Wells

Among the largest towns of Somerset, Wells probably had some 1,350 inhabitants at the time of Richard II’s accession. It owed much of its importance to its status as the principal cathedral city of the double see of Bath and Wells, originally acquired in the early tenth century when the diocese of Sherborne was subdivided. The city’s ecclesiastical pre-eminence was temporarily lost in 1090 when Bishop John de Villula transferred his throne to Bath, but restored in the mid thirteenth century and secured by a papal ruling of 1245 which decreed that the Somerset see should henceforth be known as ‘Bath and Wells’. Successive 12th-century bishops granted the burgesses a series of privileges, including three annual fairs and the right to hold a court to settle internal disputes, which were confirmed by King’s John’s charter in 1201. Although this royal patent designated Wells a ‘liber burgus’, its episcopal overlords continued to assert their rights. The bishops reserved to themselves the power to try cases of manslaughter and default of justice, as well as the return of all writs. It was the city’s growing prosperity, based in no small measure on the local manufacture of cloth, that from the early fourteenth century increasingly gave the citizens the courage to assert their independence from their feudal overlord. In the reign of Edward II they acquired a communal seal, and within a few years they were selecting their own chief officer, known initially as ‘steward of the guild’, to rival the bishop’s bailiff. In 1341 Edward III’s need for money to finance his French wars allowed the citizens to purchase a charter of incorporation for the substantial sum of £40. This grant rode roughshod over the bishops’ rights, allowing the citizens not only freedom from tolls throughout England but also wide-ranging powers to elect a mayor and bailiffs, constables of the peace and coroners, the return of royal writs, the right to try disputes over property within Wells, and a licence to fortify and crenellate the city. The bishop, Ralph of Shrewsbury, vigorously contested this royal grant, and succeeded in having the charter cancelled by demonstrating that the King’s own financial interests were at stake in the event of a vacancy of the bishopric.4 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 598-9; Brit. Bor. Chs. 1307-1660 ed. Weinbaum, 104; SC8/151/7517; convocation act bk. 1450-1553, pp. 84-86. In 1342-3 the conflict between bishop and citizens found its outlet in open rioting in the streets of Wells, but at least in the short term the bishop retained the upper hand: Richard II and Henry IV conceded little more than confirmations of King John’s charter, and in 1424 the infant Henry VI’s council merely confirmed Henry IV’s inspeximus of 1399.

Although after the 1340s relations with the bishop and his bailiff were generally harmonious, in June 1437 Richard Mayne, then serving as Bishop Stafford’s bailiff in Wells, was attacked by a mob of some 40 inhabitants.5 KB9/230B/228, 234. More commonly, the citizens asserted their independence by peaceful means, in many respects simply ignoring the bishop’s rights. During long periods in the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV they were undoubtedly assisted in this by the preoccupation of successive bishops with the affairs of state: John Stafford, preferred to Bath and Wells in 1424, was appointed chancellor of England in 1432 and retained control of the great seal for 18 years, beyond his translation to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1443. His successor Thomas Bekynton had been Henry VI’s secretary since 1437 and at the time of his consecation had recently been entrusted with the privy seal. Robert Stillington, who succeeded Bekynton in 1465, had received the privy seal in 1460, when only archdeacon of Wells, and retained it for two years after his elevation to the bishopric, in 1467 exchanging it for the great seal, which he held until 1473. It was thus left to the energetic Richard Fox (whom high office did not distract from the assertion of his claims) to protest in 1493 that his privileges in Wells were being regularly and continuously infringed upon, while the citizens by this date could claim (not without some justification) that their usages had long remained unchallenged.

