SWAYN, William

For more than 50 years Swayn was a commanding figure in the administration of Salisbury and in the city’s internal politics, yet his confrontational attitude led to ostracism and in old age he beat his wife. A merchant, in the course of his long life he was variously described as a mercer, grocer, chapman, draper and haberdasher, but he was also on occasion styled husbandman, yeoman and gentleman, and in his later years he adopted armigerous status.11 C67/40, m. 28. He traded in a wide variety of imported produce which he brought to Salisbury on carts from Southampton, this including victuals (wine, oil, garlic, fish, fruit, dates, raisins and almonds), as well as such commodities as wax and soap. Of major importance in his successful enterprise was his interest in the cloth industry, for which he bought alum, madder and vast quantities of woad to Salisbury for use in the finishing process. In 1443-4 as many as 578 bales of woad were delivered to the city in his name.12 Port Bk. 1427-30 (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1913), 62; Brokage Bk. 1439-40 (ibid. 1941), 60, 93, 137, 146; Brokage Bk. 1443-4, i. and ii. (Soton. Rec. Ser. iv, vi), passim; Brokage Bk. 1448-9 (Soton Rec. Ser. xxxvi), passim. Swayn built a dyeing house on his property on the bank of the Avon in Minster Street (now Castle Street), which he furnished with furnaces, cisterns and all necessary equipment.13 Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, G23/1/215, f. 2. His business prospered, enabling him to emerge as one of the city’s wealthiest merchants.

From the beginning of Swayn’s involvement in the government of Salisbury in 1432 he became a regular participant at civic assemblies,14 First General Entry Bk. 287, and passim. and quickly took on an important role in managing the city’s finances and overseeing the accounts of its officials. A collector of parliamentary subsidies in October 1432, he progressed in the summer of 1438 to raising gifts of money and wine to present to Salisbury’s new bishop, William Aiscough, and the King on the latter’s visit to the city. In October that year he took responsibility for delivering the half fifteenth due at the Exchequer on 11 Nov., and apparently initially paid the money from his own funds, for the sums collected, amounting to £27 8s. 4d., were handed over in the council house on 15 Nov. and placed in a bag for the mayor to keep until Swayn returned from Westminster, which he did on 10 Dec. He was named as an assessor of loans to the Crown (in 1439) and of the levies to pay the city’s MPs (in 1440); and in May 1446 he shared with the mayor the task of overseeing the assessors and collectors of the MPs’ expenses.15 Ibid. 283, 337-8, 340, 343, 345, 358, 403.

Arranging advantageous terms for repayment of the loans the city made to the Crown could be a prolonged and expensive business, requiring someone to undertake negotiations at the Exchequer. Swayn would often be the person given the task. On occasion the authorities at Salisbury would deduct a penny from each noble of the loan with which to reward the man who had laboured to ensure its prompt and full repayment. In 1441 the council voted the reward (amounting to 16s. 8d.) to Swayn, who had while negotiating the repayment of 100 marks recently sent to the King had obtained two tallies and two letters patent.16 Ibid. 362; E401/770, 20 Feb. Swayn himself contributed to the corporate loans to the Crown, proffering £2 in 1441-2 (twice as much as any other citizen), and he also gave money to help fund the force of men-at-arms sent to help raise the siege of Calais in 1436 and for the completion of the ditch around the city five years later.17 First General Entry Bk. 297, 321A, 345A, 360A, 362, 364, 391. However, he declined to contribute anything towards the loan of £66 to the Crown in 1448-9, perhaps because he had already advanced £11 for the city to give to the King on his visit, which he had yet to recoup.18 Ibid. 420, 431.

Clearly considered to be an expert in financial matters, Swayn was elected auditor of the city’s accounts on at least 11 occasions between 1444 and 1464, and was invariably party to important decisions regarding civic expenditure. He was a willing participant. Although most members of the council of 24 preferred to pay a fine rather than take on the role of an alderman, he did agree to hold the office (in 1436), and was elected mayor for the first time in 1444.19 Ibid. 323, 394-7, 400. His close interest in the outcome of Salisbury’s parliamentary elections is shown by his participation in those held for the Parliaments of 1439 and February 1449, as well as by his appearance at the county court at Wilton as a mainpernor for the city’s elected representatives: Robert Long* (1442), Thomas Temse* (1447) and John Whittocksmead* (February 1449).20 Ibid. 348, 425; C219/15/2, 4, 6.

