PETIPAS, Bartholomew

A central figure in the bitter factional disputes which bedevilled local politics at Bishop’s Lynn in the early 15th century, Petipas was admitted to the freedom of the borough in 1391-2, having served an apprenticeship under John Botkesham.4 Cal. Freemen Lynn, 27. Initially a merchant who dealt in a wide variety of goods, he came to specialize as a draper.5 E122/95/27; Myers, 104, 257-8. On a couple of occasions he was a party to disputes among Lynn burgesses who traded at Bergen,6 C1/7/99; 69/176. and in the late 1420s he, Thomas Burgh* and John Waryn* sued a number of merchants from Hamburg in the court of the English admiralty for seizing their goods. They won their suit, but their opponents appealed to the King, claiming that the president of the court, Sir Henry Inglose*, or his deputy, John Tilney†, had acted unjustly, and in December 1429 the Crown referred the appeal to a specially appointed commission (but with what result is not known).7 King’s Lynn bor. recs., translation of hall bk., 1422-9, 1450, KL/C 7/29, p. 159; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 36-37. There is little evidence for Petipas’s property interests in Lynn. He did however obtain a lease of two shops in the Grassmarket in conjunction with Walter Aleyn and John Brandon† in 1409 and possess a tenement in Fincham Street late in life.8 King’s Lynn bor. recs., deed, 1409, KL/C 50/231; rental of corporation properties, 1425, KL/C 48/7. It is also possible that he acquired pasture land at nearby Gaywood in the early 1420s.9 CP25(1)/169/186/5.

Although one of the middle-ranking mediocres of Lynn, rather than a member of the borough’s political elite, Petipas had the requisite ability and financial means to attain high local office.10 Myers, 109. The rise of townsmen of his rank through the municipal hierarchy featured in the serious disputes which afflicted the borough, because it was regarded as a threat by the potentiores, the ruling elite who dominated local affairs. Petipas did not advance himself without a struggle. In July 1410 the Crown summoned him to appear in Chancery to answer certain charges which his enemies had laid against him.11 King’s Lynn bor. recs., Wm. Asshbourne’s bk., KL/C 10/2, f. 17v. Several months later, he and several of his supporters were obliged to find securities to satisfy the chancellor that they would do no harm to any of Lynn’s inhabitants.12 CCR, 1409-13, p. 206.

In the following year, in the wake of complaints about the corporation’s handling of its finances, Roger Galion, another draper who aspired to a leading role in local government, became mayor. During his mayoralty, a delegation from the borough, of which Petipas was a member, consulted with a number of eminent lawyers in London and the controversy over the finances was referred to a committee of 18. Although Thomas Waterden†, one of the potentiores, was a member of the committee, so were Petipas and several of his allies, and its findings went against the old elite. When it made its award in May 1412, it disallowed expenses totalling nearly £300 that Waterden and two other former mayors, Edmund Beleyeter† and John Wentworth† had demanded from the corporation, to repay losses they had allegedly incurred in office, and ordered them to repay £458 they were said to have spent without the community’s consent. The committee also introduced new rules for the election of the mayor and other officers, decreed that in future the mayor should receive no more than £10 for his fee (and whatever sum the whole community chose to give him as a regard) and established a council of nine to assist him in financial matters. The council was to include three representatives of those inhabitants of the borough classed as ‘inferiores non burgenses’, and privileges which the inferiores were said to have enjoyed in the past were restored.13 A.S. Green, Town Life, ii. 411; H.J. Hillen, Hist. Lynn, i. 155-8; HMC 11th Rep. III, 191-4. After serving two consecutive terms as mayor, Galion was succeeded by Petipas, who in the meantime had gained admission to the council of 24. No doubt the most memorable event of Petipas’s mayoralty was the visit Thomas, duke of Clarence, paid to Lynn. Upon hearing of the imminent arrival of the duke, accompanied by his wife and no fewer than 300 servants, the corporation hastily called a meeting, at which it decided to present £20 to Clarence and 20 marks to his duchess.14 Hillen, i. 165.