Among the prerogatives so disputed was the creation of new burgesses, which Fox claimed for his own, while the citizens asserted tthat they had regulated the admission of new men to their ranks without interference for some three centuries. There were four routes of entry to the freedom of Wells: patrimony, redemption, marriage to the widow or daughter of a burgess, and later (from 1466) apprenticeship.6 Convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 58. The mid 1420s saw some debate whether the illegitimate offspring of a citizen and their husbands qualified for preferential admission in the same way as those born in wedlock: convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 249, 254. The fee charged for admission varied accordingly. While strangers were required to pay a sum of money, others offered a gift of wine, wax and a dozen gloves, half of which fell to the city’s chief officer (now known as the master) and half to the commonalty. It was from the body of freemen that the city officers were chosen annually on the feast of St. Jerome (30 Sept.). The civic hierarchy consisted of the master, two constables of the peace, two collectors of borough rents, four keepers of the streets, two wardens of the shambles, and two wardens of the parish church of St. Cuthbert. Also elected were a number of auditors to examine the city’s financial accounts, and there were occasional local appointments of collectors to assess and levy the city’s share of parliamentary taxation, corporate loans to the King, the wages of the city’s MPs, and funds for communal projects, such as, in 1448, the repair of the common water conduit.7 Ibid. 1378-1450, pp. 220, 231, 244, 271, 280, 322. From the early 1450s a range of additional post holders with specific functions within St. Cuthbert’s were also elected by convocation at the same time as the master and principal city officers. In 1452 two proctors of the fraternity of Holy Trinity were introduced, and to these were added in 1457 two wardens of the Lady altar.8 Ibid. 1450-1553, pp. 7, 23.

By the reign of Elizabeth I it was believed that Wells had always had a council of 24 men, and such a body was certainly in existence by the reign of Henry IV. In 1408-9 it was made up of two groups of 12 men ‘de maioribus’ and ‘de mediocribus’, but by the reign of Henry VI this distinction may have fallen into abeyance. By the end of the period under review members of the council served for life, and no references to the election of new members are found in the city records before the 1460s. It may thus be significant that in July 1437 it was deemed necessary to reassert formally that 24 of the ‘processeribus, probis et discretis viris’ of the city should govern the community, while in 1444 the full membership of the council was set down in the convocation record for the first time. In September 1467 there were just five elected members of the council left, before its ranks could be replenished.9 Ibid. 1378-1450, pp. 294, 314; 1450-1553, p. 64.

Wells first returned Members to the Commons in 1295, but the incomplete survival of the election returns makes it impossible to tell whether it chose representatives in every Parliament thereafter. Initially categorised as a borough, Wells was first recognised as a city by the sheriff of Somerset in 1302, but successive sheriffs were less sure of its status. Thus, in the period under review Wells was classed as a borough until 1447, and accorded city status only in the indentures of 1449 (Feb.), 1449 (Nov.), 1450 and 1455. For their part the citizens occasionally referred to their MPs as ‘knights’, even though their community never achieved the status of an urban county.10 Ibid. 1378-1450, p. 226; C219/13/1-16/6. In the reign of Henry VI elections were normally held in the regular assembly of the citizens (known as the convocation), at the guildhall. The extent of the franchise is uncertain, but it was probably vested in the entire body of freemen. In 1432 John Austell and Thomas Hall were said to have been elected ‘ex communi assenso tocius communitatis’, and the elections of 1433 and 1435 were likewise said to have taken place ‘in plena communitate’.11 Convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 279, 282, 287, 301.

The elections were conducted in response to a precept from the sheriff of Somerset.12 In 1439 the city records describe this document, probably erroneously, as a ‘writ’ directed to the master and episcopal bailiff: ibid. 301. In November 1421 the election was still recorded in an indenture between the master, Hildebrand Elwell, and the bishop’s bailiff, William Dodesham*, but by 1469 the citizens were sufficiently anxious to assert their control over the process as to delay the election on the grounds that the precept had been delivered to the episcopal bailiff rather than the master.13 Ibid. 1378-1450, p. 230; 1450-1553, p. 76. The result was then sent to the sheriff in the county court, where until 1437 a composite indenture, attested by four representatives of each of the Somerset boroughs, was drawn up. The indenture was then sent to Westminster accompanied by a schedule listing the names of all the men elected within the sheriff’s double bailiwick of Somerset and Dorset and their sureties. It is clear that the date of this composite indenture was fictitious: only in 1422, 1435, 1447 and 1455 were the Wells elections held before those for the county; conversely, on other occasions the civic contest could post-date the electoral shire court (and by inference the date of the indenture) by as many as 14, 17 or even 18 days – as was the case in 1425, 1426 and 1427.14 Ibid. 1378-1450, pp. i. 248, 251, 257; C219/13/3, 4, 5. After 1437 the practice of recording the names of the the MPs for the boroughs of Somerset in a separate document fell into abeyance, the names henceforth being certified only by the schedule (except in 1460 when, perhaps on account of the uncertain political situation, they were included in the shire indenture). The urban constituencies were nevertheless still required to indicate their choice to the county court, as is apparent from the wording of the sheriff’s precept of 1455 (issued on 20 June, but not received by the citizens of Wells until six days later), which explicitly instructed the city authorities to certify the names of their representatives at the next county court, due to be held at Ilchester on 30 June.15 Convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 15; C219/13/1-16/6. Few other details about the elections have been discovered, but there may be a suggestion of irregularity in the records of the polls of 1426 and 1429. In 1426 the city’s convocation act book recorded the election of John Godwin alias Glasier and John Pedewell, but Godwin’s name was subsequently struck out and replaced by that of Richard Hall. Similarly, in 1429 Godwin’s name was obliterated in favour of that of John Whetele.16 Convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 251, 266.