Swayn was present in the city assembly for his own election, with Edmund Penston*, to the Parliament summoned to meet on 6 Nov. 1449. The two men agreed to serve for half the statutory wages of 2s. a day, unless at the discretion of the mayor and commonalty they were deemed worthy of further remuneration for their labours.21 First General Entry Bk. 434. It is uncertain how much time Swayn and Penston spent in the Commons in 1449-50, and how much they eventually received as wages. In any case there was a considerable delay in payment. The mayor’s accts. for the next year, 1450-1, recorded the sum of £22 paid to them (at half wages), but a payment to Penston in 1453 suggests that in fact they received only £8 10s. each: ibid. 444, 446; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 3v. The Parliament met for three sessions, at Westminster, London and Leicester, and for his counsel during the session at London from January to March 1450 with regard to the city’s disagreement with Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, Swayn was later paid 16s. 8d. While there, he vigorously pursued his own interests in the law-courts. Parliament was dissolved in June 1450 following the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion. Swayn’s own county, Wiltshire, did not escape the turmoil; and in the violent disturbances Bishop Aiscough was murdered. Perhaps because of his shared Membership of the Commons with the bailiff of the bishop’s liberties, John Whittocksmead, Swayn came forward to stand surety for Whittocksmead’s election as a knight of the shire in the next Parliament, summoned to meet in November.22 First General Entry Bk. 436; Salisbury acct. rolls, G23/1/44, no. 2; CP40/756, rots. 90d, 172d, 211d; C219/16/1.

In the autumn of 1452 Swayn was one of those chosen to assist the mayor in selecting able-bodied men from Salisbury to send to France to help bolster the earl of Shrewsbury’s army. When Parliament was summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453, he not only participated in the election held in the convocation at Salisbury on 25 Feb. but also attested the county election held at Wilton two days later. He was selected to supervise the assessment of the citizens’ goods and chattels for a parliamentary fifteenth in October that year.23 First General Entry Bk. 455; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 4. Swayn’s first royal appointment came in August 1454, to a commission to raise a loan of £50 for the keeping of the seas, in response to provisions made in the Parliament. The sum was to be levied in Salisbury and the Dorset ports of Poole and Weymouth, where he busied himself in October.24 E159/235, recorda Mich. rot. 74; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 10.

Swayn, an irascible man, was prone to indulge in violent altercations with his fellow members of the council of 24. The first of these had occurred in 1451, when he quarrelled with a grocer, Richard Balteswell. The two men swore to observe the award of arbitrators in the council house, who decreed that Balteswell should be fined if he annoyed or belittled his fellows in future, yet he failed to keep to the agreement, so that Swayn sued him in the common pleas four years later, demanding £5 as compensation for Balteswell’s offence.25 First General Entry Bk. 446; CP40/778, rot. 441. When, towards the end of his second term as mayor, in 1455, Swayn fell out with two other members of the council, it was once more he who triumphed. Arbitrators settling his dispute with Richard Hayne II* stipulated that Hayne should supply wine and a lavish dinner for the councillors, and when Edmund Penston (previously Swayn’s companion in the Commons) spoke ‘tortuous and malicious words’ against Swayn it was decided that the miscreant should give him a pipe of red wine from Gascony and donate £1 for another feast for their brethren.26 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 13v. More serious were allegations made against Swayn in 1457 by the widow of a barber named John Winchester, who came to the convocation to protest after Swayn took over the corner tenement before the Poultry cross, which should have passed to the city’s almshouse in accordance with her late husband’s. She said that he had called her to his house in New Street where he forced her to seal a deed, but what it contained she did not know.27 Ibid. f. 29v.

