Exeter

According to civic legend, Exeter, said to have been originally called ‘Penholtkeyre’, was ‘the most or one of the most auncion cite’ of England. The details of its supposed foundation were lost even by the later Middle Ages, but it was said to have been a walled city even before the birth of Christ. In the first century A.D., it was claimed, Exeter had been besieged by the Emperor Vespasian for a period of eight days, but had held out, causing the Emperor instead to turn his attention to Jerusalem. It is not certain whether even the native inhabitants of fifteenth-century Exeter believed in these proud origins, but the reaction of outsiders like Archbishop John Stafford and Bishop Edmund Lacy varied between amusement and incredulity.1 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, ii), 12, 75-76, 95, 105. Yet, the citizens might well have looked to supposed past glories to bolster their city’s status, for by comparison with many provincial towns Exeter was of only modest size, even if its pre-eminence within its own region was unquestionable. Smaller and of less commercial importance than the port of Bristol, the city nevertheless served as the seat of royal government in Devon, hosted the sessions of the justices of assize and of the peace, and in its splendid cathedral housed the episcopal see covering the south-western counties of Devon and Cornwall in their entirety. The cathedral aside, the city and its outskirts were also the home of a number of religious houses: the priories of St. Nicholas in the south-west of Exeter, St. James on the road south to Topsham and St. Andrew at Cowick; a nunnery at Polsloe; houses of Dominican and Franciscan friars; and the hospitals of St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalene (the leper house).2 Death and Memory ed. Lepine and Orme (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. n.s. xlvii), 7-12. To the traveller approaching the city from the south up the Exe estuary, the city’s Roman walls of red sandstone topped by the white limestone of the cathedral church of St. Peter presented a striking vista.

Although of less importance than the ports of Bristol, Southampton and Sandwich, Exeter enjoyed a degree of prosperity, arising from trade with its hinterland and dealings across the Channel through its port of Topsham on the Exe estuary. In the immediate term, the loss of the English possessions in France in the 1450s was disastrous for the city’s overseas trade, but recovery was rapid, and by the last quarter of the fifteenth century Exeter enjoyed levels of commercial activity far in excess of those at its beginning. Thus, in the last year of Henry VI’s reign merchants exported more than twice as many broadcloths through the ports of Exeter and Dartmouth as they had done in his first year.3 English Trade in 15th Cent. ed. Power and Postan, 338. The impression of a comfortable prosperity is marred only by the evidence of strain on the city’s corporate finances which on more than one occasion forced the authorities to rely on loans from individual members of the civic hierarchy; and in 1436 the city was awarded a rebate of £6 13s. 4d. on the sum due for a parliamentary tenth.4 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 349; Exeter receivers’ accts. 1-39 Hen. VI.

Later medieval Exeter was governed by a hierarchy of local officers headed by a mayor, receiver and two stewards (by the mid-fifteenth century referred to as bailiffs), who were elected annually on the first Monday after Michaelmas by an electoral college of 36 freemen. A second, smaller, college of 12 elected the city’s lesser officials, including the gatekeepers and aldermen. Alongside the mayor and bailiffs, the senior electoral college also chose a council of 12, which in 1435 was augmented by the election of a further 12 men ‘pro communitate’, an experiment that for reasons that remain obscure was discontinued three years later,5 B. Wilkinson, Med. Council of Exeter (Hist. Exeter Research Group Mono. iv), 1-6; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 350. only to be revived in 1450. On this occasion, the first set of 12 was described as having been elected ‘per eleccionem predictam secundum consuetudinem’, that is by the electoral college of 36 leading citizens who also chose the mayor and senior officers. The second 12, by contrast, were said to have been elected ‘per communitatem pro commmunitate’. The distinction between the two groups of 12 was maintained until 1454, when they were respectively recorded as ‘xij de magnatis de communi consilio dicte civitatis’ and ‘xij pro communitate ut de consilio dicte civitatis’. After that date all 24 were elected by the senior panel of 36 electors, so that from the autumn of 1455 the city records no longer drew any distinction between the two groups of 12.6 Exeter mayor’s ct. rolls 29-30 Hen. VI, rot. 1d; 33-34 Hen. VI, rot. 1d; Wilkinson, 7.

