REDE, William, of Reading, Berks.

Although born at Eynsham, Rede settled in Reading by 1440, when he contributed 4d. towards works on the parish church of St. Laurence. C. Kerry, Hist. St. Laurence, 12. He was admitted to the guild merchant on 4 Feb. 1446, paying a fee of 20s. and the customary 3s. 4d. for the celebratory breakfast, his pledges being two of the most prominent burgesses, Robert Morys* and Simon Porter*. His trade was later given as ‘mercer’, but little evidence of his business survives. At some point in 1446 and again in September 1448 Rede was made a collector of parliamentary subsidies in the town. Reading Recs. i. 23, 24, 30. By the latter date he had already served a term as keeper of the market, and then began an involvement in the administration of Reading which was to continue for more than two decades. For many years Rede took a leading role in the town’s affairs: he provided pledges for admissions to the guild on four occasions, Ibid. i. 32, 36, 48, 50. attested the parliamentary indentures on three; C219/15/6, 16/1; 17/3. and was frequently numbered among the senior burgesses making important decisions on behalf of the community. Thus he was one of the 17 chosen to scrutinize evidences in the guildhall in August 1451, and of the 25 who in June 1452 were elected with the mayor ‘ad determinandum et respondendum’ for the townspeople. Most impressively, Rede showed his willingness to serve the borough by agreeing to be mayor for a total of seven years. It was very unusual for someone to hold this post for consecutive terms, but Rede did so for three years in a row, a unique performance indicative of his standing among his fellows, but also suggesting that the abbot of Reading, with whom the final choice of mayor rested, found him acceptable. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was elected to represent the borough in the Parliament summoned to meet in Reading abbey on 6 Mar. 1453, during his first mayoralty, and special robes were made for him to wear when he rode out to greet the King and escort him into the town. Reading Recs. i. 39, 40.

During Rede’s second mayoralty, in November that year, one William More was fined £2 (subsequently reduced to a mere 40d.) for publicly defaming him in the market-place, and two months later one of the guildsmen and an outsider spread slanderous rumours that he had been born a villein. The two men acknowledged that what they had said was untrue, and took an oath to this effect ‘opon a boke’, but not before Rede had produced a certificate sealed with the seals of the abbot of Eynsham and the ‘best men’ of Eynsham itself, attesting that he had been ‘frely bore’ at the monastery, and furthermore was of ‘god conversacion’. Ibid. 41-42. Rede was not a candidate for the mayoralty in 1457, but his participation in guild affairs continued regardless. He carried the mace at a ‘morow speche’ on 3 Nov. 1458, and shortly after his unsuccessful nomination as mayor in September 1459 he was returned to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Coventry on 20 Nov. Remaining popular with many of his fellow burgesses, he was nominated for the mayoralty a further eight times between 1460 and 1481. Yet the abbot had clearly begun to regard him less favourably, for he only selected him from the candidates presented on three of these occasions. Ibid. 47-49, 52, 75, 79.

Rede was one of a select group of burgesses named with the mayor to treat with the abbot regarding contentious matters between guild and abbey late in 1462, and he joined six other former mayors to assist the current mayor in promulgating new ordinances for the governance of the town on 30 Sept. 1463. Ibid. 53-55. Meanwhile, he had been elected to the Commons again, firstly to the Parliament summoned to York in February 1463 (which was subsequently cancelled) and then in the spring when it was called to Westminster. He was once more mayor when this protracted Parliament met for its last session in January 1465. Finally, shortly after the end of his seventh mayoralty, he was elected to the Parliament summoned during the Readeption of Henry VI.

Rede fell out with a fellow burgess, Robert Farle (whose admission to the guild he had sponsored), and he and another former mayor, William Linacre*, brought a lawsuit in January 1463 which resulted in Farle’s expulsion from the liberty. Ibid. 53. By contrast, other inhabitants of Reading sought his help in completing settlements of their property. Most prominent among them was William Baron*, a native of Reading who prospered through a long career as a teller in the Exchequer. From 1464 to 1475 Rede was Baron’s feoffee of premises in Wood Street, CAD, i. A586-7, 592-3; v. A13594. and he was party to a grant to Baron of land belonging to the guild in Castle Street. In September 1480 he was among those who on the guild’s behalf received back from the grantee a house he had built on the site. It was Baron’s wish that the income from this property should be used for the customary payment called ‘chepingavell’ hitherto paid to the abbot of Reading by each burgess individually. Thanks to his generosity two months later Rede and his fellows were able to pass an ordinance stipulating that from henceforth the payment would be made from a common chest. Rede’s final appearances in the records were as a collector of parliamentary subsidies in High ward in January 1481 and as a candidate for the mayoralty on 21 Sept. that year. Berks. RO, Reading deeds R/AT 1/158, 170-1; Reading Recs. i. 78-79.