At the start of the period under review the city’s representatives received parliamentary wages at the customary rate of 2s. per day levied from the city’s inhabitants on the authority of a royal writ de expensis: evidence of this practice survives for the Parliaments of 1423 and 1426.17 Ibid. 244, 253. Already, however, the city authorities were seeking to make economies. In April 1425 Robert Chiselden was admitted to the freedom (on the strength of his marriage to the widow of another freeman) on the same day as he was elected to the Commons, and he (and possibly also his colleague Richard Hall) evidently agreed to serve for free, taking nothing except their victuals.18 Ibid. 248. From the 1440s the citizens increasingly sought similar concessions from their representatives. In both 1445 and 1447 the two MPs agreed to forego the customary wages in lieu of a lump sum of 20s. each, however long Parliament might last.19 Ibid. 316, 320. Nevertheless, the reign of Edward IV saw a return to the earlier practice, and it is now clear that the responsibility for the payment of the MPs’ wages (unlike, it appears, the franchise) extended beyond the body of the freemen to all inhabitants of Wells: in 1467 the convocation ordered that the parliamentary wages be assessed and collected ‘per totam communitatem et inhabitantes eiusdem ville’, while the £3 16s. paid to the MPs of January 1483 (who had agreed to serve at a reduced rate of 12d. per day) were taken from the common chest.20 Ibid. 1450-1553, pp. 61, 135, 136.

Like other communities, the city was under periodic pressure to provide funds for the French wars by loans anticipating future grants of taxation. In 1419 the sum of 50 marks had been raised by the citizens, who subsequently agreed that any repayments received might be used for the rebuilding of the parish church; in 1430 they lent the smaller sum of ten marks; and an unspecified sum was raised at Wells by the King’s commissioners, headed by Bishop Bekynton, in October 1449.21 Ibid. 1378-1450, p. 220; E401/724, m. 9; E34/1B/161. The often troubled politics of the mid fifteenth century left their mark on Wells when two years later the unrest stirred up by Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, in pursuit of his long-running quarrel with his rival William, Lord Bonville*, and the latter’s patron the earl of Wiltshire, threatened to engulf the city. Devon and his ally Sir Edward Brooke*, Lord Cobham, gathered their armed retainers at Taunton and reached Wells on 23 Sept. 1451, where Bishop Bekynton and the dean of Wells, Master Nicholas Carent, failed to dissuade them from their planned course of action. It nevertheless must have come as a relief to the citizens when the comital army continued on its journey and settled for the night at Bath.22 R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 90.