The reign of Henry VI was a troubled period in Exeter’s history. Central to the troubles was an ongoing rivalry between the citizens and the ecclesiastical authorities over the city’s jurisdiction within the chapter fee of St. Sidwell and the episcopal fee of St. Stephen. A settlement brokered by the King’s justices in 1416 had collapsed by 1428-9, when the citizens called upon the joint stewards of the young earl of Devon, John Copplestone* and Nicholas Radford*, to treat with the cathedral chapter on their behalf, but their efforts and those of John Mules* at an arbitration in 1433 also came to nothing.7 Exeter receivers’ accts. 7-8, 9-10 Hen. VI; M.E. Curtis, City v. Cathedral Authorities (Hist. Exeter Research Group Mono. v), 20-21. In May 1434 a powerful royal commission was appointed to investigate infringements of the chapter’s jurisdiction in St. Sidwell’s fee by the citizens, but the broader issue of this jurisdiction and its extent continued to be disputed, and it was not until October 1436 that the city authorities sealed formal bonds obliging them to abide by Copplestone’s award.8 Curtis, 23. It was probably as a consequence of this arbitration that the boundaries and extent of the chapter’s liberty were enshrined in an act of Parliament the following spring.9 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 146-7; J. Hooker, Descripcion Excester (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1947), 174-81; PROME, xi. 235. Yet it was not long before fresh disagreements arose. The focus of the dispute now moved to the episcopal liberty within the city walls, which had not been included in the settlement of 1437. Among the questions which the act of that year had left open was that of the city’s right to levy tolls on merchants who during fair-time set up their stalls within the precincts of the cathedral itself, and this issue was once more revived in the 1440s. It was, however, just one issue in a far more wide-reaching quarrel over the extent, if any, of the citizens’ powers within the cathedral precincts and the bishop’s fee. If the city authorities’ complaints are to be believed, they faced serious difficulties in maintaining order even within their own walls, since the divided jurisdiction allowed troublemakers to attempt to escape the secular arm by taking shelter in the bishop’s liberty, with the collusion of the dean and chapter.10 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford, 83-84. In the early years of Henry VI’s reign, the citizens had periodically arrested men in the cathedral churchyard and even the cathedral itself. By the end of 1444 citizens and bishop had taken their quarrel to the courts at Westminster, and the matter was brought to a head by an incident during the Ascension Day celebrations of 1445, when John Vouslegh, a servant of the cathedral’s chancellor, John Snetesham, was arrested by one of the city’s serjeants-at-mace, ostensibly in response to Vouslegh’s disrespectful behaviour towards the mayor, John Shillingford, during the civic procession.11 Ibid. p. xv; C260/148/3; CP40/750, rot. 434. The heightened tensions created by this incident were further exacerbated in subsequent days by the attempted arrest in the cathedral itself of Hugh Lucas, one of the bishop’s tenants, and the violent retaliation of the church’s servants who in their attack on the civic officers damaged the mace symbolizing the authority of Richard Druell, one of the city stewards. Alongside these major clashes, there were a multitude of minor annoyances, such as the noise made at night-time by some of the junior inhabitants of the close when frequenting the near-by ale house known as ‘Beaufitz’s tavern’, disturbing the sleep of its neighbours, including the former mayor William Upton, and the habit of the younger people of the city of using the cathedral cloister to play ‘unlawfull games as the toppe, queke, penny prykke and most atte tenys’, in the process soiling the walls and breaking the glass windows.12 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford, 91, 101.

Within months of Vouslegh’s arrest, Bishop Lacy seized the initiative and had the privileges that he claimed for his liberty enshrined in a charter and royal letters patent, which were respectively granted on 15 Nov. 1445 and 14 July 1446. Under their terms, St. Stephen’s fee was placed completely out of bounds to any of the city’s officers, and the bishop himself assumed a jurisdiction similar to that exercised by the mayor elsewhere in Exeter.13 Curtis, 25; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 451-2. The city’s defence was led personally by the mayor, the energetic John Shillingford, who spent much of the autumn of 1447 in London using his powers of persuasion in lobbying the chancellor, Archbishop Stafford, Chief Justice Fortescue* and a succession of great lords, whom he liberally plied with gifts of fish and wine.14 Exeter receivers’ accts. 25-27 Hen. VI. Both sides employed some of the leading lawyers of their day, including William Hyndeston and John Wolston* (‘a greet barre’, as Shillingford noted admiringly) for the bishop’s part,15 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford, 12, 19. and the city recorder, Nicholas Radford, and attorney, Henry Brock*, as well as William Boef*, Alexander Hody* and Thomas Dowrich for the citizens.16 Exeter receivers’ accts. 24-27 Hen. VI. The dispute ground on through much of 1448, and was eventually submitted to the arbitration of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, Sir William Bonville* and (Sir) Philip Courtenay*, who made their award on 12 Dec. The privileges of the bishop’s liberty were confirmed, but the boundaries of the liberty within the bishop’s fee were reduced to the ancient boundaries of the churchyard and the bishop’s tenants were judged to be liable for taxation, murage and nightwatch duties, like other citizens. The right of the city officers to bear their maces within the bishop’s fee was confirmed.17 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford, 70-71, 136-41; Curtis, 29-30.

