aldermen, William Norwich and Richard Host†.28 Norwich city recs., ct. roll, 1461-83, NCR 1/19d, m. 2; Norwich consist. ct. Reg. Jekkys, ff. 84-85. As an executor for Host, who had died in 1467, he became involved in several Chancery suits connected with the dead man’s estate. (It was perhaps in response to this litigation that he obtained a royal pardon in March 1473.) In the late 1470s, he was a defendant in yet another Chancery suit, this time for having allegedly failed to perform his duties as a feoffee for the late Agnes Aleyn of Norwich.29 C1/40/135-7; 44/157, 221; 47/247-50; 54/296; 55/59; 59/21; 62/455; C67/49, m. 30.

It appears that Cutler died in 1479 or early in the following year, since he was re-elected alderman in March 1479, but not 12 months later.30 NCR 16d, ff. 107v, 108v. His will has not survived, but other records reveal that he appointed his wife, Margaret, and the priest, Robert Bulle, as his executors.31 C1/45/62/455; CP40/873, rot. 335. He was involved in various property transactions during his career,32 e.g. NCR 1/19d, mm. 1d, 2d. and his real estate was valued at £2 p.a. for the purposes of taxation in 1451,33 R. Virgoe, ‘Norwich taxation list of 1451’, Norf. Archaeology, xl. 150. but the lack of a will means that no details about his holdings have survived. He left at least one son, William, admitted to the freedom of Norwich in January 1471.34 NCR 17c, f. 57. It is also likely that John Cutler, who became a freeman some 15 years later, was another relative, if not a second son.35 Cal. Freemen Norwich ed. Rye, 37. The Cutlers of Shotley in south-east Suffolk were almost certainly kin, since in his will of 1473 Thomas Cutler of Shotley named the MP as one of those who were to intervene as arbitrators if the executors fell into disagreement.36 Norwich consist. ct. Reg. Gelour, ff. 31-32. Cutler’s own executors were caught up in litigation in 1480 when a case that Walter Ingham (son of Thomas*), who had married Richard Host’s widow, reached pleadings at the court of common pleas at Westminster. In 1474, during the earlier controversies over Host’s will, Cutler and Host’s other executor, William Halle, had entered into a bond for 500 marks with Ingham, as a security that they would accept whatever award arbitrators were to make between him and them over Host’s affairs. In short, Ingham demanded the 500 marks, claiming that the MP and Halle had failed to observe the terms of the award while Margaret and Bulle asserted that they had, meaning that the bind should no longer stand good.37 CP40/873, rot. 335; 874, rot. 440. The case was still pending in the spring of 1483 and Margaret, who had found another husband in Richard Howard of Norwich, died in the following December. Howard’s second wife, she was buried with him in the parish church at Aylsham, some nine miles north of Norwich.38 Blomefield, vi. 277.