KYCCHE, Roger

Although of uncertain origin, Kycche was probably from Cambridgeshire. Henry Keche was a tenant of Roger de Trumpyngton, presumably in that county, in the early 1390s,3 CCR, 1389-92, p. 532. and Roger Keche of Sawston witnessed a grant that the mother of Edmund Ingoldisthorpe* made to one of her servants in November 1427.4 CPR, 1422-9, p. 446. Sawston lies just to the south of Cambridge but it is unclear whether the witness was the MP or a namesake. Kycche was certainly active in the town by 1420, and he subsequently took part as one of Cambridge’s four bailiffs in a ‘great congregation’ held between the borough and the university, probably in 1423.5 ‘Cross Bk.’, f. 13.

The Parliament of 1425 took up 79 days of Kycche’s time, but the borough allowed him and his fellow MP, William Wedgwood* (and subsequent MPs for Cambridge) daily wages of just 12d. each, half the rate enjoyed by their predecessors. Immediately after the dissolution of Parliament, however, he and Wedgwood obtained a writ of expenses by which they put in a claim at the old rate. In their return to the writ, the mayor and bailiffs of Cambridge notified the Crown that the borough had formally agreed to the new rate during an assembly of September 1424, at which Kycche and Wedgwood themselves, along with their fellow burgesses, had assented to the measure.6 Cambridge bor. recs., treasurers’ accts., 1423-34, City/PB Box X/70/2-8; C219/330, nos. 22A-B.

A year after his election to Parliament, Kycche joined the borough’s common council, of which he was still a member in January 1428. He survived until at least 1434 when he was still in possession of a tenement that he had rented from the borough for a decade or more. By the following year, however, this tenement had come into the hands of William Dore*.7 Cambridge treasurers’ accts., 1425-8, 1431-2, 1433-6, City/PB Box X/70/4-10.