RICH, Walter

More may be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 208.

Contemporaries were in some confusion over Rich’s trade, describing him variously as a weaver, tailor or cloth-maker. The MP himself was, at least in his own defence in the King’s courts in 1427, at pains to emphasize his mystery as a weaver. He was, however, of considerably greater wealth than this would imply. In 1428 he leased extensive property in the city of Salisbury from Thomas Freeman*, who at other times supplied his cloth-finishing business with alum and madder, and a year earlier he had successfully brought charges of official misconduct against the sheriff of Somerset, William Fynderne*, before the barons of the Exchequer.5 E13/138, rot. 4; CP40/686, rot. 407.

The circumstances of Rich’s curtailed mayoralty of 1443 are unclear. He was in post on 25 June 1443, having presumably assumed office on or about Midsummer’s day, but by 13 Jan. 1444 he had been replaced by his predecessor and former adversary, William Phillips*, who was to die in office just three months later.6 Ancient Deeds Bath, 1/49, 2/80.

After a long and distinguished career, Rich met with a curious and violent death, the background to which remains obscure. On the night of 11 Nov. 1446 he was making his way along ‘Chepestrete’, when he encountered a group of people led by Agnes Carpenter, a ‘wyfe’ of Bath. Whether by violence or other means, Carpenter brought Rich to her house, where she attacked him, suffocated him with a linen towel and strangled him with a leather belt, sitting on his chest to be doubly sure of his death. Carpenter, who within days was indicted of the murder by a jury, fled the town, but was eventually captured and by October 1447 had been committed to the Marshalsea.7 KB9/256/63-64; KB27/746, rex rot. 26d.