Hardly had the city emerged from this period of sustained conflict when it became engulfed in the wider unrest brought about by the increasingly acrimonious feud between the earl of Devon and his local rival Sir William Bonville (elevated as Lord Bonville in 1449). During Courtenay’s protracted minority, the political vacuum left in the south-west by the absence of an adult earl had been filled by a group of local landowners focused around Sir Walter Hungerford† (from 1426 Lord Hungerford), a leading member of the King’s Council and treasurer of England from 1426 to 1432, and represented in Devon by Bonville and Hungerford’s son-in-law, the young earl’s cousin (Sir) Philip Courtenay.18 M. Cherry, ‘Struggle for Power’, in Patronage, Crown and Provinces ed. Griffiths, 125. In the second half of the 1430s the earl began to assert his authority and it was not long before he came into open conflict with his rivals, a conflict which erupted into violence in the atmosphere of heightened political tension that followed the loss of Normandy and Jack Cade’s rebellion. In 1451 the earl rallied his retainers and marched into Somerset to confront his enemies, and these manoeuvres may have been connected with an incident in the streets of Exeter, in the course of which a citizen was injured by a yeoman of the Crown, and a group of brawling soldiers had to be bought off with gifts of wine. The citizens were sufficiently concerned to survey their walls to ensure that the city could be defended.19 Ibid. 124-31; Exeter receiver’s acct. 29-30 Hen. VI, m. 2.

The participation of the earl of Devon’s army in the duke of York’s rebellious march to Dartford early in 1452 and his subsequent imprisonment meant that Exeter’s defences were not yet put to the test, but by the spring of 1454 the earl was once more at liberty, and with the King incapacitated and York temporarily in the ascendant he was free to resume his assault on Lord Bonville. On 30 Apr. the earl’s sons entered Exeter with an armed force to prevent Bonville from executing a government commission to raise a loan; on the feast of Corpus Christi (20 June) his retainers attacked the mayor, John Germyn, and two days later they seized control of the gates, took the keys from their keepers, and mockingly took charge of the government of the city, imposing fines on a number of men, including the common clerk, William Speare.20 KB27/778, rex rot. 4; 787, rex rot. 4 (i); H. Kleineke, ‘Exeter in the Wars of the Roses’, in The Fifteenth Cent. VII ed. Clark, 143. As the earl’s men set about pillaging the property of Bonville’s adherents across the region, and as the rivalries between magnates on a wider stage found their outlet in the battle of St. Albans in May 1455, the citizens of Exeter regained control of their city. From the beginning of October, however, the earl’s servants began to disrupt local government once more: on 6 Oct. they prevented the routine sessions of the peace at Exeter by making it known in the streets that they were prepared to kill Bonville should he make an appearance.21 KB27/787, rex rot. 4 (ii). On 23 Oct., the earl’s sons brutally murdered the city’s recorder, Nicholas Radford, at Upcott,22 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 169-70; G.H. Radford, ‘Nicholas Radford’, Trans. Devon Assoc. xxxv. 251-78; R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 167-9. and just ten days later the earl himself occupied Exeter with a force of more than 1,000 men. All who sought to pass through the gates were questioned as to their destination and business, and whose retainers or tenants they were; the town houses of Lords Bonville and Fitzwaryn were ransacked, and the senior members of the cathedral chapter were forced to surrender the property of the murdered recorder which they had in their keeping, as well as to pay protection money to save their church from harm. The inhabitants of Exeter were left helpless in the face of such flagrant strong-arm tactics. The mayor’s lieutenant, Walter Pope, ordered wine to be sent to the earl’s men guarding the gates. Meanwhile, however, the earl was failing in his principal objective of getting the better of Bonville and his associates. From 3 Nov. his men laid siege to Bonville’s principal ally, Sir Philip Courtenay, in his castle at Powderham on the Exe estuary,23 Exeter receiver’s acct. 34-35 Hen. VI; Storey, 169-71; Kleineke, 143, 147. and although an attempt by Bonville to raise the siege was beaten off on 19 Nov., it became apparent that the comital forces occupying Exeter would need to be brought into the attack. Having secured the means to pay his men from the cathedral revenues, the earl sought to bring the citizens to heel, summoned Mayor Germyn and the city council into his presence, and began to harangue them. According to the report of the encounter recorded on the mayor’s court roll he told them

