Reading

The largest and most important town in Berkshire, Reading made full use of its good communications by road and river to develop its trade in cloth, the town’s economic mainstay. Leland’s comment in the sixteenth century that Reading ‘standith chiefly by clothyng’ clearly also applied in our period.1 J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, i. 111. The population and wealth of the town are difficult to estimate, but it seems to have fared well in the fifteenth century. There are no overt signs of decline, and it may be significant that whereas the mayor was paid five marks p.a. from 1430 until 1464, the burgesses could afford to increase this sum to £5 before stabilizing the mayor’s remuneration at £4 in 1476.2 Berks. RO, Reading recs., cofferers’ accts. R/FA/2, nos. 25, 38, 44; Reading Recs. i. 73. The overall impression is one of continuing prosperity.

The period 1422-61 witnessed no significant constitutional changes in the relationship between the borough of Reading and the great Benedictine abbey to which it had pertained since the twelfth century. The royal charter granted to the townspeople in 1427 did no more than confirm previous charters, allowing them freedom from tolls throughout England; it did not alter their position of subservience to the abbot.3 Reading Chs. ed. Pritchard, 3. Although the merchant guild was gradually improving its status and becoming recognized as the symbol of a common municipal life, focused on the new guildhall which was built in 1420, members of the guild still had to pay an admission fee to the abbey, and the warden of the guild continued to be appointed by the abbot, after he made his selection from a shortlist of three presented by the burgesses. The guildsmen tried to ignore these inconvenient facts, by insisting on calling their warden ‘the mayor’, and requiring new members of the guild to take an oath of fealty not to the abbot but rather declaring they would be ‘trew to the Kynge owre sovereyne Lord [and] to the Meyre of the borow of Redyng, his levetenaunt’. Their very insistence on calling the warden of the guild their mayor points to the differences in perception about the independent status of the town’s officers.4 Reading Recs. i. 43-44.

Although in Henry VI’s reign there were no indications of excessive monastic oppression, and no serious question of a popular rising against the abbey, relations between townsmen and abbot were often uneasy. For example, in 1431-2 the guild authorized the mayor, Thomas Lavyngton (himself a professional lawyer), and others to examine evidences in the common chest ‘pro concordia tenend cum abbot Reading’, and on other occasions it paid for consultations with legal counsel from outside the town. In 1456 the mayor, a number of former mayors and all the burgesses of the guildhall bound themselves ‘by there feyth to abyde a rule as in expence for materys the wheche be betwyxt my lord of Redynge and the same meyres and bourgeys of the same Gyld’.5 Ibid. i. 1, 43; Reading cofferers’ accts. R/FA/2, nos. 21, 33. This friction partly arose out of the ambitions of the leading burgesses to expand their trading interests. At some point in the 1430s they built a slaughter-house specially for the use of butchers living outside the town. The abbot viewed this as an attempt to limit the abbey’s profits from Reading’s market, seized the shambles and denied the right of the burgesses to derive an income from them.6 C. Coates, Hist. Reading, 53-54. In 1440 articles of peace between abbey and guild were drawn up, but the out-butchery was not restored. Ten years later the quarrel broke out again and some of the burgesses travelled to London and Canterbury to show the evidences they kept in the guildhall to establish their case. Attempts were made to gain the favour of the King, and on one of his visits to Reading (most likely that of 1451) Henry VI responded to their petitions by giving permission for the mayor to have a mace borne before him on ceremonial occasions.7 This could have been in Jan. 1438, Feb. 1440, Aug. 1447 or July 1451: B.P. Wolffe, Hen. VI, 361-2, 366, 369, 370. Inevitably, the abbot interpreted this permission as an infringement of the abbey’s franchises and liberties, and the King, apprised of this, hastened to write a letter addressed pointedly to the ‘warden of the guild’ at Reading ordering him to forbear the use of the mace, and reminding him that the concession had only been granted on condition that ‘it be not prejudicial to our church and monastery of Reading’. Furthermore, the King reminded the warden that he should assume no other name than ‘keper of the gilde of Reding’, as admitted to office by the abbot ‘and not by us’, and should have no mace nor any other sign of office borne before him save only two tipped staffs, which were to be carried by the abbot’s bailiffs.8 Harl. 1708, f. 164v. The letter is dated 30 July at Eltham in an unspecified year. Henry was at Eltham on this date possibly in 1443, and certainly in 1449 and 1451: Wolffe, 364, 368, 369, but not thereafter. Even so, a few years later, in 1458, the cofferers of the guild defiantly paid a goldsmith 3s. 4d. ‘for makynge of a mace’. The privilege was granted to the borough once more, in 1487, when Henry VII allowed the mayor the right to have two mace serjeants, only to prompt an open breach between town and abbey.9 J.B. Hurry, Reading Abbey, 59-60; VCH Berks. iii. 352; Reading Recs. i. 1, 48; Harl. 1708, f. 162v. For the later disputes, see Berks. Arch. Jnl. lxi. 48-60. Symbolic of the attitude of the townsmen to the abbot and their increasing confidence of a corporate identity, were the changes they made with regard to ‘chepyngavell’, the sum of 5d. p.a. which for more than 200 years had been due to the abbot from every burgess in the guild in return for his licence to trade in the town. In 1480 it was decided that this tax instead of being paid by each burgess individually should be paid out of the common chest of the guild, as funded by the generous benefaction of William Baron, the MP of nearly 50 years earlier.10 VCH Berks. iii. 345, 349; Reading Recs. i. 78.

