Taunton

At the beginning of the fifteenth century Taunton, the westernmost of the four parliamentary boroughs of Somerset, was smaller than either the cathedral city of Wells or the neighbouring port of Bridgwater. Nevertheless, since the thirteenth century it had been an important centre of cloth manufacture, and in Henry VI’s reign the trade continued to provide the town with a modest prosperity. In 1430, 1443 and 1453 the townsmen respectively found loans of £15, £10 and £8 in support of the cash-strapped government,1 E401/724, m. 9; 780, m. 28; 831, m. 1; CPR, 1429-36, p. 60. sums which compared favourably with the £6 13s. 4d. and £5 that the prior of Taunton advanced in 1426 and 1453.2 E401/713, m. 18; 831, m. 1. The defence of its trade was naturally of the first importance to the borough’s inhabitants and featured prominently in its charter, first granted by King Stephen in the twelfth century. Among the privileges enjoyed by the burgesses was an exemption from tolls throughout England,3 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 594-5. and local trade was further protected by regulations restricting the ability of strangers to sell and even buy commodities like cloth, hides, wool, lace and meat in the town’s market without the bailiff’s special licence. These privileges naturally caused resentment elsewhere, and at one point the burgesses appealed to their lord Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, then serving as chancellor of England, to help them overcome the resistance of the citizens of Exeter.4 C1/6/329.

In a county rich in religious houses, even modest-sized Taunton was home to an Augustinian priory, established by Bishop Giffard of Winchester in about 1115, and absorbing an earlier Anglo-Saxon foundation. By the 1450s the house had fallen upon hard times and Bishop Bekynton of Bath and Wells had to order an improvement in the supply of bread and cheese allotted to the canons. The priory’s precarious finances may have played their part in its dispute with the burgesses over maintenance of the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene in the second half of the 1440s. The town’s complement of religious institutions was rounded off by a leper hospital dedicated to the Holy Ghost and St. Margaret.5 VCH Som. ii. 141, 143, 158; C1/67/300; E135/23/71.

The castle which dominated the town housed the administrative headquarters of the bishop of Winchester’s vast manor of Taunton Deane, one of the most valuable possessions of this wealthiest of sees. In terms of its revenues, the borough itself only accounted for some £40-£50 p.a. (roughly equivalent to the fees paid annually to the constable and steward of Taunton castle and manor), less than a sixteenth part of the manor’s entire annual value, but the overall returns of the manor, borough and liberty were sufficient to ensure the keen interest of successive bishops in its fortunes and governance.6 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 595; V.G. Davis, ‘Bp. Waynflete of Winchester’ (Trin. Coll. Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 199. The castle itself, situated in a region with few royal fortifications, was of considerable strategic importance. This found reflection in the bishops’ choice of constables: from 1406 to 1434 the office was held by Bishop Beaufort’s cousin, Thomas Chaucer*, and he was succeeded by Beaufort’s son-in-law, Sir Edward Stradling. In July 1451 Bishop Waynflete entrusted the castle to Thomas Ormond, the younger brother of the prominent courtier James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, while during the final years of Henry VI’s reign the soldier-lawyer Alexander Hody* took command as deputy constable.7 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 524; Davis, 275-81.

By the fifteenth century it had long been customary for the bishop’s nominal chief officers in the borough, the two portreeves, to be annually elected ‘par la communalte de mesme le Burgh’, but the regular presence of more senior officers in the bishop’s administration of the manor and liberty (the constable and receiver of the castle, the steward of the manor, and the bailiff of the liberty), ensured that the town was never too far from its lord’s oversight. Some limited attempts on the part of the townsmen to challenge the bishop’s authority during the second decade of the fifteenth century came to nothing in the face of Bishop Beaufort’s overwhelming power and authority, and thereafter the burgesses seem, on the whole, to have proved compliant. It is probable that the limited progress the townsmen made in asserting their independence owed as much to the importance of the manor of Taunton Deane to the bishops of Winchester as to the lack of any independent internal organization like a merchant guild, and it was not until 1627 that the town was formally incorporated.8 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 595-6.