In September 1457 Swayn was associated with the mayor, John Hall II*, as a recipient of letters sent from Chancery requiring armed men to be supplied by Salisbury for the defence of the kingdom, and they duly raised sums of money to pay the wages of 60 soldiers to safeguard the port of Southampton. He and Hall were also appointed to the nationwide commission to supply archers, that December.28 Ibid. f. 28. But relations between the two men, who had started to vie for dominance of the city, were far from amicable. Contentions between them interfered so much with public business that a special meeting of Salisbury’s convocation had to be held on 5 Dec. in the presence of the bishop, Richard Beauchamp, to resolve matters. It was decided that in future when convocation was called none of the councillors might indulge in personal invective under penalty of a fine of 3s. 4d., and specifically if either Swayn or Hall offended again they would be fined £1, if a second time £2 and if a third they would suffer imprisonment.29 Ibid. f. 31; Benson and Hatcher, 136. For a while they behaved themselves, but it was an uneasy truce.

Swayn participated in the Salisbury elections to the Parliaments of 1459 and 1460, on the latter occasion being elected himself, with his adversary Hall as his companion. The Parliament, which had been summoned after the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton, was to witness the duke of York’s claim to the throne and his formal acceptance as Henry VI’s heir. Swayn appears to have been absent from the Commons for part of the first session, in late October, for he was listed attending meetings at Salisbury, and he was home again before the session ended on about 1 Dec.30 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 38, 41-43. Furthermore, while his fellow MP John Hall was currently in favour with the Yorkist regime (at least for the time being), Swayn himself caused offence to the new rulers, perhaps by his behaviour in the Commons. Just a few days later, on 13 Dec., William, Lord Bonville*, and Humphrey Stafford IV* (one of the knights of the shire for Somerset) were commissioned to arrest him and bring him before the King’s Council to answer certain accusations. The nature of his alleged misdemeanours is not revealed, but they must have been serious, for to extricate himself from trouble he hastily made a personal loan to the Crown of as much as £100. For this on 5 Jan. 1461 he was offered repayment from the subsidy of alnage to be collected in Salisbury. There was undoubtedly a link between this episode and the requirement, made on 7 Apr., after York’s heir had seized the throne, that Swayn should appear before the new King’s Council within two weeks of notice being given. Furthermore, he was bound over in £1,000 to keep the peace, with two London merchants providing sureties each in £500 that he would do so.31 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 641, 653; 1461-7, pp. 475-6; C81/1477, no. 39. He sensibly purchased a royal pardon the following year.32 C67/45, m. 31. He had earlier purchased three pardons from Hen. VI, in 1452, 1456 and 1458: C67/40, m. 28; 41, m. 5; 42, m. 37.

To further ingratiate himself with the new regime, in August 1461, when Swayn had been an assessor of money raised by the citizens to present to Edward IV on his visit to Salisbury, he himself advanced a silver-gilt cup worth £10 and as much as £20 in cash. In return, the civic authorities granted him a messuage known as ‘Pynnokesynne’ to hold on a 99-year lease, for which he was to pay a flat sum of £40 to cover the first 20 years, and thereafter an annual rent.33 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 52v, 53. The city owed him an additional debt of £18 4s., and to repay this he was awarded early in 1463 an annual rent from communally-owned property of £2 6s. 8d. for nine years. This arrangement led to further quarrelling. In a petition sent to the chancellor ten years later by John Wyse† it was alleged that although in the course of the nine-year term Swayn duly received the £21 due from the tenant, he had taken action in the common pleas on a related bond for £20, ‘for malice and evylle wille’ that he bore Wyse. Swayn’s response challenged Wyse’s version of events, alleging that Wyse had maliciously feigned various ‘sinister matters’ against him.34 Ibid. f. 60; C1/48/301-3.

