EDMUND, William, of Wells, Som.

Edmund’s origins or parentage have not been discovered, but he may have had some connexion with the county of Berkshire where the bishops of Bath and Wells held an important manor at Sonning, and where he certainly possessed ties later in life. In the early 1440s he entered the household of Bishop Thomas Bekynton of Bath and Wells and was regularly cited as a witness to the bishop’s acta. No details of his formal education have been discovered, but he clearly received some training, perhaps in the law, being styled ‘literatus’. Reg. Bekynton, i. 379, 392, 408, 973, 1562. There is nothing to suggest that he was already established in Wells when he was first returned to Parliament by the city in 1447, and it was probably the influence of Bishop Bekynton, Henry VI’s former secretary and keeper of the privy seal, that secured his Membership of the Bury Parliament: highly unusually for Wells, neither of the city’s two MPs that year was a freeman or had held civic office, and both readily agreed to forgo their customary wages in lieu of a lump sum of 20s. Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 320. Equally, it is probable that the bishop’s influence also accounted for Edmund’s second election to the November Parliament of 1449, summoned at a time of high political tension.

It nevertheless took another nine years for Edmund’s ties with the city of Wells to become formalized. In October 1458 Bishop Bekynton appointed him his bailiff in the city, and five years later he added to this the lifetime post of bailiff of the episcopal liberty in Somerset. He retained these offices under Bekynton’s successor, Bishop Robert Stillington, and was still serving when he was admitted to the freedom of Wells in May 1466, John Attwater * and Walter Baker† standing surety. Ibid. 1450-1553, p. 60. Already Edmund was periodically attesting local property deeds for the citizens and cathedral clergy, HMC Wells, ii. 682-3. but it was his enfranchisement that marked his full integration into civic life. In May 1467 he was elected to the Commons for a third time. Less than a week after Parliament assembled on 3 June Edward IV personally stripped the chancellor, Archbishop George Neville of York, of the great seal, and two weeks later entrusted it to Edmund’s master, Bishop Stillington. CCR, 1461-8, pp. 456-7. Perhaps as a direct consequence of the bishop’s new status, Edmund was now granted entry into the civic community of Wells. At the end of September the citizens not only elected the bishop’s bailiff one of their constables, but also added him to the depleted membership of the council of 24 and included him among the men charged with the audit of the city accounts. Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, pp. 61, 64, 65. Les than three months later, on 17 Dec., the authorities leased to him a substantial tenement in the High Street for a term of 60 years at an annual rent of 30s. Ibid. 66.

It is impossible to know to what extent Edmund was able to devote himself immediately to his new duties in Wells, or what contribution he made to the deliberations of the Commons, but in September 1469 he secured re-election to the Parliament summoned to York by the earl of Warwick. The election itself was beset by difficulties, for the citizens of Wells initially refused to make a return, as the sheriff’s precept had been delivered to the bishop’s bailiff, probably still Edmund, rather than to the city’s master. When the convocation eventually declared its choice on 10 Sept. and elected Edmund and Walter Baker to represent them, the citizens were unaware that the Parliament had been cancelled three days earlier. Ibid. 76. Perhaps on account of his connexion with Stillington, who remained loyal to King Edward, Edmund was not returned to Henry VI’s Readeption Parliament of 1470, but nor is he known to have sat in the drawn-out assembly of 1472. He was, however, once again returned in 1478, to the brief Parliament summoned to try the duke of Clarence.

If Edmund continued to serve as episcopal bailiff at Wells, his role in public life was otherwise increasingly a quiet one. He continued be a member of the council of 24 and was charged with the audit of the civic accounts in 1475 and 1478, but did not hold more senior city office. He occasionally attested local property deeds, and in 1467 was appointed an executor of John Pedewell, one of the residentiaries of Wells cathedral, a duty which would occupy him for some years. HMC Wells, ii. 685-7, 689, 701. He may have been the William Edmund ‘gentleman’ who in early 1473 was charged to receive the acknowledgement of the sale of the Somerset manor of Forde by Thomas Seyntbarbe to Sir William Hampton†. CCR, 1468-76, no. 1048. Certainly, he continued to maintain contacts in Berkshire, in 1479 being named as party to a settlement by (Sir) William Norris* of the former property of Thomas Clerk II* in Reading. E40/5686-7. The William Edmund of Westbury who was among the men who in 1482 bought woodland in Hembury from (Sir) William Stonor† was probably a namesake: C146/3133.