POPE, Walter

Pope was admitted to the freedom of Exeter in October 1420, having served his apprenticeship in the workshop of the skinner Robert Eston.8 Exeter Freemen, 43. Once established in his own right, Pope also traded in other commodities such as cloth, and his trade soon reached a significant volume, for not much over a decade later he was suing two merchants of Kingswear for debts of 100 marks each, while some years later a London skinner took legal action against him for a debt of £17 4s. 6d.9 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 164, 166; 1446-52, p. 9; C244/3/131/5, 6. Pope probably owed his fortunes at least partly to a marriage to the daughter and sole heiress of another wealthy skinner, William French. Under the terms of their agreement, French was to pay Pope the substantial sum of £100, should he alienate the property which would otherwise descend to his daughter, but under the influence of his second wife, Christine, he subsequently reneged on this promise, leaving Pope to submit his claim to the chancellor’s adjudication.10 C1/9/431. It would seem that neither Pope nor his father-in-law were shy of employing dubious business practices when an opportunity for easy profit presented itself. Thus, in the summer of 1436 both men were accused by the abbot of Cleeve of having stolen 1,000 of his rabbits from the island of Lundy.11 KB27/701, rot. 59.

Once established among the civic elite of Exeter, it was not long before Pope began to play his part in the political life of the city. In 1425 he attended the parliamentary elections held at Exeter castle and stood surety for John Cutler alias Carwithan*, one of Exeter’s representatives, and four years later he was elected himself to serve alongside Cutler.12 C219/13/3. Unusually for an Exeter MP, Pope (who for this Parliament shared wages of £16 19s. 6d. with his colleague) had not himself held civic office prior to his election, although he had been among the citizens who elected the mayor, bailiffs and council at Michaelmas 1428.13 Mayor’s ct. roll 7-8 Hen. VI, rot. 1d. He made up for this shortcoming when within a year of his first spell in the Commons he was elected one of the stewards of the city, and he followed this up with further terms as steward and receiver, intermittent periods as a constable of the Exeter staple and almost continuous service on the city council until his death. Pope’s counsel soon became valued by his neighbours. In 1432-3 he played his part in the negotiations in a dispute with the dean and chapter of Exeter, and in October 1447 the mayor, John Shillingford*, delayed his departure for London because Pope and the only two other councilmen remaining in the city at the time ‘were syke on theire beddes’.14 Receiver’s acct. 11-12 Hen. VI, m. 2; Letters and Pprs. Shillingford (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, ii), 5.

Pope reached the zenith of his civic career in the autumn of 1452, when he was chosen mayor of Exeter.15 Devon RO, St. Mary Major parish recs., 51/1/2/12; 4/7-8. He seems to have discharged this office well, for in the eventful year 1455-6, when the city was occupied by the armed retainers of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, he was left in effective charge as lieutenant by the mayor of the day, Hugh Germyn. Despite his experience, this responsibility must have placed Pope, who was no longer a young man, under considerable strain, and in recognition of his efforts the council agreed to provide him with three gallons of wine to assist him in his labours ‘circa conservacionem pacis, tempore domini comitis existentis apud Exoniam, tempore magne debate inter ipsum et dominum de Bonevyll’. (A similar grant of a potell of wine to Pope and Walter Sam, one of the councillors, for keeping watch in the south gate was disallowed by the auditors, perhaps not unreasonably, as Pope was defending his own property: at the time, he held the western tower of the south gate to farm from the civic authorities.)16 Receiver’s acct. 34-35 Hen. VI, m. 2; mayor’s ct. rolls 33-34 Hen. VI, rot. 1d, 34-35 Hen. VI, rot. 1d.

The final years of Pope’s life were occupied by service as warden of the Magdalen hospital, an office from which he retired in 1457.17 Mayors’ ct. rolls 28-30, 33-36 Hen. VI. He died in the course of 1459, the year when he last served on the Exeter council. John Pope, who by 1462 had succeeded him as a member of this body, may have been his son.18 Ibid. 2-3 Edw. IV, rot. 1d.