WALWYN, William

Although from one of the county’s leading families, William Walwyn, as a younger son whose life was comparatively short, was the most obscure of the Herefordshire MPs in Henry VI’s reign. He owed what place he had in local affairs to the provision his father made for him in his will of 1415. Aside from a modest 20 marks in cash, he was to have lands in Butterley (in Edvin Ralph) in the north-east of the county and in Venn (in Marden), near Hereford, in fee tail, together with, after the expiry of a term of 20 years and the death of his mother, the manor of Longworth (in Lugwardine), again near Hereford. He was also given a remainder interest in other of the family properties expectant on the childless deaths of either one or both of his brothers, Richard and Makelin. These latter remainders never fell in, but in 1428 and 1431 he was returned as tenant of the family property in Butterley and Venn and, more surprisingly (the term of 20 years had not yet expired), of the manor of Longworth.2 Fifty Earliest English Wills (EETS lxxviii), 22-26; Feudal Aids, ii. 413, 420, 421. The title of the Walwyns to Longworth had been violently disputed by Joan, Lady Abergavenny, and Sir John Skydemore* in 1418-19, but it seems the family overcame this challenge: The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 393; C1/69/230; CPR, 1416-22, p. 218.

Most of William’s appearances in the records are in the company of his more important brothers. In Michaelmas term 1426 he and Makelin were among those who offered surety in the court of King’s bench for a Shropshire gentleman, William Hodenet; and in September 1427 and December 1430 he joined Richard among the attestors to the Herefordshire parliamentary elections.3 KB27/662, rex rot. 12; C219/13/5; 14/2. Other references in which he is not found in their company may relate either to him or his first cousin of Bickerton in the parish of Much Marcle.4 He was the s. of our MP’s uncle, another William, by Joan (d.1461), da. of Sir John Greyndore† (d.1416) of Abenhall, Glos., and stepson of Sir William Lichfield*: J. Duncumb, Hist. Herefs. (contd. by Cooke), iii. 21; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. vi. 182-3. His standing was compromised by his mother’s long survival. In 1451 he was assessed on a modest annual income of £6: E179/117/64. He is said to have fought for Edward, earl of March, at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross in Feb. 1461: William of Worcestre, Itins. ed. Harvey, 205. He died on 1 Oct. 1471, leaving his da. Alice, husband of Thomas Baynham, as his heir: C140/37/26. For his will: PCC 4 Wattys (PROB11/6, m. 26d). It may have been either of them who, on 18 May 1427, offered surety for another of the shire’s gentry, Thomas Parker of Ford, as alnager of the county; who on 28 Apr. 1431 was named as a feoffee in the manor of Stoke Edith, property of his kinsman, Thomas Walwyn† (d.1444); and who, more tantalisingly, was named in 1426 as his bailiff by Thomas Spofford, bishop of Hereford.5 CFR, xv. 144; CPR, 1429-36, p. 143; CIPM, xxvi. 167; Reg. Spofford, 96. As the older man, Makelin’s brother is the most likely candidate, and it is almost certain that he was the MP. Among the attestors to the election of 5 Apr. 1432 was his namesake, specifically described as ‘of Bickerton’, and, unless this be it, there is no instance among the county’s fifteenth-century indentures of an MP attesting his own return. None the less, there may have been some controversy attendant upon William’s election in that as many as 170 attestors (five of whom were Walwyns) are named in the indenture, which notes that 200 men had been present. The other MP, John Russell I*, was a very influential figure, significant enough, one would imagine, to secure one of the county seats non contra, and it is thus likely that it was Walwyn’s election, which, for some unknown reason, was contentious.6 C219/14/3.

Walwyn’s service in Parliament was almost the last act of a short career. On 22 July, five days after the end of the Parliament, he joined Makelin in standing surety in a grant made to the Welsh knight, Sir William ap Thomas; and he was still alive in 1434 when, as ‘of Longworth’, he was among those included in the list of Herefordshire men who were to be required to take the parliamentary oath not to maintain peace-breakers.7 CFR, xvi. 98; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 376-7. He was, however, dead by 1439, when the widow of his fellow MP of 1432 sued his widow, Joan, and Joan’s second husband, William Welden, for a debt of eight marks.8 CP40/713, rot. 405d. In the Herefs. subsidy return of 1451 Welden was assessed on an income of £10: E179/117/64. John Walwyn of Longworth, coroner of the county and an adherent of the Yorkist (Sir) Walter Devereux I* in the 1450s, was probably his son.9 KB27/786, rot. 38; KB9/35/44, 61, 70.