In 1461 Swayn’s son Henry had been engaged as a captain of the military force paid by Salisbury to serve the King in the civil war, and was subsequently chosen with Richard Freeman† to lead the 36 soldiers sent by the city to support Edward IV’s army in the north of England early in 1463. On 19 Jan. the two men were elected to the Parliament summoned to assemble at York on 5 Feb. Swayn participated in the elections, as he did again on 20 Apr. after the Parliament had been cancelled and a fresh assembly called to meet at Westminster. That summer he acted as lieutenant for the mayor, Thomas Chadworth, during his absence from the city.35 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 43v-45, 59v, 61v 63-65, 72; CFR, xx. 112. But he was heading for a fall. This was prompted by strongly-held differences between the members of the council of 24 over the conduct of their negotiations with Bishop Beauchamp to free the city from episcopal control. For some time Swayn had been involved in these negotiations. Thus, in 1459 he had been one of a dozen councillors empowered to examine the documentary evidence regarding Salisbury’s liberties, and in September 1462 he and William Hore II* had been paid 26s. 8d. for going to see the bishop (presumably at Westminster) to discuss with him the citizens’ reply to a certain letter.36 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 37, 56v. The disputes between civic authorities and bishop now began to escalate, with Swayn playing a major part, even though his opinions were increasingly opposed to those expressed by John Hall. In the spring of 1464 he was one of the members of the 24 selected to wait on the bishop to negotiate with him, but when the dispute erupted a year later he was viewed as belonging to the bishop’s camp. A seemingly insignificant issue arose which was to stir up deep antagonisms, and result in nine years of litigation. The trouble began over the question of ownership of a small plot of land next to the parish church of St. Thomas, which Swayn had obtained from the bishop to build a house for his chantry priest. But the civic authorities claimed that the plot pertained to them, not to the bishop, and in May 1465 Hall, as mayor, was allowed expenses for riding to London to put their case to Beauchamp. Swayn was summoned to the city-chamber to offer his defence, but on 14 June he was expelled from the 24 on the basis that he had refused to obey ‘the correction and reformation’ of the mayor. On Hall’s authority in a night-time raid the citizens took forcible possession of the property concerned. Both bishop and citizens presented petitions to the Crown, the former accusing Hall and past mayors of defying his authority throughout the 14 years of his episcopate, the latter requesting full jurisdiction over every aspect of the city’s life in return for the payment of an annual fee farm.37 Ibid. ff. 70, 75v, 76; Benson and Hatcher, 162-3; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxix. 237-57. Hall’s insolent behaviour to the King led to his imprisonment for several months, during which the Salisbury councillors stood firm in his favour. Yet Swayn too was vulnerable: in November it was alleged in the Exchequer of pleas by the King’s attorney that on 18 Apr. he had led a mob of 40 malefactors to break into a house belonging to the mayor and commonalty, and dismantled a stone wall; accordingly, he should be subject to penalties imposed in his bond of 1461 to keep the peace. Nevertheless, on 31 Jan. 1466 he and his mainpernors were formally pardoned. It seems very likely Bishop Beauchamp and his officials had come to Swayn’s assistance.38 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 475-6.

Swayn was not a man to accept exclusion from city government quietly. When he was next the cause of disturbance the matter came before the King’s bench, where John Chippenham and John Aport† alleged that he had assaulted and wounded them in an unprovoked attack in Salisbury in April 1468. On coming to court in Trinity term 1469 Swayn pleaded that he had been acting in self defence: Chippenham and his fellows had assaulted him and others of his ‘retinue’ (comitiva), all brothers in the guild of St. George, while they had been peaceably engaged in recreational activities, namely practising their archery. However, an assize held at Salisbury a year later found against him, and awarded Chippenham damages of ten marks and Aport £20. Needless to say, Swayn did not let the matter rest: he challenged the impartiality of the jurors, and a jury of 24 was summoned to King’s bench in Hilary term 1471 to examine the earlier proceedings.39 KB27/833, rot. 39; 839, rot. 54.

This was during the Readeption of Henry VI, when Swayn took a typically opportunistic approach to the changing political situation. Still excluded from the 24, he nevertheless attempted to usurp the mayoralty from his adversary John Wyse (elected mayor in November 1470), and challenged the authority of Wyse’s deputy, his old enemy John Hall. He was soon put back in his place. The timing may have been coincidental, but on 16 Apr. 1471 (just two days after Edward IV’s victory at Barnet), Swayn was persuaded to come to the city assembly to relinquish all claim to the office. Both he and his son Henry later took out pardons from the restored King of all offences committed before 2 Nov. that year.40 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 100; CPR, 1467-77, p. 282. Swayn remained estranged from the civic authorities for a further six years. It was not until 2 Nov. 1477 that he was re-elected to his place in the council of 24, and on the very same day he was again chosen as mayor. How this coup or abrupt reconciliation had come about is not explained. The city councillors had formally capitulated to Bishop Beauchamp three years earlier, and perhaps that particular focus of disagreement with Swayn had therefore been removed. In late December his son Henry was elected to represent Salisbury at the Parliament summoned to meet on 16 Jan. 1478. As mayor in March Swayn led a delegation of citizens for talks with Beauchamp at Westminster, and he was again involved in negotiations that December, and in talks with the dean and chapter of Salisbury cathedral a year later, but the specific matters under discussion are not revealed.41 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 134-8. Thereafter, and now usually described as ‘esquire’, Swayn punctiliously attended council meetings.42 Ibid. ff. 136v-40v, 145. But his combative temperament put him again at odds with his fellows in the winter of 1482-3, this time with regard to a bond in £100 in which he had been bound to a mercer named Nicholas Noble. The mayor and commonalty threatened legal action against him, but in December 1483 Swayn appealed to a much higher authority by presenting a bill to Richard III.43 Ibid. ff. 149, 150v, 154.

