WELBY, Richard

In the late fifteenth century the Welbys, an ancient family, were described as ‘the chief inhabitants of Moulton … of very honourable standing, whom the local people were not accustomed to oppose’.8 Croyland Chronicle ed. Pronay and Cox, 187. Their local importance is evident in the election of three successive heads of the family to represent Lincolnshire in Parliament between 1421 and 1472. The subject of this biography was the middle of these. The family had substantial estates, centred on Moulton in the parts of Holland but extending into south Lindsey and together worth, judging from the tax returns of 1436, as much as 100 marks p.a.9 E179/136/186, 198; Feudal Aids, iii. 341, 349; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 644. He is not to be confused with his namesake of Algarkirk assessed at eight marks p.a. in that year. It is not known precisely when our MP succeeded to them, but it was not until nearly the end of his career. As early as the spring of 1444 he replaced his father on the Holland bench; but the father survived until as late as 1460, when our MP is no longer described as ‘the younger’ in Chancery records.10 CPR, 1441-6, p. 473. The MP is last described as ‘the younger’ when appointed to the Holland peace commission of Nov. 1460: C66/490, m. 27d. In this biography it has been assumed that the father was inactive from 1444, although it may be that some of the commissions attributed to the son in the conspectus relate to the father.

Together with his standing as heir to a valuable estate, the younger Richard enjoyed the additional advantage of being a lawyer. He is described as ‘of Grayes Inn’ in a Chancery petition of the late 1450s, by which time he was a senior member of that Inn. In 1456 he was one of a group of its seniors, headed by Thomas Bryan, a future c.j.c.p., to whom Reynold Grey, Lord Grey of Wilton, conveyed the Inn, sited on his manor of Portpole in Holborn.11 C1/16/582; Readings and Moots, i (Selden Soc. lxxi), p. xix; E. Williams, Early Holborn, i. 653. His education there probably began in the mid 1430s. His first reading is to be tentatively dated to the autumn of 1444, his second to Lent 1451 and there may have been a third in Lent 1459.12 Readings and Moots, i, pp. xxxii-iii. In Feb. 1441 he was described as ‘of London, gentleman’, on standing surety when his father brought a petition in Chancery: C1/9/89, 253.

Welby’s standing as a lawyer, together with his father’s virtual retirement, explains why he took a significant part in the affairs of his native county before he had come into his patrimony. Aside from his place on the bench and on occasional ad hoc commissions, he represented the county in Parliament, returned in company with John Newport II* on 5 Oct. 1450.13 In the indenture of return Welby is styled a mere ‘gentleman’ and his name appears second to that of Newport: C219/16/1. There can, therefore, be little doubt that the MP was the son and not the father. None the less, his career and connexions are difficult to reconstruct. There is some slight evidence to associate him with John, Viscount Beaumont, who, from his castle at Folkingham not far to the west of Moulton, exercised considerable influence in the south of the county. In November 1452 he was joined with Beaumont as a trustee in the goods of the Boston merchant, Richard Barbour; and in the following June he is found acting together with another Beaumont servant, Thomas Everingham*, in a conveyance of manors formerly mortgaged by Sir William Peyto‡.14 CCR, 1447-54, p. 399; CPR, 1452-61, p. 159. Yet he can at most only have numbered on the outer ring of the Beaumont affinity. Nor is there evidence to suggest he had any pronounced political sympathies in the civil war of 1459-61. Connexions with Beaumont may have disposed him to Lancaster and he was appointed to the Lancastrain commission of array in December 1459. On the other hand, on 20 Jan. 1461, while the Yorkists were still in control of both government and the King’s person, he was summoned to hasten in person to the King with as much armed power as he could raise.15 CPR, 1452-61, p. 559; CCR, 1454-61, p. 474.

Yet while little can be said of what appears to have been a fairly colourless career, Welby’s will is unusually interesting. Drawn up on 2 and 12 Aug. 1465 it reveals a testator of more than ordinary piety.16 Lincoln Diocese Docs. (EETS, cxlix), 119-25. Detailed arrangements were made for his soul’s security in the next world: restitution was to be made to those he had wronged and two priests were to sing for his soul at Moulton church over a period of two years. No religious foundation in the neighbourhood of his estates went without a bequest, and the poor were generously remembered. More striking, however, is the care he took to provide for his large brood of sons. No fewer than seven are mentioned in the will, and while the eldest, Richard, was to inherit the entire patrimony, none were neglected. Two were intended for the Church, but landed provision in fee rather than simply for life was made for the other four younger sons. That Welby was able to be so comparatively generous was probably due to the profits of a successful legal career, profits that had enabled him to buy land with which to endow his large family without diminishing the expectations of his heir by grants from the patrimony. His will shows that he had purchased small parcels of land at Moulton, Fleet and elsewhere and was, at the time of his death, negotiating with William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, for the acquisition of property at Saltfleetby. Moreover, his will further stipulated that his plate, valued at as much as 500 to 600 marks, was to be used to purchase further lands, if any should be available, to be divided among his sons as need required. Less generously treated was his wife Joan. Although she was appointed as his executrix, her appointment was conditional on the finding of surety to the other executors that she would never remarry. If she refused to offer such surety she was to be deprived of her executory role.

The Welbys were closely attached to two important institutions, the university of Cambridge and the abbey of Croyland. The latter lay only a few miles south of Moulton: in the late 1440s our MP acted as an arbiter in the abbey’s boundary dispute with the abbey of Peterborough, with which he was also connected; and from 1463 he was the abbey’s steward of Baston and Langtoft in Kesteven, an office his son was also to hold.17 Ingulph’s Chron. of Croyland Abbey ed. Riley, 412-13; Earl of Ancaster mss, 6ANC1/83-4a, 101. Now, in his will, it was to the abbot that he entrusted the keeping of his valuable plate.18 Although our MP was buried in Moulton church, later heads of the family were buried in the abbey: A. Gibbons, Notes on Lincs. Vis. 1634, 196. He also mentioned the university of Cambridge for two of his sons were then in residence there, and they were soon to be joined by a third, Robert, who became senior proctor of the university in 1479-80.19 Nor were these the first or the last members of the fam. to be educated there. Alumni Cantabrigiensis, ed. Venn and Venn, iv. 358-9, lists no fewer than 38 Welbys, at least 23 of whom were from Lincs., between the late 14th cent. and 1751.

Welby’s eldest son, Richard, described by the Tudor antiquarian, John Leland, as ‘of great porte and pour’ in the parts of Holland, represented Lincolnshire in the Parliament of 1472 and enjoyed a more active career than his father.20 J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, ii. 148; HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 927-8.