Although the Crown had confirmed the award made by the committee of 18, the faction associated with Thomas Waterden remained a powerful force in local politics. Shortly before his term as mayor expired, Petipas wrote to his allies from London to inform them that he was in good health and not, as maliciously rumoured, in prison. He was in the city to pursue a petition or suit (perhaps in Chancery) against his opponents, and in the same letter he appealed to his supporters for funds. He also assured them that they enjoyed the ‘good lordship’ of the borough’s feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich, and ‘divers other lords’ and added that their enemies had brought shame upon themselves in the King’s household and in London.15 KL/C 10/2, f. 79. Despite these expressions of optimism, Petipas’s opponents regained the initiative when his term as mayor ended, since he was succeeded by Waterden’s ally, John Lakenheath. Although Lakenheath’s death half way through his term was a setback for the Waterden faction, the findings of two inquisitions held at Swaffham on 23 May 1415, before commissioners appointed by the Crown to investigate the ongoing dissensions at Lynn, were strongly in its favour. The jurors of the first inquisition declared that Petipas, along with William Halyate†, John Tilney (two important allies whom he had helped to elect to the second Parliament of 1413) and John Bilney†, had illegally secured Galion’s election to the mayoralty with a show of armed force. They also stated that, as mayor, Galion had admitted ‘divers foreigners’ of little means to the franchise and that Petipas, having succeeded him in the office, had misused the common seal to make out letters of attorney and acquittance for his supporters. In the second inquisition a different jury panel came up with further allegations. First, Petipas, Halyate, Bilney and Tilney and many others were said one night in June 1413 to have come armed with swords and staves to the guildhall of the Holy Trinity, where they had assaulted the assembled brethren. Secondly, it was said that in August the following year the same four men had led a ‘great multitude of people’ to a tavern belonging to John Warner†, where Waterden, Thomas Brigge† and others were drinking; that some of the mob had assaulted Waterden and his fellows as they were making their way home; and that Petipas had afterwards taken it upon himself to release the assailants from the town’s jail. Thirdly, the jury stated that Petipas and his three accomplices had intervened violently with an armed mob in the mayoral election of 1414, even though Edmund Oldhall†, the sheriff of Norfolk, and several gentlemen of the county had come to the borough to ensure a proper election, and had held their own election in Lynn’s Augustinian friary. Finally, it was said that in January 1415 Petipas, Halyate, Bilney, Tilney and others had come to the guildhall, where Petipas attacked the mayor, John Lakenheath, and other ‘good burgesses’ with a drawn dagger. In the ensuing fracas Lakenheath had been knocked to the ground and trampled upon and, as a result of this and other ‘evil things’ done to them, the terrorized mayor and burgesses had not dared to hold their customary sessions at the guildhall.16 CIMisc. vii. 517; KL/C 6/3, m. 11.

How much truth lay in these findings is impossible to say, although there is no doubt that disturbances had occurred at the mayoral election of 1414. With regard to the charge relating to the admission of freemen, it was probably a reaction to a considerable widening of the franchise during the mayoralties of Galion and Petipas. Possibly a desire to widen the borough’s tax base and stimulate its economy had motivated the two men to implement such a policy, but their opponents had objected to it because they had regarded it as detrimental to the status of existing burgesses and the honour of the borough.17 Myers, 115, 125-6.

Soon afterwards, Petipas met with another setback, for it would appear that he and some of his supporters were temporarily driven out of Lynn in early 1416. On 9 Mar. that year, the mayor, Thomas Hunt†, and the ‘good men’ of Lynn wrote to John Wakering, the bishop-elect of Norwich, to inform him that Petipas and 11 others would be living outside the borough until his installation at the end of the month. They added that Lynn had never stood in better peace since their departure and that in due course they would tell the bishop about ‘al maner mater of heuynesse’ these men had ‘wroght’ against them.18 KL/C 10/2, ff. 91v-92. Presumably Petipas returned to the borough in April, when the Crown pardoned him, Halyate and Richard Thorpe for all treasons, insurrections, rebellions and felonies which they were said to have committed.19 CPR, 1416-22, p. 3. Shortly afterwards, Petipas took the trouble of purchasing an individual royal pardon.20 C67/37, m. 9 (6 June 1416).