Perhaps because of its relative proximity to London and to the King’s favoured residence at Windsor, Reading twice served as a venue for Parliaments in the period 1422-61. The second session of the Parliament of 1439 was held there from 14 Jan. to late February 1440, and Parliament also assembled in the refectory of Reading abbey on 6 Mar. 1453. Following the adjournment for Easter on 28 Mar., the next session met at Westminster, but when Parliament was prorogued on 2 July it was intended that it should meet again at Reading, on 12 Nov. The Lords and Commons duly assembled, but ‘de magna mortalitate in dicta villa de Redyng jam regnante’ the chancellor adjourned it to 11 Feb. following. The two Houses then met for just three days at Reading, before moving back to Westminster.11 PROME, xi. 249-50; xii. 229, 236-7, 248, 251-4.

Returns for Reading survive for 19 out of the 22 Parliaments of the period, and local records supply the names of the MPs of 1445-6 which are otherwise lost. Altogether 21 individuals are known to have represented the borough. Continuity of representation was chiefly supplied by Lavyngton, who was returned to 12 Parliaments between 1416 and 1442, and Simon Porter, who was returned to ten between May 1421 and November 1449. This experienced duo filled 17 of the 32 recorded seats from 1422 to 1450, and sat together on four occasions. Lavyngton was re-elected four times (sitting in three Parliaments in a row from 1422 to 1425 and another three from 1427 to 1431), and Porter five times (four running in 1431-7, and three running in 1447-9). Yet no one else was ever re-elected to consecutive Parliaments, and after Porter retired from parliamentary service the borough sent two apparent novices to the consecutive Parliaments of 1450 and 1453. At the majority of elections, however, men with previous parliamentary experience were preferred. Reading elected two men with prior knowledge of the workings of the Commons to at least seven of the 20 Parliaments, and in nine more an experienced man accompanied a novice. Only in 1426, 1445, 1450 and 1453 is there any possibility that both MPs were untried. Practice in Henry VI’s reign thus stood in contrast to the period 1386-1421, when few of Reading’s MPs sat in more than one or two Parliaments, and the duty of parliamentary service was shared between many.12 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 268.

As had been the case under the first two Lancastrian monarchs and was to continue long after 1461, the inhabitants of Reading showed a marked preference to be represented by men they knew. Without exception, all 21 of the MPs in Henry VI’s reign lived in the town or held property there at the time of their elections. Several belonged to local families, and at least four of them (Barbour, Pernecote, Porter and Selham), were probably related to men who had represented the borough previously. Others, although not natives of Reading, came from places within a relatively short distance: Thomas Clerk II and John Orpyd from elsewhere in Berkshire; William Rede was born at Eynsham in Oxfordshire, and it seems that Edward Dyer hailed from Burford in the same county. In the course of their careers, certain of the more affluent among the MPs acquired land outside Reading, too: Lavyngton at Maidenhead, Windsor and Cookham, John Prout at Streatley and William Wilton at Tilehurst. Probably the wealthiest of the group were three men who each took a different course to prosperity. William Baron, a teller at the Exchequer for over 40 years, acquired through marriage a substantial rental income in London, and his successful career led to enhanced status as an esquire, and the marriage of his daughter into the gentry and of a grand-daughter into the lesser nobility. Thomas Beke inherited the manor of Earley Whiteknights on the outskirts of Reading, and his wife brought him holdings in Wiltshire, so that by his death his income from land amounted to £30 p.a. Lastly, Prout, who went on to represent the shire in Parliament, flourished through his trading ventures as a merchant of the staple of Calais.