Over the years Swayn had accumulated a great deal of property in Salisbury. In July 1445, during his first mayoralty, he had obtained from the city a lease of tenement by Fisherton Bridge called ‘Bovers’, to run for 81 years at a rent of £2 p.a. There he built at his own cost a new ‘scalding-house’, where all butchers resident in the city were henceforth required to slaughter their beasts. Although he may well have been acting in the interest of public health, philanthropy combined with profit.44 First General Entry Bk. 398. He and his wife Christine owned a large house in Minster Street, with its own ‘via aquatice’,45 Salisbury reg. of leases, f. 6; acct. rolls, G23/1/44, no. 4. to which he added six tenements acquired from the executors of Robert Okeborn,46 Misc. Salisbury docs. 164/1/15. and three messuages purchased from Thomas Freeman*.47 Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 600, 631-2. In 1455 he was listed as the bishop’s tenant of as many as 16 tenements (including the one in New Street, where he lived) and ten shops,48 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 70-71. while he also had an inn, ‘The White Horse’, which he sold at a later date to Charles Bulkeley.49 Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, f. 3v; PCC 7 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 55). The value of his holdings at any one time is uncertain. In 1451 he had been assessed for taxation on lands in Wiltshire worth £22 p.a.,50 E179/196/118. but as he was later to be distrained to take up knighthood, as having an income of £40 or more, this was clearly an underestimate.51 E405/43, rot. 3d. In 1459 he confirmed to his son Henry and the latter’s wife three tenements and shops in Minster Street, in return for a rent of £10 p.a. for his lifetime and reserving to himself all the equipment in the attached dyeing house. If the couple produced no children (as in fact happened), the property was to revert to him.52 Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, f. 2.

Despite his quarrelsome personality, a few other citizens asked Swayn to be their executors. For instance, he and William Lightfoot* performed this service for the late John White, a former mayor (who was to be remembered in Swayn’s chantry foundation), and Lightfoot named him as a supervisor of his own will.53 CP40/721, rots. 173, 235d; PCC 17 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 16v). Swayn was a feoffee of property in Salisbury settled on Robert Cove and his wife, and although it was unusual for him to take on similar responsibilities elsewhere, in the 1450s he was entrusted by Sir Theobald Gorges* alias Russell with the manor of Kingston Russell in Dorset.54 CCR, 1454-61, p. 269; 1468-76, no. 1144. But their relations were not always friendly: in 1458 Gorges sued out a subpoena to have Swayn appear before the chancellor. His grievance is not recorded: C253/35, no. 241. More in keeping with his habitual belligerence, he often sued those who offended him in the law-courts, bringing actions against anyone who defaulted on bonds entered at the staples at Westminster and Salisbury.55 CPR, 1452-61, p. 136; 1467-77, p. 575; CP40/800, rots. 18d, 73; C241/228/49; 230/59; 235/94; 254/71. The largest amount in contention was 400 marks for merchandise he had sold to a number of men from Somerset in 1458. He was still pursuing them 15 years later.56 C241/248/7; 254/114.