The names of the MPs for Wells are known for all of the 22 Parliaments that met during Henry VI’s reign. Twenty-six men divided these 44 seats between them. Of these, 16 were elected only once during the period under review, while five others (Attwater, Edmund, Godelok, Richard Hall and Mundy) each took two of the available seats. Three seats each went to Godwin alias Glasier, Horewood and William Vowell, while Rokke and Thomas Hall respectively secured four and five returns to the Commons. Taking into account the service of several of the 26 in the Parliaments of either Henry V or those of the Yorkist Kings and Henry VII, their parliamentary record looks more impressive. Thus, Parys and Pedewell were each elected on two ocasions; Setter alias Milers had sat in two Parliaments prior to his return in 1422; Elwell sat in four between 1417 and 1431 and Edmund in four between 1447 and 1478 (and also secured election to the cancelled assembly of 1469); while William Vowell’s five Parliaments spanned the period from 1439 to 1463. The most eminent parliamentarian among the Wells citizens, as far as service to his own community was concerned, was Richard Vowell whose six returns between 1455 and 1487 spanned 32 years and the reigns of five Kings, and he was in addition elected to the ultimately aborted Parliaments summoned in the name of Edward V and Richard III in June and November 1483. His record was not quite matched by John Attwater, who was first elected in 1453, but only secured four returns (and like Vowell was elected to the cancelled Parliaments of June and November 1483). Service to other constituencies meant that alone among the MPs for Wells Godelok was able to outstrip Vowell’s record, as in addition to his two elections at Wells he found a total of five seats at Ludgershall, New Romney and Reigate; while Thomas Hall could match Vowell in parliamentary experience on account of his final election for the other Somerset cathedral city, Bath, in 1450. Four MPs each doubled their otherwise unimpressive tally of parliamentary seats by isolated elections for Liskeard (Chiselden), Bridgwater (Hymerford and Mayne) and Lyme Regis (Selwood). John Austell was the only one of the city’s representatives to join the ranks of the knights of the shire, taking seats for Somerset in 1439 and Devon in February 1449.

It would seem that the ruling elite of Wells regarded parliamentary service as just another of the plethora of city offices to be filled from the ranks of the freemen. While the freedom of the city was not under all circumstances a prerequisite for election, it may in some instances have been bestowed as a reward for a man’s agreement to accept election. Thus, Austell, Chiselden and Rokke were admitted to the franchise on the very day of their respective first elections to the Commons,23 Convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 236, 248, 279. and both Mundy and Whetele were still recent entrants to the freedom when they were first returned. Yet a majority of the MPs had held city office prior to their returns: Elwell, Richard Hall, Pedewell and Setter alias Milers had all been masters of Wells before their first return in this period, while William Vowell was serving in the office at the time of his elections in 1439 and 1450 and Attwater was chosen master while sitting in the Commons in 1453 and again a few days before the assembly of the Parliament of 1460, of which he was again a Member. Godwin alias Glasier presided over his own election in 1423, resumed the mastership shortly after his second return in 1427, and had recently relinquished the post when he sat in the Commons a third time in 1450. Horewood and Langford alias Goldsmith were serving as civic rent collectors at the time of their first elections. Elwell, Godwin alias Glasier, Pedewell, Selwood, Setter alias Milers, Shetford, William Vowell and Attwater had all been constables prior to sitting in the Commons, while Towker alias Clerke and Sadeler alias Davy had held the lesser offices of keeper of the streets and warden of the shambles. Sadeler and Selwood had also served terms as wardens of the parish church of St. Cuthbert. Rokke, who had not held civic office prior to his first return to the Commons, was serving as one of the constables when elected in 1423 and had held the mastership before he next sat in Parliament. Similarly, Thomas Hall had no experience of civic office when he sat in the Parliaments of 1431 and 1432, but was serving as constable at the time of his third election. Of the men who only represented Wells once in this period and possessed no previous administrative experience, two (Mayne and Richard Vowell) went on to become masters of the city, and two (Edmund and Parys) at least rose to serve as constables. The touchstone of membership of the ruling elite of Wells was election to the council of 24, whose members served for life. Of the 26 MPs under Henry VI only Chiselden, Godelok, Hymerford, Mundy and Philipot apparently never achieved this distinction.24 In the absence of a list of the full membership of the council before 1444 it is impossible to be sure about Elwell, Richard Hall, Pedewell, Rokke, Setter alias Milers and Whetele, but it seems probable that they as former masters of Wells were also members of the council.