that they knawed well that he was a gentill man and a lord born dwelling yn þis contrey here negh by, and so his antecessours be fore hym and also how þat his enemy lord Bonevyll was negh to þis cite wyth grete multitude of puple, yn cas þat he my seid lord of Devon wold remove out of þis cite, how sone he wold or how late, his wyst not what ordynance þe mayer and his feloship wold make as for kepynge of þe cite and kepynge out of his seid enemy out fro entrynge yn to this cite yn cas þat he wold entre at suche tyme as my seid lord of Devonshire wold remove fro þis cite, seyyng furthermore þat in cas þat his seid enemy didde entre yn suche wyse, yet most he my seid lord of Devon come yn to þis cite and wold entre and make suche a brusshe atte taill of his seid enemy, that perchaunce wold turne to litell ayse, aswell to the cite as to his seid enemy.

Germyn mustered all his courage and answered evasively,

þat þeire were and beth þe Kynges tenauntes and þis þe Kynges cite, þey under the Kynge having þe governaunce of þe same, prayng my seid lord of Devon to pardon ham as for kepynge out of eny lord out fro þis cite, and þat hit was not yn þeire power so to do, wherfor þat hit might like his lordship to pardon ham and to have ham askused as of þat.24 Exeter mayor’s ct. roll 34-35 Hen. VI, rot. 8d; Kleineke, 155.

It is a measure of the urgency with which the earl sought to deal with Sir Philip Courtenay that he did not apparently try to put any more pressure on the citizens at this time, but withdrew his forces southwards along the estuary to join the siege of Powderham. The mayor lost little time in arraying what armed men he could muster within the city, but Exeter had not seen the last of Earl Thomas. After failing in a final attempt to batter Powderham into submission with his artillery, he abandoned the siege and (to the undoubted horror of the citizens) returned to Exeter to prepare a direct assault on Bonville. For a further three weeks his ‘grete multitude of puple iakked and saletted and harnayssed’ populated the streets of the city, while their lord traded insults and challenges with Bonville. On 15 Dec. the earl and his force rode out to confront Bonville’s men on Clyst Heath, and drove them to flight, before returning to Exeter in triumph.25 John Vale’s Bk. ed. Kekewich et al., 262-3. On the earl’s return, the mayor caused the city to be illuminated and sent him a gift of wine, but his army remained encamped in Exeter for a further six days, before the earl finally withdrew to his castle at Tiverton, leaving only the wounded behind. The approach of the newly re-appointed Protector, the duke of York, and the arrest and temporary imprisonment of both Bonville and the earl of Devon finally brought an end to the citizens’ immediate troubles.26 PROME, xii. 349-50; John Benet’s Chron. (Cam. Miscellany xxiv), 216; E28/87/22; Storey, 172-3.

Now, however, the citizens, freed from the need to unite against external opponents began to squabble among themselves. They had, indeed, begun to do so even while the earl’s force was occupying the city, and it is possible that the changes to the composition and mode of election of the council in 1454-5 was a direct consequence of recent events. The lesser inhabitants of the city were restless. The murder of Radford necessitated the appointment of a new recorder, and on 20 Dec. 1455 a delegation of ‘puple of þe cite and oþer’ appeared at the guildhall to demand an election. Informed that John More of Columpton had already been chosen by the mayor and council of 24, ‘þe puple of þe cite and oþer seid þt he shold be chosen by alle þe comyns of þe cite and also þey refused to have þe seid John More for þer recorder. So som helde on opiniyon som helde anoþer. So atte laste hit what thoght þt hyt wer ayenst lawe and reson to putte hym out of recordership wtout answere of hym wher he wolde take hit apon hym or not.’ It was consequently decided that two representatives of the city should seek out More at his house, but since one of them refused to ride while the countryside was in upheaval, the matter remained unsettled, and More apparently officiated as recorder for the remainder of the reign.27 Exeter mayor’s ct. roll 34-35 Hen. VI, rot. 8d.

Not long after, Exeter’s cordwainers and the city’s weavers and tuckers openly quarrelled over their respective guilds’ pre-eminence. The question that brought this dispute to a head was which craft should have precedence in the mayor’s procession on Midsummer night. There were evidently violent clashes between the members of the two trades, before on 16 Apr. 1459 Mayor Richard Druell reached the Solomonic verdict that henceforth both crafts were to walk side by side in civic processions, and that the extra members of the larger craft would walk two by two ahead of their fellows.28 J. Youings, Tucker’s Hall Exeter, 9. It was as well that the citizens should put their house in order, for the kingdom was rapidly descending into open civil war. From the late spring of 1459 Exeter was subject to repeated royal requests for armed men, which were initially backed up by personal visits from the new earl of Devon, the son of the city’s scourge.29 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 817; Exeter receiver’s acct. 38-39 Hen. VI, m. 1d. Nor did the Yorkist victory at Northampton in July 1460 offer any respite, for the defeated earl returned to the south-west bring with him the duke of Somerset, while the regional partisans of the victors for their part demanded armed men, forcing the cash-strapped citizens to sell some of the community’s property to raise the necessary funds.30 Exeter receiver’s acct. 39 Hen. VI-1 Edw. IV; mayor’s ct. roll 39 Hen. VI-1 Edw. IV, rot. 18d.