Prout was by far the most important merchant to sit for Reading in Henry VI’s reign, but he was by no means the only one. While Prout’s interests were perhaps primarily in raw wool, at least 12 other MPs were involved in the local cloth trade, as mercers (such as Porter and Rede), weavers (Lodbroke and Swayn) dyers (Dyer and Linacre), or drapers (Brussele, Clerk and Pernecote). The variety of descriptions applied to John Orpyd, including ‘mercer’, ‘chapman’ and ‘husbandman’, indicates a more diverse range of commercial interests, and also out of the ordinary were John Barton, who was a butcher, and Thomas Beke, who although he invested in the cloth trade came from a gentry family. Lavyngton was the only man of law returned in this period. Evidently an able practitioner, he was to be placed on the quorum of the Berkshire bench towards the end of his career, and then formed an association with the prominent courtier John Norris* and served Bishop Aiscough of Salisbury as bailiff of his liberties in the region. Yet it should be noted that even though this single lawyer occupied eight seats during the early years of Henry VI’s reign, Porter the mercer filled nine, and clearly the clothiers and tradesmen of Reading dominated the borough’s representation.

The majority of the 21 MPs are known to have been admitted to the guild merchant of Reading, and to have become involved in its affairs. Doubt only remains about two of them: Lavyngton, who was probably excluded because of his profession but was nevertheless always active on the burgesses’ behalf (perhaps in the capacity of town clerk); and David Gower, a royal servant, who was, even so, willing to contribute to local charitable causes. Most of the MPs had been members of the guild for between five and 20 years before their first or only elections to Parliament, but it looks likely that in the cases of William Baron, Thomas Beke and John Prout admission to the guild was sought specifically in order to comply with the statutory requirements that borough Members should be enfranchised. The statute of 1413 stated that parliamentary burgesses should be ‘receauntz, demurrauntz et enfraunchisez en mesmes les cites et burghs’,13 Statutes, ii. 170. and although all three of these men possessed property in Reading they only gained entry to the guild when their candidacy for Parliament was on the cards. Thus, Baron was admitted only shortly before his election in 1431; Beke on the very day of his election in October 1450; and Prout six days after the writs of summons were issued in January 1453 for Parliament to meet in the town in March. Similarly, Richard More† was to become a member of the guild on the day of his election to Edward IV’s last Parliament. In the later part of the century the guild, perhaps in a bid to obtain wider support in its campaign for independence from the abbey, opened its doors to members of the landowning gentry of Berkshire, such as Edward Langford* and John William†.14 Reading Recs. i. 53, 94.

Many of Reading’s MPs had held borough offices before their elections to Parliament. For instance, of the 14 who served as cofferers all but one had done so before he sat in the Commons, and all three of those recorded as constables had officiated before their elections. After being nominated on the shortlist of three delivered to the abbot, nine of the 21 were selected by him to be mayor. All of them went on to hold the post for more than one term, and Morys and Rede did so for seven years each. Rede was exceptional for serving for three consecutive terms, in 1452-5. Five of this group had occupied the mayoralty before their earliest elections to Parliament, and former mayors were evidently popular choices as MPs, for 17 out of the 40 recorded seats were filled by men with such experience of the administration of the town. The officiating mayor rarely left his post to sit in Parliament, although as John Kirkby was made mayor just after the start of the Parliament of 1429, in which he was representing Reading at Westminster, and again in 1433, in between parliamentary sessions, the burgesses cannot have been entirely adverse to the mayor’s absence from home. The circumstances were rather different in 1453, when Parliament assembled at Reading itself and the mayor, Rede, headed the welcoming party for the King; his attendance in the Commons as well was only to be expected. The office of mayor appears to have been unpopular. In October 1446 an agreement was made by the assembled guildsmen that if any burgess put forward for the mayoralty withdrew from election or otherwise avoided the office he was to be disenfranchised and fined £2. In 1474, however, it was conceded that no outgoing mayor would be nominated for re-election within four years after the end of his term.15 Ibid. i. 26, 73.

It is debatable whether the abbot ever sought to exert influence over the borough’s representation in Parliament, and if he did so whether he ever proved successful. His two bailiffs were usually named on the parliamentary indentures as present at the elections, but it is difficult to determine whether these officials were more closely attached to the abbey or the town at this time. At least three sometime bailiffs (Nicholas Barbour, Thomas Beke and William Selham) numbered among the 21 MPs, each taking just one seat in Henry VI’s reign (although Beke took two more under Edward IV). All three had occupied the office before their elections, but only Barbour was probably still in the abbot’s service when actually returned: after doing duty as bailiff for at least 16 years, he was elected to his only Parliament in 1427. Since Beke and Selham were also chosen as mayor in the course of their careers, the extent to which they were the abbot’s nominees is hard to ascertain, although the abbot’s acceptance of their nomination to the mayoralty is a further indication that they were acceptable to him. In August 1449 at a meeting in the guildhall it was agreed by those assembled that ‘nullus eorum perquisiverit litteram de aliquo domino seu de aliquo alio extraneo ad essendum in aliquo officio pertinente’,16 Ibid. i. 32. but whether this prohibition was designed to prevent interference in the town’s affairs by the abbot or rather by some other un-named lord is not known.

