ASHWELL, William

A leading participant in the turbulent politics of his city, Ashwell was from the parish of St. Peter Mancroft. A merchant, it is likely that he traded through Great Yarmouth, a port frequently used by Norwich men. As a young man (probably in Henry V’s reign) he was sued in Chancery by Richard Moneslee* for bringing a wrongful action for debt in a court held at Yarmouth by John Tilney†, a lieutenant of the admiral of England.7 C1/5/189. In the early 1420s he was party to further litigation at Westminster where he and William Sedman† (possibly a business partner) pursued suits against two Colchester merchants, John Brandon and Thomas Boss. He and Sedman alleged that each defendant owed them £16, although Boss successfully disputed their claim against him.8 CPR, 1422-9, p. 147; CP40/641, rot. 139d. In October 1424, Ashwell sued John Wryght and John Hoggekyns, who had recently completed a term as sheriffs of Norwich, this time in the Exchequer. He claimed that they had unjustly arrested him on 30 Nov. 1423 and kept him imprisoned until the following Michaelmas, but the circumstances of his arrest are unexplained and the outcome of the suit unrecorded.9 E13/136, rot. 16.

There is, however, no evidence that his apprehension arose from another Exchequer lawsuit of the same period. In Hilary term 1424, Edmund Webster, one of the deputies of John Feerby senior and John Feerby junior, the joint alnagers of cloth at Norwich, accused Ashwell and his father-in-law, Henry Piking, of fraud. He alleged that between November 1422 and November 1423 they had cloths sealed at Norwich with a fake seal, but the case ended in the acquittal of both defendants. The records relating to this complicated suit indicate that Ashwell was a merchant of considerable standing, since they reveal that he was on business abroad in the autumn of 1423, and that the leading London mercer John Coventry stood surety for his appearance at Westminster to answer the charges.10 E159/200, recorda rots. 16, 17, 17d, recogniciones Hil. rot. 2.

Ashwell took office as one of the sheriffs of Norwich in September 1431. Although his term ended a year later, he and his associate, Edmund Bretayn, had yet to account in April 1437, when the Exchequer took a recognizance for £100 from each of them, to guarantee that they would do so in person at Westminster in the coming Trinity term.11 E159/213, recogniciones Easter. Within two years of his appointment as sheriff, Ashwell entered his first Parliament, alongside his erstwhile opponent Moneslee, and he was an alderman of the city when re-elected to the Commons in 1435. In July that year, a few months before Parliament opened, the King took recognizances of £100 from him and several other citizens to ensure that they came to Chancery, although upon appearing there they received a discharge. Probably this episode arose from political divisions at Norwich: of those summoned, Richard Moneslee was associated with Thomas Wetherby*, the leader of one of Norwich’s political factions, whereas Ashwell and John Gerard II* were soon afterwards (if not already) two of Wetherby’s principal opponents.12 CCR, 1429-35, p. 364; B.R. McRee, ‘Peace Making and its Limits in Late Med. Norwich’, EHR, cix. 858n-859n. The divisions within Norwich manifested themselves during the mayoral election of 1437, a controversial episode that prompted the Crown to confiscate the city’s liberties. Afterwards, Wetherby and his allies claimed that Ashwell and eight other aldermen, helped by a large mob some 2,000 strong, had prevented them from attending the election. They also alleged that Ashwell had taken part in assaults on them and several seemingly neutral bystanders, including William Yelverton*.13 KB9/229/1/106. Another caught up in these events was John Heydon*, an ally of Wetherby and recorder of Norwich until shortly before the election, and he subsequently took legal action in the court of King’s bench against several men, among them Ashwell, alleging that they had assaulted and menaced him on election day.14 KB27/706, rot. 166; P. Maddern, Violence and Social Order, 190. In mid June 1437 the King’s council summoned Ashwell and other opponents of Wetherby to appear before it, no doubt to explain their conduct.15 PPC, v. 33. It is perhaps a sign of a decline in Wetherby’s influence in the city’s affairs that two of his enemies, Ashwell and Robert Toppe*, were MPs in the Commons of 1439. The two men were allotted daily wages of 2s. each, significantly less than the 3s. 4d. per day allowed Ashwell in 1433 and 1435. This reduction was due to a decline in the corporation’s resources, which also explains why he was still waiting in June 1451 for all of the wages (£9) due to him for attending the Parliament of 1439.16 Norwich city recs., chamberlains’ accts. 1384-1448, NCR 18a, ff. 188, 192, 213v; KB27/760, rot. 40.

