COLARD, Walter

A mercer by trade, Walter was active at Wycombe by 1441 when he was one of the wardens at All Saints, the town’s parish church.4 Ibid. He was not a lawyer, as suggested by HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 206, which also wrongly asserts that he was receiver of the priory of St. James, Exeter in the late 1430s. It is likely that he was a local man, for there was a William Colard of Wycombe in the 1420s. In common with William, he owed suit of court to Bassetsbury, the duchy of Lancaster manor that encompassed the borough. From time to time, he served as a juror and assessor of fines in the manor court, and it was there that Elizabeth, widow of John Cooke, transferred a toft and two virgates known as ‘Denlondes’ to him and his wife Agnes (perhaps her daughter) in 1448.5 St. George’s Chapel, recs. XV/15/1.

Given that he was of sufficient repute to gain election to the Commons in 1453,6 One of the electors was Thomas Colard, presumably a relative of the MP. Walter probably held office at Wycombe although the loss of most of the borough’s medieval records makes this impossible to prove. Yet other sources indicate that he was of local prominence, often witnessing or putting his name to local property transactions and other arrangements. In the spring of 1449, for example, he was associated with the mayor, bailiffs and other townsmen in coming to an agreement with John Blakpoll*, by which Blakpoll undertook to maintain a public latrine situated on his property near the town’s bridge.7 Centre for Bucks. Studies, CH1 T/6/3-7, 9, 11-12, 14; 7/1-2.

It was also during the late 1440s that Colard took action against two Buckinghamshire men in the court of common pleas, claiming that each of them owed him 40s. Represented by an attorney, he did not appear in person, although he received a summons to sit as a juror in the same court in the mid 1450s, to try a suit the abbot of Walden, Essex, brought against the vicar of Amersham.8 CP40/751, rot. 595; 779, rots. 215, 309d. Early in the following decade, he was a defendant in Chancery proceedings initiated by a fellow burgess, John Welsbourne II*. Suing in his capacity as the executor of Margaret, widow of John Hill II*, Welsbourne alleged that her feoffees, Colard and the priest Thomas Skaryngton, had obstructed the performance of her will, by refusing to release their title to properties in Wycombe which she had conveyed to them in trust. In due course the court commissioned the abbot of Thame and the judge Robert Danvers* to question local witnesses and the examinations were held in Danvers’ presence at Wycombe on 5 Sept. 1461. The mayor and six other burgesses were chosen to testify, on the basis that they were ‘of the saddyst and wurshypfullest men’ of the borough. They supported Welsbourne’s claims and a few weeks later the court decreed that Colard and Skaryngton should make the desired release, under pain of £100 for non-compliance.9 C1/27/300-1; 29/23-24.

In March and the early summer of 1465, Colard was one of those to whom the London grocer, Edmund Arnold, and his wife conveyed holdings at Wycombe, but it is likely that his interest in these properties was merely that of a feoffee.10 Centre for Bucks. Studies, CH1 T/7/1; CP40/816, rot. 396d. In short, there is no definite evidence for Colard’s own interests in the town, apart from the property known as ‘Denlondes’. In a will of 1490, a Walter Colard of Wycombe referred to his freehold lands and copyhold meadows at Wycombe, his lands in the marsh next to the town and to his shop in Great Marlow,11 Cts. Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 1483-1523 (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xix), 134. The editor of this vol. asserts that the testator was the MP’s son, although without giving a supporting reference. Presumably, the testator was the burgess who arbitrated in a dispute between two other townsmen, Thomas Baydon the elder and William Aley, in the late 1480s: First Ledger Bk. High Wycombe (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xi), 49. but it is unclear whether he was the MP or a younger relative of the same name.

In the conveyance from the Arnolds of March 1465, Colard’s co-grantees were Richard Graunt and William Redhode, both citizens and salters of London, although Redhode was also a burgess of Wycombe. Another, more prominent, Londoner with whom Colard had dealings was the mercer, John Stocton, a native of Wycombe and the brother of William Stocton I*. In the spring of 1471, while mayor of London, John received a knighthood from Edward IV, upon his triumphant return to the City from the battle of Tewkesbury.12 C.D. Ross, Edw. IV, 175. Colard, a feoffee at Wycombe for John,13 CP25(1)/22/124/20. was on good terms with both Stoctons. William, who died in 1454, bequeathed him a robe;14 PCC 1 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 1). John, who survived until 1473, left him and his wife 40s. John also directed his executors to give each of the Colards’ children alive at the time of his death 26s. 8d. when they came of age.15 PCC 9 Wattys.

It is not known when Colard himself died, assuming that he was not the testator of 1490. As for the testator, he appointed his son John Colard and son-in-law John Todde (the husband of his daughter Margaret) his executors and was buried in All Saints. John Colard held a tenement in Wycombe’s High Street at the end of the fifteenth century, although it was of Great Marlow that he made his own will in 1523.16 Cts. Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 134, 406-7; Add. Ch. 56746.