GOWER, David

Gower lived at Reading, where on 23 Feb. 1417 he attended the baptism at St. Mary’s church of Edward Langford*, the future knight of the shire.3 C139/89/66. Nothing is known about his family background or property in the town, save that in December 1419 he acquired a tenement in New Street, only to relinquish it in July 1421.4 CAD, iv. A9114-15. This may have been because he was planning to join Henry V’s army, about to embark for Normandy, but if so he returned home before March 1422, for he was then commissioned to help fit out the royal stables in England. He continued to serve in the avenary after the King’s death, and along with seven fellow yeomen he contracted on 18 Feb. 1430 to accompany the young Henry VI to France for his coronation. During their absence, which was initially scheduled to last for a period of six months, each yeoman was to receive a wage of 6d. per day.5 CPR, 1416-22, p. 415; 1429-36, p. 3; E404/46/302-3; E403/693, m. 20; 695, m. 6.

After his return, in 1431 Gower was appointed riding forester of Windsor forest, with responsibility for collecting assarts and purprestures, and he continued to receive livery as a member of the Household until Michaelmas 1447.6 E101/408/25, f. 8; 409/11, 16. His employment at Windsor and in attendance on the King did not mean that he severed his ties with Reading. He had provided sureties for the attendance of Nicholas Barbour* in the Parliament of 1427, and witnessed the borough’s electoral indenture of 14 Apr. 1432,7 C219/13/5, 14/3. while on occasion he had made a small contribution towards local costs, such as for works after Gutter Lane was flooded sometime in 1429-30, 3s. 4d. to the fabric-fund of St. Laurence’s church in 1440, and a modest 12d. towards repairs to the guildhall in 1442-3.8 Berks. RO, Reading recs., cofferers’ accts. R/FA/2, nos. 19, 29; C. Kerry, Hist. St. Laurence, 12. Although he rented property in Reading from the gentry family of Stonor in the 1430s,9 SC6/1122/19. In 1456 this rent was more than 13 years in arrears: SC6/1122/20. he is not known to have held land elsewhere, so it was probably because of his standing in the town that he was included in the spring of 1434 on the list of Berkshire men required to take the generally-administered oath to preserve the peace.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 403.

Gower was acting as a feoffee of the house belonging to the mayor, William Selham*, in February 1443, and later that year and again in 1445 he provided pledges for admissions to the guild merchant.11 Reading deeds, R/AT1/133; Reading Recs. ed. Guilding, i. 19, 21. It was noted in March 1446 that he still owed the guild 20s. for some old timbers from the guildhall which he had purchased two years earlier.12 Reading Recs. i. 21, 24. Yet, so far as is recorded, he never took an active part in the administration of the town as an office-holder or collector of revenues. It may well be the case, therefore, that he owed his election to the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds in 1447 more to his personal contacts within the royal household than to any service he had previously done for his fellow burgesses. His links in the higher echelons of the Household included Edward Langford, for whom he had provided proof of age in 1438, and John Norris*, a prominent courtier and esquire for the body, with whom in 1439 he had been associated as a co-plaintiff in a trespass suit brought in the court of common pleas.13 C139/89/66; CP40/715, rot. 264d. Norris represented Berkshire in the same Parliament of 1447. Perhaps, too, there was a general unwillingness among the townsmen of Reading to travel to Suffolk rather than to Parliament’s usual venue of Westminster, and Gower’s employment in the avenary required him to be at Bury in any event.

Gower is not recorded alive after that year. By 1449 a croft by ‘Peteslok’ near Reading, which he had leased from the Stonors, was no longer in his tenure, and he died before 29 Oct. 1452, when his post in Windsor forest was granted to one of the King’s serjeants.14 SC6/750/10; CPR, 1452-61, p. 21.