CAW, William

William was probably related to the two John Caws who were tenants of the earl of Arundel at Bignor in the early fifteenth century.2 Two Fitzalan Survs. (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxvii), 136-7. He himself lived further down the Arun valley at Arundel, where he traded as a ‘corveser’ (shoemaker). In September 1427 he was fined in the town court for transgressions against local trading regulations.3 Arundel Castle mss, Arundel ct. roll M41. Following Caw’s service in the Parliament of 1431, the lord of the borough, John, earl of Arundel, brought a suit against him in the court of common pleas in Michaelmas term 1432 for a debt of £7 14s. 8d.4 CP40/687, rot. 89. Much more seriously, at an unknown date he caused the death at Arundel of one Robert Spicer, and was indicted for homicide. However, on 25 Mar. 1441 he obtained a royal pardon for the felony and for any consequent outlawry.5 CPR, 1436-41, p. 508.

It is possible that the MP was the man of this name who had paid a fine in January 1440 to recover from the earl of Northumberland a messuage, garden and four acres of land in West Street, Petworth, which his wife had inherited from her father.6 Petworth ct. roll 6766. He is not mentioned in the rolls surviving from 1444 onwards, although John Caw is: rolls 6767-8. John Caw of Petworth, a tanner who was appointed as a tax collector in Sussex on three occasions later in the 1440s was perhaps a kinsman.7 A ped. of the Caw fam. of Petworth, provided in a lawsuit of 1489, gives a William Caw as fa. of the plaintiff, John, and s. of another John and his w. Agnes, but he is unlikely to have been the MP on chronological grounds: CP40/909, rot. 115.