Taunton’s geographical position on the principal road connecting the south-western counties of Devon and Cornwall with the important crossing over the river Parret at Bridgwater and thence via Glastonbury with Wells, Bath and Bristol, along with the strategic importance of the castle, caused it to be drawn into the troubles that affected the region in the 1450s. In the late summer of 1451 Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, resolved to settle his grievances against his local rival, William, Lord Bonville*, and the latter’s patron, the earl of Wiltshire, by force. From mid August he began to rally his forces, and on 22 Sept. he assembled several thousand of his retainers, along with those of his allies Sir Edward Brooke*, Lord Cobham, and Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, at Taunton. Before marching on to Bridgwater, the leaders issued a manifesto, stating their purpose to be merely ‘to serve the common good’.9 R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 89-90; KB9/268/94. When the army reached the earl of Wiltshire’s house at Lackham, they found that in keeping with what was to become his habitual practice Butler had taken to flight, seeking out the King at Coventry. In the interim, however, Bonville had invested Taunton castle, where Wiltshire’s brother was constable. Devon and Cobham turned about, occupied the town of Taunton, and laid siege to the castle.10 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 287. The siege continued for three days before the duke of York arrived with a force of some 2,000 men to put an end to it. Devon agreed to withdraw, and Bonville was persuaded to surrender the castle into the duke’s hands.11 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 576.

Taunton’s first documented parliamentary return dates from 1307, and thereafter the borough regularly sent two MPs to the Commons. In the first decades of the fifteenth century the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset normally recorded the names of the MPs elected by the four boroughs in Somerset in a composite indenture counter-sealed by four representatives from each constituency. In addition, the names of the knights of the shire and all the citizens and burgesses were listed in a separate schedule, which also recorded the names of the MPs’ sureties. After 1437 the separate borough indenture was abandoned, and the names of the citizens and burgesses were certified only by the schedule until 1455 when, perhaps on account of the uncertain political situation, they were included in the shire indenture. That the individual boroughs were nevertheless still required to signify their choice to the county court is apparent from the wording of the sheriff’s precept to the city of Wells issued on 20 June 1455, which explicitly instructed the city authorities to do so.12 Som. Archs., Wells recs., convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 15. Only in the reign of Edward IV did the sheriff begin to seal separate indentures with each individual borough.13 No returns survive for the Parls. of 1461, 1463, 1469 and 1470, and no borough indentures are extant for 1467, but there are separate Taunton indentures for 1472 and 1478: C219/17/2, 3.

At the time of Henry IV’s usurpation in 1399, Taunton’s MPs were apparently still being paid at the customary rate of 2s. per day on the authority of a royal writ de expensis. It did however take that year’s MPs, Walter Puryham† and Edmund Rokes†, two years and extended litigation to secure payment, and it is possible that, as elsewhere, the rates of pay were subsequently reduced.14 CCR, 1399-1402, p. 109; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 212-15; KB27/562, rex rot. 22d; KB29/45, rot. 7.

The names of Taunton’s representatives are known for 18 of the 22 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign. Gaps remain for the assemblies of 1423, 1439, 1445 and 1459. Twenty-four men divided these 36 seats between them. Eighteen of them represented Taunton just once, three (Plush, Thomas Rokes and Wolffe) did so twice, and Bishop three times. Marchaunt was returned five times, and Portman on ten occasions (although of their returns only three and six respectively fell within the period under review). In addition, several other Taunton MPs also made for themselves impressive parliamentary careers, albeit in the service of other constituencies. The closest connexions evidently existed with neighbouring Bridgwater, where Dryffeld, Halsewell, Jacob and Plush were all elected at one time or another. In the wider region, the boroughs of Dorset periodically returned men who either had already represented Taunton or were to do so later: Dryffeld sat for Wareham, Gosse for Weymouth, and Halsewell for Lyme Regis. The bishop of Winchester’s overlordship of Taunton explains the return of his servants Legh and Wolffe for another of his boroughs, Downton in Wiltshire, as well, while Legh, who earlier represented East Grinstead in Sussex too, joined the ranks of the knights of the shire for Surrey in 1459. Altogether, Legh sat in at least six Parliaments. Yet Portman’s ten returns between 1417 and 1435, all of them in the service of his Taunton neighbours, comfortably made him the borough’s pre-eminent parliamentarian of his day.

From the later years of Henry V (the loss of many of the returns makes it impossible to be sure about the earlier half of the reign) the burgesses of Taunton showed a clear preference for representatives with prior parliamentary experience. Thus, over the course of the period under review no fewer than 19 of the 36 seats for which the MPs’ names are known were taken by men who had previously sat in the Commons, and in as many as eight Parliaments (1422, 1425, 1426, 1431, 1437, 1450, 1455 and 1460) both the borough’s representatives were so qualified. Moreover, at least six seats were filled by men who were directly re-elected, and this was true of both Members in 1426.15 It is likely that the actual figures were even higher: Marchaunt and Portman who were returned together in 1422, 1425 and 1426 may have also been elected in 1423, and Bishop, who served in 1453, 1455 and 1460 may have also sat in 1459, but the loss of the election returns makes it impossible to be sure. In addition, both Members of the Parliaments of 1450 and 1455 had sat in the immediately preceding assemblies, albeit one of the two had represented a different constituency.