The citizens once more had to see to their own defences. Exeter’s walls and gates were repaired and strengthened, and men hired specially to keep armed guard by day and night. At the guildhall a permanent headquarters was set up and kept manned by candlelight, gunners were brought in from Exmouth, and the recorder and the prominent local lawyer Thomas Dowrich were summoned to advise the council about measures necessary for the safe-keeping of the city.31 Exeter receiver’s acct. 38-39 Hen. VI, mm. 1d, 2.

In spite of Exeter’s extensive civic records, little is known of the conduct of the city’s parliamentary elections. Throughout the reign of Henry VI, the sheriffs of Devon recorded the names of the representatives of the urban constituencies in their county in the indentures which certified the election of the knights of the shire, as well as in an accompanying schedule. While the county court which elected the knights met in the Norman castle of Rougemont within the walls of Exeter, the city’s own MPs appear to have been chosen elsewhere, in a separate assembly. No records of such an election have survived, however, and it is thus impossible to determine the extent of the franchise or electoral procedure, although it seems not unlikely that the choice was made by an electoral college similar to that which chose the city’s council and senior officers. The outcome was not in every instance uncontested. While there is no indication that Exeter’s parliamentary elections in the reign of Henry VI were as controversial as those of the sixteenth century, when at times as many as seven candidates fought for seats, there is at least a hint of a contest in the sheriff’s return for the Parliament of 1432. While the election indenture, sealed on 15 Apr., named the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer Adam Somaster* as one of the city’s MPs, the schedule replaced his name with that of John Symon, a minor city officer. Unlike his apparent rival, Symon was part of the narrow ruling elite of Exeter, and it was he who eventually rode to Westminster and was paid for attendance in the Commons.32 H. Kleineke, ‘Widening Gap’, in Parchment and People ed. Clark (Parlty. Hist. xxiii), 129. Other considerations prevailed in 1447. In that year, the sheriff’s return was apparently altered to allow one of the elected MPs (probably the serving mayor John Shillingford who was greatly preoccupied with the citizens’ dispute with the cathedral authorities) to be replaced by a man who lived closer to Bury St. Edmunds, where Parliament was scheduled to meet, namely the Essex esquire John Poyntz. If the greater citizens of Exeter were normally protective of their franchise, their choice of representatives was nevertheless informed by a range of considerations.

The names of Exeter’s representatives are known for all the Parliaments summoned between 1422 and 1460, although the identification of Thomas Holland as one of the city’s MPs in 1445 is based on circumstantial evidence. Twenty-seven men divided these 44 seats between them, but just over half this number only represented the city once. Five (Dowrich, Netherton, Pope, Tylerd and Vessy) sat for Exeter in two Parliaments each and two others (Salter and Shillingford) in three. More impressive were the parliamentary careers of Calwodlegh and Holland, who were returned for Exeter four times, Thomas Cook and Cutler alias Carwithan, who each achieved five returns, and John Shaplegh, who was MP for Exeter on no fewer than eight separate occasions between April 1414 and 1427, securing direct re-election three times (in 1419, 1420 and 1427). In addition, William Hyndeston and Thomas Calwodlegh were more familiar faces among the ranks of the parliamentary Commons than their record as Members for Exeter indicates, for both served in a total of six Parliaments, Calwodlegh doing so for Totnes in 1449 (Nov.) and 1450, and Hyndeston as knight of the shire for Devon from 1445 to 1450. Like him, Dowrich and Henry Hull also went on to serve as shire knights, respectively for Devon and Somerset, later in life.

The pattern of Exeter’s representation in the 1420s and 1430s largely mirrored that of the reigns of Richard II and the first two Lancastrians. Then, the citizens had frequently chosen men with prior experience of the Commons, and the return of two complete novices is documented in just one of Richard’s, two of Henry V’s and three of Henry IV’s Parliaments. Similarly, in every one of Henry VI’s Parliaments from 1422 to 1442 at least one Exeter Member had previously sat in the Commons, and in 1426, 1433 and 1437 both of the city’s representatives were so qualified. On two occasions, in 1427 and 1437, one of the MPs was directly re-elected. Furthermore, the Members during Henry VI’s minority were normally chosen not merely from the ranks of the city’s ruling elite, but from its upper echelons. Thus, of the 22 seats available between 1422 and 1437, six were filled by men who had previously held the mayoralty of Exeter, eight by former receivers or stewards, and a further one by a man who had at least served on the city council. Indeed, 14 of the seats in question were filled by serving members of the council, while Thomas Cook was a councilman at the time of his election in 1435, but assumed the mayoralty before Parliament assembled.