In May 1416 Petipas, Roger Galion and their supporters appeared before Edmund Oldhall, Edmund Wynter I* and representatives of the bishop of Norwich in the Augustinian friary at Lynn to declare themselves willing to come to terms with the mayor and their opponents among the 24. The resulting settlement abolished the council of nine and scrapped recent reforms of election procedures in the borough, including ordinances introduced the previous year under the guidance of the bishop of Norwich and Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset. The creation of a common council or 27, established in 1418 and formally recognized by the bishop of Norwich in 1420, did restore a system of bicameral administration similar to that used in the borough nearly half a century earlier, but in reality the old elite relinquished little actual power. In fact, they secured their political hegemony by allowing those lower down the borough’s hierarchy a limited role in its government.21 KL/C 10/2, f. 110v; Green, 418-19; Myers, 208-12. Not surprisingly, there was no immediate end to dissension in the borough. In 1418-19 William Herford†, John Parmenter* and John Warner were sent to the bishop of Norwich to inform him about an ‘unjust suggestion’ Petipas had made against the mayor,22 King’s Lynn bor. recs., chamberlains’ acct., 1418-19, KL/C 39/52. and there was dissension during the mayoral election of 1419.23 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 516.

Petipas emerged from Lynn’s bitter factional struggles to play a part in the affairs of the borough during Henry VI’s reign. His ability to do so may have owed something to his association with the Wodehouse family, for whom he acted as a feoffee and who were influential supporters of the Lancastrian Crown in East Anglia.24 CCR, 1441-7, p. 302. Despite such an association, it is possible that the disputes in which he had taken part had made him too controversial a figure to elect to Parliament before 1422. Interestingly, his fellow MP in his first two Parliaments was Richard Waterden*, a relative of Thomas Waterden, but the fact that he and Richard were re-elected the following year suggests that they were able to work effectively together. Before they set out for the Parliament of 1423, the two men received a copy of a charter to show the bishop of Norwich, who would be attending the assembly as a member of the Lords. The document in question was undoubtedly Henry V’s confirmation of Lynn’s charter of 1410, since it was with the advice of the Lords of 1423 that this confirmation was itself renewed, a few months after Parliament was dissolved.25 KL/C 7/29, pp. 4, 5; CPR, 1413-16, p. 191; 1422-9, p. 134. Another important concern for the corporation of Lynn at this date was its water supply, and one of Petipas’s duties while attending this Parliament was to make representations about securing a new watercourse for the town.26 CPR, 1422-9, p. 183; KL/C 7/29, p. 4. Petipas was also entrusted with important tasks before travelling to his last Parliament, for he and his fellow MP, Philip Frank*, were instructed to bring a suit against Sir Henry Inglose and to recover 400 marks, Lynn’s contribution to a loan of 1,000 marks which Henry V had raised in Norfolk in 1415. The two MPs subsequently wrote to the corporation to inform it that it was impossible to obtain more than £100 from the dead King’s executors, an offer which in due course they were authorized to accept. In the same letter they took the opportunity to warn their fellow burgesses about a ‘malicious bill’ which the Dominican order had submitted against the borough to the royal council.27 KL/C 7/29, pp. 159, 167, 168; Hillen, i. 161-3. The Parliament of 1427 sat in two sessions and while it was in recess Petipas was one of the burgesses chosen to ride to Norwich to attend the installation of the new bishop of Norwich, William Alnwick.28 KL/C 7/29, p. 169.

Although Petipas and Frank – allies in Lynn’s political disputes earlier in the century – appear to have worked effectively together as MPs, they were opponents in a quarrel of 1429 amongst several of the town’s burgesses.29 Ibid. 244. As already noted, Petipas was also involved in a dispute with merchants from Hamburg at this date, but nothing else is known about his later years. Still a member of the 24 at Michaelmas 1431, he was dead within a year, for John Waterden*, possibly a son of his old enemy, took his place on the council on the following 20 Sept. In 1436 the corporation made a formal release of any future legal actions in connexion with Petipas’s will to his executors, John Brekerope, John Gayton, chaplain, and Thomas Calbot.30 KL/C 7/3, ff. 28, 58v, 65.