Of the borough’s MPs in the period, ten were local men,16 Bishop, Brice, Gosse, Marchaunt, Payn, Penvon, Portman, Prescott, Rokes and Swenge. and between them they accounted for 20 of the 36 recorded seats. As most of their returns fell into the first half of the period under review, three quarters of Taunton’s MPs during Henry VI’s minority could claim to be resident burgesses. Conversely, however, after 1439 the return of resident burgesses in the spirit of the statute became the exception: just four out of 16 seats were filled by local men in the 1440s and 1450s. Instead, Taunton’s MPs came from ever further afield. The outsiders returned before 1439 (Halsewell and Jacob) at least owned property in Somerset, as did Hill, Plush and Sylke (returned in the 1440s). Wolffe came from Kentisbury in neighbouring Devon and Dummere probably from Hampshire, but St. John (although descended from a Somerset family) came from the ranks of London’s merchant class, Legh, a native of Cheshire, owned land there and in Surrey, while Gibthorpe and Wythom shared the Lincolnshire origins of Taunton’s lord, Bishop Waynflete.

In spite of the loss of the records of the medieval borough, a little is known of the patterns of local office-holding, at least in so far as the portreeves (or bailiffs) of the town are concerned. Thus Bishop, Payn and Penvon had served as portreeves of Taunton prior to their first returns to the Commons, and Swenge took up the post while sitting in Parliament in 1429 (as a result, both of Taunton’s MPs in that year were serving or former chief officers of their town). In addition, several MPs at one time or another formed part of the delegation sent to the Somerset county court to communicate the burgesses’ choice of representatives to the sheriffs: Payn did so on at least five occasions, Marchaunt and Swenge four times, Portman twice, and Prescott and Rokes once each. Later in the century, when the sheriffs of Somerset sealed separate indentures with each of the boroughs in their bailiwick, Bishop was among those who set their seals to the sheriff’s copy.

If in some other boroughs merchants and artisans remained prominent among the parliamentary representatives until late in the period under review, in Taunton the ‘revolution in borough representation’ was largely complete even by the early years of Henry VI’s reign. Just three of Taunton’s MPs (Rokes, Swenge and Wythom), accounting between them for just four of the borough’s seats, are known to have had mercantile interests, and the last of them was an outsider who owed his return to his political connexions rather than his trading interests. By contrast, 13 seats were taken by the lawyers Galyet, Halsewell, Jacob, Legh, Plush, Portman and Prescott, and several more by members of the landed gentry like Gibthorpe, Hill and Wolffe.

It was perhaps in keeping with the electorate’s apparent concern for prior parliamentary experience, that several of the Taunton MPs of Henry VI’s reign could point to familial traditions of parliamentary service or established such traditions. Gosse, Hill, Marchaunt, Portman and Rokes had emulated their fathers by entering the Commons, and similarly Gosse’s son would later follow in his footsteps. Both of Hill’s grandfathers, Robert Hill† and John Stourton I*, had sat in Parliament, and he married the sister of Sir Walter Rodney* (alongside whom he sat in Parliament in 1447). Others acquired parliamentary antecedants by marriage: Jacob’s wife was a daughter of Robert Boson† and the grand-daughter of John Sydenham†, while Bishop married the widow of the former Taunton MP John Bowe†.