From 1439, the pattern of Exeter’s representation began to change, beyond doubt as a consequence of the growing assertiveness of the earl of Devon, who had been declared of age in 1435, and subsequently of the ambitions of Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, who began to participate in regional politics in 1450. Just eight (or nine, if Thomas Holland sat in 1445) of Exeter’s 22 seats in the period from 1439 to 1460 were filled by men with prior parliamentary experience; only three times was someone directly re-elected; and in 1447 and 1453 (and probably also in 1445) two complete novices were returned. Moreover, while the leading citizens were usually still able to claim one of the city’s seats in each Parliament for themselves (between 1439 and 1460 two seats were taken by the former mayor Thomas Cook – who in 1442 became the only one of Exeter’s mayors to return himself – and seven by former stewards or receivers), it is clear that outside influences were now at play, for alongside a leading citizen Exeter now routinely returned men of little standing in the civic hierarchy, but who had close connexions with one or other of the dominant magnates of the region. Among those returned by the city between 1439 and 1460 were Thomas Holland, the earl of Devon’s retainer, William Hyndeston, one of his legal counsellors, and Thomas Dowrich, an associate of his cousin Sir Hugh Courtenay*; while the duke of Exeter’s servants Thomas Calwodlegh, David John and Hugh Payn all took seats in the 1450s. The control exercised by the two lords over the city’s elections was at its most pronounced in late 1449 and 1450, when none of the MPs were drawn from the civic elite, and the citizens even went to the extent of sending messengers to consult the earl and the duke over their choice of parliamentary representatives. To the Parliament of 1449-50 they returned two of the earl’s men, and for the next Parliament they selected a supporter of each magnate.33 Exeter receiver’s acct. 29-30 Hen. VI, m. 2.

It may be the case that the citizens sought to preserve at least a semblance of independence by insisting that such outsiders should be at least formally qualified for election by being admitted to the freedom of the city. Nevertheless, the seigneurial retainers Thomas Dowrich, Hugh Payn and David John, as well as the complete outsider Poyntz, were not freemen of Exeter when they took their seats in Parliament, and in John’s case this defect was only remedied after the dissolution of his Parliament of 1453-4.

Despite the closed nature of the Exeter franchise, the ‘revolution in borough representation’ that saw the merchant class increasingly displaced by lawyers in the ranks of the Commons was making inroads even here. Whereas over half the MPs returned by the city between 1386 and 1421 had been merchants, just ten of the 27 who sat in Henry VI’s reign are known to have made a living from trade. At least four (Attwyll, Thomas Cook, John Hull and Symon) were general merchants, John Cook was a draper, Roger Shaplegh a cloth merchant, and Vessy a chapman or fishmonger, while the city’s artisans were represented among its MPs by the tailor Hammond, the skinner Pope and the saddler Salter. By contrast, at least eight MPs were professional men of law. The most prominent among them was Hyndeston, who represented Exeter at the very beginning of his career, but within a few years rose to become a serjeant-at-law. Like him, Thomas Dowrich, later a recorder of Exeter, and Thomas Calwodlegh, steward and legal counsellor to several south-western lords, served on the Devon county bench as members of the quorum. The lesser ranks of the profession were represented by John Shaplegh, an apprentice-at-law, John Bolter, a county coroner, and John Cutler alias Carwithan and John Netherton who both served as under sheriffs of Devon. More unusual was Hugh Payn, a civil lawyer who presided over the court of admiralty and owed his return to the Commons to the duke of Exeter’s patronage. It is not clear whether John Shillingford and Richard Druell, who skilfully conducted the city’s case against Bishop Lacy and the cathedral chapter through the royal courts at Westminster, had any formal legal training.

