WYCH, John

Wych’s origins are obscure, but when he is first heard of he was normally resident at Plymouth in south-western Devon. He possessed some connexions among the burgesses of near-by Plympton Erle: in 1440 he charged a cobbler from that borough with having stolen a box of deeds and muniments from his house at Plymouth, while around the same time the former town clerk of Plympton, Peter Tyres*, was seeking to recover from him and his wife Ricarda a debt of £20 owing to him from the estate of John Ayssh, of whose will Ricarda was executrix.6 CP40/717, rots. 152, 407d.

It is not known how Wych first came to the government’s attention, but in 1433 he was made searcher at Plymouth and Fowey, a district which was two years later expanded to include Barnstaple as well. His zeal was not universally appreciated: two Guernsey merchants complained bitterly to the King that he had unjustly seized and detained certain Cornish cloth that ought to have been exempt from the payment of customs.7 SC8/181/9022. The government, by contrast, was clearly satisfied with his performance, for around the same time as being given responsibility for the north Devon district, he was also entrusted with surveying the activities of his counterparts in the remaining Devon ports of Exeter and Dartmouth, a position in which he was to continue for much of the remainder of Henry VI’s reign. Although this latter office brought him into less intimate contact with the merchants of the south Devon ports than the post of searcher would have done, it also made him less unpopular with them, and his connexions at Westminster may account for the decision of the men of Totnes to send him to Parliament in 1437, alongside John Worthy I*, a man of impeccable local credentials. By contrast, Wych’s eligibility for election was rather more dubious, for it is not certain that he fulfilled the requirement for residence even so far as holding any property in Totnes.

Although he had been in regular receipt of special rewards ‘for his labours in certain matters for the King’ which he had transacted in the course of his official duties, Wych surrendered his searchership at Plymouth in the late autumn of 1440, having been appointed to the same office at Bristol in May.8 E403/731, m. 11; 740, m. 4. Yet, just over a year after his appointment, in June 1441, commissioners were appointed to inquire into the conduct of the King’s officers in the port of Bristol, and specifically that of the searcher. Their inquiries appear not to have found fault for Wych continued in office in the following years and on more than one occasion he was rewarded for his labours.9 CPR, 1436-41, p. 572; E403/753, mm. 3, 6; 786, m. 3. His official duties were not without their dangers. On 17 Aug. 1442 while inspecting a Welsh vessel in a creek near Bristol he found some 1,175lb. of uncustomed wool, ready to be taken abroad. He declared the wool, the vessel and its apparel forfeit, but the master, one John Hopkyns, was not prepared to lose his ship as well as the cargo, and forcibly removed the vessel from Wych’s control, assaulting the searcher in the process.10 E122/185/59, m. 2; E159/220, recorda Mich. rot. 31d. Trouble was brewing from another quarter too: a few years later Wych became embroiled in an acrimonious quarrel with one John Maryot, who evidently sought to secure the searchership for himself. In December 1448 Wych secured a renewal of his office, with the added proviso that no other individual was to meddle with it. However, by the following spring the government could no longer ignore the financial crisis that had been threatening it for some time. Sweeping changes were made to the personnel collecting the King’s revenues in the shires, and on 3 June 1449 Wych was among those who were to be dismissed, his replacement being Maryot. He proved reluctant to relinquish his lucrative position: two weeks later on 20 June he was still inspecting vessels and seized 10 dozen of white woollen cloths from a ship called the Margaret Talbot. Maryot, not inclined to put up with this infringement of the office he considered his, broke into Wych’s house with armed followers and removed the contraband, which he later dutifully delivered to Westminster, where it was sold to two exchequer officials. In retaliation, Wych brought a suit in the mayor’s court at Bristol and had his opponent arrested, leaving him to seek redress in Chancery.11 E159/225, recorda Trin. rot. 2d; C1/19/467; E207/16/2, nos. 1, 22; 16/3, no. 50. Once more at liberty, Maryot struck back. He arrested Wych’s ship The Mary, along with its cargo of Icelandic fish, on charges of smuggling, but before the ship and fish could be appraised, Wych swiftly sold both the vessel and its cargo, the latter to the mayor of Bristol, John Burton I*, doubtless with the intention of facilitating his action in the mayor’s court, leaving the hapless Maryot once more to seek support in Chancery.12 C1/19/316; Overseas Trade, 99; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 438. The quarrel now grew violent. Although Maryot had been bound over to keep the peace in November 1448, in May 1450 he came to blows with Wych and in their scuffle drew a ‘wodeknyf’ and stabbed his opponent so ‘that his life was despaired of’.13 E159/227, recorda Mich. rot. 11; E207/16/3, nos. 27, 32-34, 36. In the event, all of Maryot’s efforts were to no avail and by August Wych had recovered sufficiently to be reappointed to his searchership.

This was, however, not the end of Wych’s troubles. In the summer of 1458 he quarreled with Thomas Talbot, another former searcher, who was said to have physically assaulted and beaten him. The mayor of Bristol, Philip Meede*, tried to arrest and imprison the miscreant, but ‘he stoutly fought and resisted’ and escaped by the Temple gate.14 Adams’s Chron. Bristol ed. Fox, 68. Talbot had, however, also taken the precaution of suing a writ of supplicavit out of Chancery, and when on 11 Aug. the sheriff of Bristol, John Wykam, and his under sheriff, Henry Weston, sought to take sureties of the peace from Wych, he for his part refused, and was promptly arrested by the officers and committed to Newgate prison, where he remained for 13 days.15 E159/235, recorda Mich. rot. 49. Despite his imprisonment, Wych was able once more to secure sole tenure of the searchership by agreeing to seal a bond in 1,000 marks and finding sureties for 400 marks that he would henceforth increase royal revenue from the port by 100 marks every quarter.16 CCR, 1454-61, p. 302.

Although for much of his life Wych held offices which technically precluded him from mercantile activity, his connexions at Westminster were such that in July 1444 he was able to secure a special licence to trade while holding customs-related office.17 CPR, 1441-6, p. 274. As already noted, his fishing vessel, The Mary, was engaged in the trade to Iceland, but his trading partners also included merchants from Dartmouth whose concerns focused on Gascony and the Iberian peninsula. Like many of his neighbours, he was not above joining in profitable acts of piracy when the opportunity presented itself, and in about 1449 the crew of The Mary took a Spanish ship called the Carveule of Vermewe with a freight of 55 tuns of wine, iron and salt, only to have their booty seized from them in their turn by a number of Irish vessels from the port of Kinsale. Three of the English fishermen were killed in the attack. Wych sued for redress both in Chancery and in the court of admiralty, and in October 1452 succeeded in having a royal commission appointed to investigate the matter. But although some of the Irish freebooters who were trading at Bristol were arrested by the bailiffs of the town, the mayor, Robert Sturmy, dismissed the case, necessitating further action in Chancery.18 CP40/740, rot. 60; C1/19/122; 24/221; Overseas Trade, 100-1; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 60-61. Although Wych sold The Mary in late 1449, he probably continued to trade, as the litigation for debt against a range of traders from Bristol and its hinterland in Somerset and Gloucestershire suggests.19 CP40/796, rot. 163d; 814, rot. 438; 837, rot. 26.

When Edward IV came to the throne, Wych appears to have been dismissed from office. He did not, however, depart under a cloud, for it was probably he who in the summer of 1463 was sent to Bristol by the treasurer, ‘for certain business touching the profit of the King’.20 E403/830, m. 3. He is last recorded as a litigant in the court of common pleas in the autumn of 1470, and may have died not long thereafter.21 CP40/837, rot. 26.