WHITE, Richard II, of Grimsby, Lincs.

This MP came of a family which enjoyed considerable influence in Grimsby; and he may well have been a younger brother of the Simon White who held office as coroner there in 1390 and subsequently served two terms as mayor. A William White, master of the Mawdeleyn de Grymesby, also appears at this time.1JUST 2/90; C260/178/33; E122/59/16; HMC 14th Rep. VIII, p. 288. It seems likely that, even if he was not a fully trained lawyer, Richard had some experience of the law, since most of the evidence which survives about him is of a quasi-legal nature. He also appears to have spent a good deal of time in Lincoln, where most of his connexions were made. Indeed, he is first mentioned, in July 1400, as one of the mainpernors in Chancery of the executors of the Lincoln merchant, Robert Messingham. He was returned to Parliament for Grimsby two years later, but next comes into view again at Lincoln in July 1408, when he arraigned one Joan Maynard on an assize of mort d’ancestor. Not long after he was retained by the mayor and bailiffs of Lincoln to plead for them at the assizes. By then he had become personally involved in another case, for besides continuing his suit against Joan Maynard he was also named as one of the plaintiffs in a property dispute with Robert Deyncourt and two other local men. White is last mentioned in 1411, when, back in Grimsby, he stood surety for William Fosse as a parliamentary burgess.2CCR, 1399-1402, p. 209; C219/10/6; JUST 1/1514 rot. 98, 100, 102v (bis).