A similar change is also evident with regard to the officers of the Exeter staple, who were elected locally but had to have their appointments formally confirmed in Chancery. By the fifteenth century, the ‘merchants’ of the staple included not only local gentry, like Richard Holland* of Bowhill, but even regular clergy like the prior of Cowick.34 CP40/677, rot. 329. Nevertheless, the mayor and constables of the staple continued to be drawn from the ranks of the civic elite, and just under half of Exeter’s MPs in the reign of Henry VI held a staple office at some point in their careers. Seven (Beaufitz, Druell, John, Netherton, Pope, Salter and John Shaplegh) served as constables, and a further six (John and Thomas Cook, Cutler alias Carwithan, John Hull, Shillingford and Vessy) went on to serve as mayors of the staple. Compared with the period 1386-1421, it was quite unusual for a serving officer of the staple to be returned to Parliament, and after 1433 this did not happen again until Netherton was elected to the abortive Parliament of 1469. In 1425, 1429 and 1433 John Cutler alias Carwithan was elected to the Commons while serving as mayor of the staple; in 1426 one of the constables (Salter) was elected; and in 1431 both the mayor (Shillingford) and a constable (Beaufitz) travelled to Westminster. While sitting in the Commons in 1422 John Cook was appointed mayor of the staple while at the same time his colleague, Vessy, was released from the office of one of the constables.

Although two thirds of Exeter’s MPs in the period 1422-60 held office under the Crown, in a majority of cases such appointments remained limited both in number and regional scope. Thus, Thomas Cook, Druell and Poyntz each received just a single royal commission, as did Cutler alias Carwithan, and Thomas Holland was a tax collector on one occasion, while John Hull was twice ordered to investigate acts of piracy. Both Cutler and Netherton served terms as under sheriff of Devon, the latter being appointed feodary of the duchy of Lancaster in the county while still holding this post, and Bolter held office as one of the county coroners for many years. More extensive were the careers under the Crown of the prominent lawyers Calwodlegh, Dowrich and Hyndeston, who were all included in a range of royal commissions across southern England, and sat on the county bench. Calwodlegh in addition twice served as escheator of Devon and Cornwall and as feodary of the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster in the south-west. Similarly, Hugh Payn successively served John and Henry Holand, dukes of Exeter, as their commissary general in the court of admiralty, and on account of his association with Duke Henry was granted the stewardship of the Welsh estates forfeited by the Yorkist lords in early 1460. Henry Hull’s marriage into the Somerset gentry led to appointments as a commissioner and j.p. in that shire appropriate to his new status as a landed gentleman.

There is no obvious connexion between tenure of Crown office and election to Parliament for Exeter, except with regard to customs offices in the city’s port. Thus, Beaufitz had been controller of customs at Exeter and Dartmouth for four years prior to his election to the Parliament of 1431; David John had served as searcher in the same ports for a year before his return in 1453; and before first being elected to Parliament, in 1455, Attwyll accumulated 15 years’ experience as searcher both in Exeter and Dartmouth and further west in the district of Plymouth and Fowey. Conversely, Vessy was only appointed as a customs collector some months after the dissolution of his final Parliament of 1422; and John Ash, a yeoman of the Crown appointed as controller of tunnage and poundage at Plymouth and Fowey in April 1460, was dismissed from office by the victors of the battle of Northampton before the Commons assembled.

Since 1413 it had been a statutory requirement for parliamentary citizens and burgesses to be resident in the constituencies that they represented, but Exeter stood out among the boroughs of the south-west in that the vast majority of its representatives in the reign of Henry VI actually fulfilled this condition. Twenty-one out of Exeter’s 27 MPs in the period resided in the city at least from time to time, and a further two lived in its suburbs (Thomas Holland at Cowick and Henry Hull at Larkbeare in St. Leonard). The future recorder Thomas Dowrich lived at Dowrich in Sandford, while his fellow lawyer William Hyndeston came from Wonwell in the south-west of the county. The only complete outsiders among Exeter’s MPs were the canon lawyer Hugh Payn who normally resided in London, and the Essex esquire John Poyntz.

It was in keeping with the closed ranks of the tightly-knit ruling elite that from time to time certain families dominated the city’s parliamentary representation. Thus, John Shillingford’s kinsman Roger† preceded him in Parliament, Henry Hull and John Attwyll† followed their fathers John Hull and William Attwyll into the Commons, another combination of father and son, John and Thomas Cook, occupied one of Exeter’s seats in six Parliaments between 1417 and 1442, while John Shaplegh, his father John† and his uncle Roger took a total of ten seats in nine Parliaments between 1410 and 1427 (the younger John and Roger being returned together on the last occasion). Some of the MPs whose fathers did not themselves represent Exeter could nevertheless point to family traditions of parliamentary service gained elsewhere: John Ash’s father had been a burgess for Totnes in 1420 before serving as a knight of the shire for Middlesex in the 1430s, Thomas Dowrich’s father had sat for the earl of Devon’s borough of Plympton Erle in 1427, and Thomas Holland’s uncle Richard represented Devon in 1431.