In summary, this meant that in all but three of Henry VI’s Parliaments at least one of Wells’s MPs was a past or present civic officer, while in nine of them (1423, 1426, 1427, 1429, 1439, 1442, 1445, 1450, 1460) both of them were so qualified. In the Parliaments of 1422, 1425, 1426, 1427, 1429, 1431, 1450 and 1460 Wells was represented by at least one past master (in 1426 both MPs were past masters). The serving master was elected to the Commons in 1423, 1427, 1439 and 1450, while in 1453 and 1460 one of the city’s MPs was elected master while serving in Parliament. One of the city receivers (or rent collectors) was returned in 1433 and 1445, while men who had previously held this office secured seats in 1442 and 1445. Serving constables were elected in 1423 and 1455, and past holders of this post were chosen in 1435, 1437, 1439, 1442, 1445 and 1449 (Feb.). One of the Wells MPs in the Coventry Parliament of 1459 had seen previous service as a keeper of the streets and warden of the shambles. Only in 1432, 1447 and 1449 (Nov.) had neither of the two MPs previously held civic office.

By contrast, there is no suggestion that the tenure of office under the Crown was either a qualification sought by the men of Wells in their MPs, or that royal appointments necessarily resulted from the Wells Members’ spells in the Commons. Just seven of the MPs in this period ever held Crown office, and of these only Setter alias Milers and Mayne had received royal appointments (both of them as tax collectors) before they were first elected to Parliament.

In their majority, the MPs during the period under review fulfilled the statutory requirement for residence in the city they represented. The principal exceptions were Godelok, who normally lived at Isleworth in Middlesex, and Philipot, who seems to have come from Hampshire. The lawyers Austell and Hymerford had country homes respectively at Churchill and East Coker, as did Mayne at Newton Plecy, but all three lived at least periodically in Wells. Nevertheless, even beyond the letter of the statute the residential qualification evidently came to be of some concern to the citizens, for in 1483 convocation passed an ordinance barring the future election to Parliament of any ‘personas extraneas’ who were not either freemen or at least lived in the city.25 Convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 137.

While lawyers were prominent in the parliamentary representation of Wells (Austell, Chiselden, Hymerford, Mayne, Parys, Shetford and possibly Rokke all practised the law), merchants and above all artisans remained dominant. Thus, Elwell was a grocer, Horewood and William Vowell general merchants, and Selwood a chapman and brewer. As their alternative names suggest, Godwin was a glasier, Sadeler alias Davy a saddler, Setter alias Milers a jeweller, and Langford a goldsmith. In keeping with the importance of cloth manufacture in the region, several MPs were involved in this particular industry: thus, Pedewell was a weaver, Attwater a clothmaker and Towker alias Clerke a tucker. Of the 44 seats available between 1422 and 1460 at least ten were taken by lawyers, but by comparison eight were occupied by merchants, four by men involved in the manufacture and finishing of cloth and six by other artisans, giving the traders and artisans a share of at least 40%.

A final factor that added cohesion to the body of Wells’s parliamentary representatives were ties of kinship and marriage. Thus, Hildebrand Elwell was joined in the Commons by his brother Robert†, William and Richard Vowell were father and son, as were probably also Richard and Thomas Hall, and Horewood and Langford alias Goldsmith likewise followed their respective fathers into the Commons. Attwater was the father-in-law of Humphrey Hervy†, while Whetele married the widow of Simon Bailly†, and Mayne the widow of John Pedewell’s kinsman Richard Pedewell.

In parliamentary terms, the generally cordial relationship between the citizens and their overlords the bishops during the period under review found its expression in the return to the Commons of successive episcopal bailiffs. Rather than pointing to the bishops’ interference in the citizens’ choice of representatives, this development is indicative of the degree to which successive bailiffs (as well as other of the bishops’ servants) were integrated in the community of Wells, and were, it seems, deliberately chosen for their local credentials. Thus, Mayne, Bishop Stafford’s bailiff by 1437 and perhaps already at the time of his election in 1433, went on to become master of Wells in 1443; Horewode, Bishop Bekynton’s bailiff by 1451, had previously served as a constable and rent collector to the community and went on to become master in 1465; while Edmund, who was episcopal bailiff by the time of his third election in 1467, was elected a constable and for many years served on the city council. Another member of Bishop Stafford’s familia was Austell, who despite his role in the wider political community of the south-west also served on the Wells council of 24. Godelok was the sole clearly identifiable example of an episcopal servant returned for Wells during this period who failed to develop any notable connexions within the city.