Nevertheless, local connexions were not the only factors taken into account in the choice of representatives. The successive incumbents of the see of Winchester under Henry VI, the King’s great-uncle Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, and William Waynflete, were key players in the politics of the age, respectively served as chancellors in 1424-6 and 1456-60, and at other times made their voices heard on the royal council. Both had an interest in having their supporters returned to the Commons, and were prepared to bring their influence to bear on the electorates of their boroughs. In the years before the death of Henry V, Beaufort’s cousin Thomas Chaucer, the constable of the castle at Taunton, had sometimes influenced or persuaded the community to choose servants or friends of his own. Thus, in 1410, when the townsmen were openly opposed to the bishop’s rule, the MPs returned were Thomas Bacot†, the bailiff of the liberty, accompanied by another of Chaucer’s associates; to Henry V’s first Parliament in May 1413 (during another of Beaufort’s terms as chancellor), Taunton returned Chaucer’s friend the Welsh vintner Lewis John*; and in 1420 and 1421 William Borde*, Chaucer’s subordinate as clerk of the castle was elected.17 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 595-6. Yet during the minority of Henry VI and until Beaufort’s death in 1447 there is little evidence to suggest that Beaufort or the constable of Taunton castle again dictated the choice of the borough’s representatives. Only in 1435, when Prescott, the bailiff of the bishop’s liberty in Somerset and Dorset was returned, is it likely that they did so. Matters changed noticeably when Bishop Waynflete took over. Of the eight men who filled Taunton’s seats in the six Parliaments for which returns survive between February 1449 and 1460, five (Bishop, Gibthorpe, Legh, Wolffe and Wythom) possessed close ties to the borough’s lord, and in the Parliaments of 1453, 1455 and 1460 both of Taunton’s MPs were his servants or associates. As already noted, Gibthorpe and Wythom shared Waynflete’s Lincolnshire origins; Bishop was keeper of the episcopal park at nearby Pounsford and later served as Waynflete’s porter of Taunton castle; Wolffe was keeper of the park of Marwell and his proximity to Waynflete is further attested by his return in 1459 for the bishop’s pocket borough of Downton in Wiltshire; and Legh, who also represented Dowton on three occasions under both Beaufort and Waynflete, was the latter’s bailiff of his lordships in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. In addition the indirect ties to the bishop illustrated by Plush’s connexion with the deputy constable of Taunton castle, Alexander Hody, may also point to influence over the elections. During Waynflete’s episcopate at least eight out of 12 seats were taken by his clients.

In view of the clse relationship between Waynflete and Henry VI, it is not surprising that some of this group (among them Gibthorpe and Wythom) were also members of the royal household, and before his return for Taunton Legh had served in a succession of offices there including that of marshal of the monarch’s hall. It is not surprising to find that such patronage of other lords as is discernble among Taunton’s MPs was also chiefly wielded by peers with ties to the Household. Thus, Hill and Halsewell were linked with Walter, Lord Hungerford†, its former steward, St. John was connected with the queen’s chamberlain, John Wenlock*, and Wythom was a client of the constable, John, Viscount Beaumont. Legh for many years maintained links with John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, serving as the ducal steward and parker at Weston by Baldock in Hertfordshire, and secured an appointment as marshal of the Exchequer as a reward from his master. Less clear is whether Richard, duke of York, was ever able to exert any influence over Taunton’s parliamentary representation, for at the time of the election of his later putative servant, Richard Gosse, he had not yet been granted livery of his estates, while the supposition that Dryffeld was also the duke’s retainer relies heavily on this otherwise obscure man’s earlier returns for the boroughs of Wareham and Bridgwater, where York had controlling patronage to dispense. There appears, nevertheless, to have been some irregularity over Dryffeld’s election in 1450, for on the schedule accompanying the sheriff’s indenture of that year Andrew Kebell* and William Plush had originally been named as the two Taunton Members, although even their names had been entered as an afterthought and in a different ink and hand. Subsequently, Kebell’s name was struck out and replaced by that of Dryffeld.18 C219/16/1. There is little doubt that Kebell, who is not otherwise known to have had any connexions with Taunton, owed his nomination to his place as an official at the Exchequer, but it is unclear who over-rode it.

There is little indication that tenure of office under the Crown carried much, if any, weight with the Taunton electorate. At the time of their first or only returns for the borough Halsewell, Legh and Wythom had served as customs officials in a variety of ports, and Halsewell, Jacob and Wythom had received appointments to ad hoc commissions. Legh and Wythom were currently serving as j.p.s (in Surrey and Lincolnshire, respectively) when elected, but perhaps more significant was Jacob’s recent service as under sheriff of Somerset, and as a junior officer to the sheriff at the time of his election. Like him, Bovy was part of the staff of the shire-house, but it is uncertain whether he was already so employed at the time of his return in 1433. Legh held a large number of posts when he was returned for Taunton in 1455: many of these were based in Wales or Ireland, but there were also some at Westminster, such as the joint chirographership of the common pleas, and he was stripped of several of these appointments shortly before the Parliament assembled. Similarly, Wolffe was appointed eschaetor of Devon and Cornwall in December 1453, during the recess of the Parliament of which he was a Member, and continued to serve in that capacity throughout its final session. He was, however, dismissed from his office as deputy butler at Bridgwater when representing Taunton for the second time in 1460.