SELWOOD, Henry

The family name of this MP was probably derived from the Somerset forest of Selwood. Members of the family settled in Wells in the late fourteenth century, and in 1392 John Selwood was admitted to the freedom of the city without payment, on condition it could be proved that he was the son of a burgess. Another John stood pledge for him. Ten years later William Selwood was admitted by patrimony, and he in turn stood surety for the admission of his son Henry, the future MP, on 29 July 1423.7 Ibid. 240; Wells City Chs. 129, 133, 140. Henry’s other pledge was John Cutte†, who had represented the city in Parliament a few years earlier. The Selwoods already held property in Chamberlain Street and Touker Street,8 Wells Corporation Properties (Som. Rec. Soc. lxxxvii), 30, 34. and two months earlier the master and commonalty had leased to Henry’s parents and himself a barn with a close which contained a tenter at a rent of 10s. p.a. To this was added in March 1424 a grant to Henry, his wife Edith and their son John of a messuage with a curtilage and garden in the High Street, opposite St. Cuthbert’s churchyard, to hold for their lifetimes at an annual rent of 22s. They agreed to spend as much as £20 on rebuilding the property. Then in 1428 the three of them were assigned a toft in Beggars Street on condition that they would erect a house on the site.9 Convocation act bk. 238, 243, 262. Besides these properties, in the 1420s Henry possessed premises in Sadlers Street and Cuthbert Street. He also rented a plot of land in High Street from the cathedral authorities, although by 1433 he was refusing to pay the rent assigned for the celebration of an obit.10 Wells Corporation Properties, 19, 30, 32, 34. In December 1443 he and his wife and two other sons, Richard and William, leased from the civic authorities a barn with a dovecote and a curtilage in Touker Street, together with land with a tenter previously held by John Rokke*, on terms guaranteeing their tenure in survivorship.11 Convocation act bk. 311.

Over the years from 1429 to 1447 Selwood stood as pledge for the admission of nine burgesses to the freedom of Wells, among them two future MPs (Peter Shetford* and John Grype†). Those admitted included a butcher, a cordwainer, a tucker, a carpenter, a brewer and two chapmen.12 Wells City Chs. 142, 144-7. The presence of tenters on Selwood’s land indicates his interest in the production of cloth, as too does a lawsuit of the early 1420s in which he sought payment of 15s. from a local man for a length of fabric. His business was diversified between the roles of chapman and brewer, but to judge from his trading links with the capital and with foreign merchants his interests ranged far beyond the neighbourhood of his home and even to the Low Countries.13 Convocation act bk. 248-9. His trading concerns regularly met with setbacks. For instance, he was outlawed for failing to answer a plea of debt brought by a London grocer for £29, although managed to obtain a pardon of outlawry in 1438, presumably after he had satisfied his creditor.14 CPR, 1436-41, p. 111; HMC Wells, ii. 72.

Before he represented Wells in the Parliament of 1439, Selwood had served a term as constable there and had on occasion been chosen as an arbiter in disputes between other inhabitants of the city. In the previous year he had been one of the jurors who indicted two ‘gentlemen’ of Wells, John Rewe senior and junior, on serious charges of rebellion and counterfeiting.15 KB9/230B/229; convocation act bk. 272. He was to be an arbiter on later occasions too: convocation act bk. 304, 307, 312. Such activities and his service as a churchwarden offered firm credentials for his election. He was accompanied to the Commons by William Vowell*, another local merchant, but there is nothing to indicate how they conducted themselves at the Parliament. Selwood fell into trouble in the law courts again in Hilary term 1441, then being summoned to answer Robert Strange and William Lymbrenner for a debt of ten marks incurred five years earlier. In his defence, Selwood said that Strange, a gentleman from Chard, had released him from all legal actions at Wells in April 1440, but Strange denied that the deed produced in court was his.16 CP40/720, rot. 312. Later in 1441 Selwood was called to answer Edith, widow of Richard Pedewell of Wells, and her second husband Richard Mayne* regarding a debt of £26 13s. 4d. under a bond entered in London in January 1440 (when Selwood should have been at Reading for the second session of the Parliament). The pleadings of the case, eventually heard in 1445, reveal more about the transaction and about Selwood’s commercial interests. Selwood stated that he had agreed to pay a merchant of Middleburgh in Zeeland £11 14s. for goods purchased by Pedewell (presumably acting as his agent), and had done so on the agreed day at Wells.17 CP40/722, rot. 117; 737, rots. 118-19.

In the summer of 1441 Selwood appeared as a feoffee of the manor of Long Critchell, in east Dorset, in association with the chancellor, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells. He was probably acting in the interest of Thomas Langford alias Goldsmith* of Wells, whose mother was one of two coheiresses of the manor.18 CCR, 1435-41, p. 483; CFR, xiv. 297. Long Critchell is situated at the other end of the county from Lyme Regis, the borough Selwood represented in the Parliament of 1442, and he is not recorded having any connexion with the town or its burgesses, although it should be noted that a descendant of his owned a burgage in nearby Bridport.19 Som. Med. Wills 1501-30 (Som. Rec. Soc. xix), 194. It may be, however, that he used Lyme as a port of shipment for his merchandise. In the summer of 1442, after the dissolution of the Parliament, Selwood was summoned again to the court of common pleas, this time when required by the executors of the late Richard Hill, citizen and founder of London, to honour a bond for £6 6s. 8d. sealed in the capital four years earlier.20 CP40/726, rot. 356. His business interests were expanding: in May 1443 he obtained a royal licence to export wool to Normandy.21 DKR, xlviii. 357.

Selwood’s name was listed early in February 1448 among those appointed to collect money for the repair of the water conduit at Wells, but it was crossed out before he did so. This may indicate that he died about this time, although a suit brought in the common pleas early in 1450 by the executrix of Geoffrey Mone* named him as a defendant in a plea of debt. He is not recorded thereafter, and his wife Edith certainly became a widow within the next eight years. One of their sons, Richard Selwood, was admitted to the freedom of Wells by patrimony in August 1455.22 Wells City Chs. 149; HMC Wells, ii. 98; CP40/756, rot. 193; convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 15. Edith may have died by November 1462 when a barn and dovecote in Beggars Street which she had leased from the Wells authorities was granted to someone else.23 Convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 41.