Ties within the mercantile oligarchy aside, it was one of the peculiarities of the Exeter cathedral chapter that all prebendaries received an equal share of the cathedral’s common funds, and that the receipt of this payment was contingent upon the canon’s residence at the cathedral. The Exeter prebends thus held little attraction for absentee pluralists, and were often filled by men from local families. In a period of serious and concerted discord between city and cathedral authorities, it is all the more interesting to note the close ties of kinship between the two warring factions. Thus, John Bolter was a nephew of Roger Bolter, the cathedral’s precentor, while Richard Druell was related in the same degree to Master John Druell, the archdeacon of Exeter and a central player in the conflict between the city and the cathedral.

If at the beginning of Henry VI’s reign the citizens were able to weigh up the relative merits, experience and connexions of any given parliamentary candidate, it seems that as the reign progressed economic considerations increasingly came to the fore in the choice of the city’s MPs. By the 1450s Exeter’s common funds from which the MPs’ wages were customarily paid were stretched to the limits, periodically forcing the city receivers to make advances out of their own pockets to meet communal expenditure.35 Exeter receivers’ accts. 34-36 Hen. VI. In the light of such financial difficulties, it is not surprising that the citizens had long abandoned the rates of pay customarily prescribed for parliamentary representatives. In 1414, when the writs de expensis were last recorded on the close roll, the Exeter authorities were instructed to pay their MPs at the customary rate of 2s. per day, making allowance for five days’ travel to and from Westminster, but two years later, for the Parliament of 1416 (Mar.), Exeter’s MPs were explicitly paid just 1s. 4d. per day. This may have been the normal rate paid during most of the 1420s, but in addition it seems to have become increasingly common practice for one of the MPs to be paid less than his more senior colleague, and – perhaps – to have returned home early. This emulated a common practice in the Cinque Ports of Kent and Sussex where the premature departure of one or other of a Port’s MPs served to alleviate the financial burden on the community they represented.36 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 752, 761; White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 18. Thus, in 1423 John Salter was paid £8 3s., while his colleague, John Shaplegh, who received only £5, may have either had to settle for a lesser rate or attended only part of the Parliament.37 Exeter receiver’s acct. 2-3 Hen. VI, m. 2. On subsequent occasions the city receiver’s practice of recording only the total sum paid to the two Members together obscures what each individual received,38 In 1427 John and Roger Shaplegh shared £11 13s. 4d., and in 1429 a total of £16 19s. 6d. was paid to John Cutler alias Carwithan and Walter Pope: Exeter receivers’ accts. 6-7 Hen. VI, m. 2; 8-9 Hen. VI, m. 1d. but in 1431 John Shillingford was explicitly said to have been paid at the rate of 2s. per day, while his colleague John Beaufitz had to be contented with just 6s. per week.39 Ibid. 9-10 Hen. VI, m. 1d. The exception during the 1420s was the Leicester Parliament of 1426, for which the two MPs were each paid at the higher rate of 2s. per day for both sessions, as well as for a total of 24 days’ spent travelling.40 Ibid. 4-5 Hen. VI, m. 2.

By the end of the 1430s, Exeter had abandoned the practice of paying its MPs a daily wage, opting instead to conclude written agreements, which obliged them to serve in Parliament for a nominal payment unrelated to the duration of the assembly. The size of this payment varied. Thus, in 1439 Henry Hull was paid 53s. 4d., while his colleague, the experienced parliamentarian Thomas Cook, was prepared to accept 40s.41 Ibid. 18-19 Hen. VI, m. 2d. In 1442 Cook and his colleague, the prominent lawyer William Hyndeston, received just 40s. between them, and three years later John Tylerd alone was paid that sum.42 Ibid. 20-21 Hen. VI, m. 2d; 25-26 Hen. VI, dorse. No payment to either Richard Druell or his colleague is recorded for the Parliament of 1447, although the city’s receiver hired a horse and a servant for Druell’s journey to Bury St. Edmunds at a total cost of 18s. 4d.43 Ibid. 26-27 Hen. VI, m. 3. For much of the 1450s the standard sum received by each of MPs was 26s. 8d., although in 1453 John Hammond was allowed 60s., and in 1459 and 1460 three of the MPs had to be content with just 20s. each.44 Ibid. 27-30, 34-35, 36-37, 38 Hen. VI-1 Edw. IV. To prevent its MPs from seeking wages at the customary rate of 2s. per day by pleading a writ de expensis, the city forced them to produce sureties in the mayor’s court, and recorded the agreements on its court roll.45 Exeter mayor’s ct. roll 33-34 Hen. VI, rot. 36d.