It may be that Reading was selected as a venue for sessions of the Parliament of 1453-4 as a place where the Members would be free of the influence of the duke of York’s partisans among the volatile Londoners. Certainly, the first session, held before Henry VI became mentally incapacitated in the summer of 1453, was strongly biased towards the Court, and the Commons proved unusually generous in their grants of subsidies, notably granting to the King the wool subsidy and tunnage and poundage for term of his life, besides agreeing to the first imposition of a tenth and fifteenth since 1449. Many of the MPs gathered at Reading were closely connected with the Household and government, but there is nothing to suggest that Reading itself chose its representatives on such credentials. In the course of the reign, the burgesses elected just two royal officials, and both of them were well known to the town’s inhabitants. William Baron, a native of Reading who served for 44 years as a teller at the Exchequer, was returned to Parliament in 1431, near the start of his career, and David Gower, yeoman of the avenary and riding forester of Windsor forest, was elected near the end of his, in 1447. Their official positions no doubt played a part in their elections, and the Parliament of 1447 at Bury St. Edmunds was noted for the number of MPs like Gower who may be best described as royal servants, but neither Baron nor Gower was an outsider to the community of Reading. Moreover, between them they filled only two of the 40 seats documented between 1422 and 1460.

While for the majority of Reading’s MPs the town formed the focus of their interests, a few were prepared to accept appointment to royal commissions. Six were made tax collectors in Berkshire, and three (Baron, Lavyngton and Prout) served on other sorts of ad hoc commissions in this county and in Oxfordshire. Lavyngton, the lawyer, was the only one ever to be appointed a j.p., and this was not until after he had entered the Commons for the last time. Not surprisingly, in view of his post in the Exchequer, Baron was the most active in this respect, with several of his many commissions being concerned with the mustering of armed forces destined for France. His tellership also led to his appointment to supervise the collection of customs in the port of London, and he was engaged as controller there when returned to the Parliament of 1431. Even further away, Prout came to be elected mayor of the staple of Calais from 1469 to 1471, a role which led to his participation in diplomatic negotiations with the duke of Burgundy on behalf of Edward IV.

Something of the process of the election of Reading’s MPs is revealed from the records of the guild and the surviving indentures returned to Chancery. After the sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire received a writ of summons, he addressed a mandate to the mayor and burgesses of Reading to return representatives. Elections were then held in the guildhall, presumably with only members of the guild participating. On occasion (as in 1433 and January 1449) the formal electoral indentures sent back to the sheriff at Oxford castle were drawn up on the same day as the election, but more often they were dated the day after (as in 1442, 1447 and 1453), or even after a week had elapsed (as in October 1449 and 1450).17 Ibid. i. 3, 21, 27, 31, 34, 35, 40; Berks. Arch. Jnl. lxi. 72; C219/14/4; 15/2, 4, 6, 7; 16/1, 2. Sixteen indentures survive from 1422 to 1453, and these were all written to a similar formula, addressing the King in excessively obsequious terms, as ‘Most excellent prince and lord, King of England, heir of the king of France, and lord of Ireland’, and stating that election had been made unanimously and by common agreement by all the burgesses congregated together. The indentures were attested by the mayor and usually 12 others (often including the two bailiffs and two constables), although in 1427, 1431 and 1442 there were 13 participants named, and from then until 1453 only eight or nine. The return to the Parliament summoned to Coventry in 1459 was very much out of the ordinary. Made with the sheriff and the mayor as parties, it stated that the mayor and burgesses had elected Reading’s MPs, but named no attestors and the indenture lacked a date. In the 16 indentures of the period 1422-53 which did list some of the men present at the elections, just 46 were named, these presumably forming a relatively select group of leading burgesses. Those most frequently recorded were the bailiffs (Barbour figured on eight occasions and Richard Farle† on 12), and the sometime mayors (Morys appeared 14 times and Robert Keynes nine).

The cofferers’ accounts show a few payments relating to the electoral returns: the messenger who took the return from Reading to Oxford in 1425 received 2d.; the same amount was spent on parchment and red wax in 1427; and in 1431 both items of expenditure were recorded. In 1429 the return was sent back by the sheriff because it did not bear the mayor’s name, an oversight which cost the town 4d. Little evidence remains for the remuneration of the MPs themselves, save that Porter and Lodbroke petitioned the guild to have ten marks for their expenses when Parliament met at Winchester in the summer of 1449, and payment to the MPs of 1461 was long delayed after the mayor lost the writ de expensis.18 Reading cofferers’ accts. R/FA/2, nos. 14, 16, 18, 20; Reading Recs. i. 32, 53-54.