As much for his part in the disputes between the city and the bishop, Swayn is remembered for the foundation of two chantries in the parish church of St. Thomas the Martyr. In 1448 the chancel roof of the church collapsed, whereupon a number of wealthy parishioners, including Swayn, undertook to rebuild and lengthen the south side. As part of the undertaking Swayn founded chantries in that aisle, one with an altar dedicated to the Virgin for himself and his family, and the other with an altar dedicated to St. John the Baptist for the guild of tailors.57 VCH Wilts. vi. 134, 149-51. By 1455 he had set aside certain properties for their endowment, including a capital tenement in Winchester Street and shops elsewhere, and that year he acquired from John Wylly* a lease of two buildings next to St. Thomas’s graveyard, building a new chantry house adjacent to them.58 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 68; lxxvi. 104; Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 239-40, 241-2, 249-50, 252. The arrangements were formalized in 1468 when he acquired a royal licence to found ‘Swayn’s Chantry’, where prayers would be said for the welfare of the King and queen and for Bishop Beauchamp, as well as for himself, his parents and wife Christine and their children. Furthermore, he was permitted to grant the chaplain in mortmain lands worth 20 marks a year, without having to sue out writs of ad quod damnum, or to wait for any official inquiry.59 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 90-91. Decorations on the beams of the chancel roof included Swayn’s merchant mark and his arms, while inscriptions exhorted prayers for him and members of his family. The tailors’ guild responded to his generosity by in 1479 recording their indebtedness to him over the past 30 years, and according him the title of ‘founder of the guild’.60 VCH Wilts. 149-50; RCHM Salisbury, 27.

The childless death of Swayn’s only son Henry in the winter of 1479-80 left him without direct descendants. As an executor of Henry’s will,61 PCC 1 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 3). he faced suits in Chancery brought by the widow of the King’s secretary, Master William Hatcliffe, over a debt Henry had owed her late husband. She claimed that although Swayn had in his possession goods of Henry’s to the value of 100 marks, sufficient to pay the debt, he refused to do so. As always, Swayn reacted belligerently. He contended that Henry’s chattels were of ‘meane value’, and in any case belonged to his widowed daughter-in-law; he had been forced to spend his own money on his son’s funeral and on charitable deeds for his soul.62 C1/62/43-45. He also refused to relinquish to John Stork, Henry’s former ward, documents relating to his inheritance.63 C1/32/208; 60/99.

Nor were Swayn’s domestic circumstances peaceful. After the death of his first wife he had married Gillian, the widow of a mercer from Bristol, but before long the couple became estranged, so much so that on 5 Aug. 1483 Swayn was arrested for a breach of the peace, after he had viciously assaulted Gillian with ‘iron instruments’, including a massive ‘clovyngknife for a butcher’. The noise woke the neighbours, who thought he was trying to kill her.64 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 153. The couple were barely reconciled before Swayn’s death. In his will made eight months later, on 1 Apr. 1484, he stated that only if his wife pleased him ‘as a goode woman ought to pleas her husbond’ could she keep for life his ‘hede place with my ponde therto belonging’ in New Street, although he grudgingly allowed her the furnishings she had brought with her at their marriage. Swayn asked to be buried in St. Thomas’s church in the tomb which he had had constructed for his first wife, before the image of the Virgin. In return for his military services to Edward IV, Henry Swayn had been given a livery collar which he had treasured and bequeathed in his will to the shrine of St. Osmond in the cathedral; only now did his father complete the bequest. Swayn left £2 each to houses of grey friars of the city and the black friars at Fisherton Anger for daily prayers for a month after his death, but although the sum of £20 was to be distributed among the poor on his day of burial and a further £20 at his month-mind, he stipulated that otherwise ‘noo feste [was] to be had in no maner’. Personal bequests included a spruce table in his parlour, given to Master Hugh Pavy, the archdeacon of Wiltshire, but for a wealthy man he was not overly generous: he left just five marks each to two nephews and a niece, half a mark to each of his godchildren under the age of 15, and a further five marks to Robert Benet ‘a pore innocent child which I have founde and kept for almessedede’. However, after recovering his debts his executors were to spend half the receipts on ‘Walsh frise’ to be made into gowns for poor men and coats for women, and the other half to be spent on ‘creste cloth’ to make them shirts and smocks. His executors included Pavy, Henry Long* and John Hampton†, each of whom received ten marks for their labour. The will took the form of a tripartite indenture, of which one part was to be kept by his executors, another by his chantry priest, and the third by the churchwardens at St. Thomas’s, who were made responsible for taking sureties from successive chantry priests in respect of the ornaments he had placed in his chantry. Swayn died before 2 Mar. the following year.65 PCC 20 Logge (PROB11/7, ff. 153v-155). As his executor, Long had to contest further litigation brought by Elizabeth Hatcliffe.66 C1/59/30.