Ashwell began his first term as mayor of Norwich some 15 months after the dissolution of his third Parliament. The mayoralty proved a difficult one, since it coincided with a period of especial tension in the city’s ongoing jurisdictional disputes with Norwich priory and other religious institutions. A commission of oyer and terminer sitting at Thetford in late July 1441 took presentments against him and other civic officers for making arrests outside the city’s liberties and, at the same inquest, the prior of Norwich and abbot of Wendling brought separate bills accusing him and several other leading citizens of trespass.17 Norwich city recs., ‘Bk. of Pleas’, NCR 17b, ff. 8d, 12d-13. By the following month the corporation had decided to seek terms from its ecclesiastical opponents,18 Maddern, 193. although on 9 Oct. a city jury indicted several of the prior’s men and Wetherby’s servant, John Wetherby, for attacking and imprisoning Ashwell and other prominent citizens five days earlier.19 NCR 8a/10, m. 1. Yet on 12 Oct. the corporation, no doubt under pressure from outside authority, agreed to submit its disputes with the prior of Norwich and abbot of St. Benet of Hulme to the arbitration of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk.20 Maddern, 194; Norwich city recs., docs. relating to city’s legal disputes, c.1442, NCR 9c/13. Suffolk’s award of the following 23 June proved extremely unpalatable to most of the citizens. Directing the city to remove certain mills it had built, since these prejudiced the freehold interests of the abbot and the prior, he also ordered that the prior should enjoy reasonable jurisdictional rights at Norwich, rights that a jury in King’s bench upheld in Michaelmas term 1442. The city had still to accept the award when the corporation met on 25 Jan. 1443 to discuss whether to seal it. Passions ran extremely high at this assembly, which ended in chaos after a group of citizens, allegedly aided and abetted by Ashwell and Toppe, seized the common seal and marched upon the priory.21 P. Maddern, ‘Legitimation of Power: Riot and Authority in 15th-Cent. Norwich’, Parergon, n.s. viA, 71-72. The resulting disturbances, subsequently known as ‘Gladman’s Insurrection’, lasted for a week and prompted the King to seize the city’s liberties for a second time. Indictments taken in the wake of the trouble alleged that Ashwell had helped to plot an uprising, encouraged the rioters and participated in breaking into the prior’s house and close, from where two fetters and a pair of stocks were taken. The presenting jury also charged him with having spread false rumours around Norfolk, to the effect that the prior wished to impose unlawful taxes on the people of the county.22 KB9/84/1/3, 10; Maddern, Violence, 196-7. He appeared in person in King’s bench in July 1443, when he produced a royal pardon of the 8th of that month. After he had also shown that he had provided sufficient surety in Chancery for his good behaviour, the court granted him bail. He was subsequently obliged to reappear in there in the following Michaelmas term, when he received a dismissal sine die.23 KB27/729, rex rots. 18, 18d, 28, 28d.

Shortly before ‘Gladman’s Insurrection’, Ashwell had been dismissed as a j.p. and he is not known to have played a significant part in civic affairs until elected mayor again in 1448, several months after the liberties were restored. The King paid a brief visit to Norwich some two weeks after this second term in the mayoralty began, and in preparation for the visit Ashwell had six shields made. Placed above the city’s gates, these bore the arms of the King, of Norwich and of St. George, patron saint of Norwich’s principal guild. He also commissioned a goldsmith to gild a mayoral mace that he would bear before the King.24 F. Blomefield, Norf. iii. 156; Recs. Norwich ed. Hudson and Tingey, ii. 72. Ashwell’s second term as mayor also witnessed discussions about amalgamating St. George’s guild with the city’s corporate body25 Recs. Norwich, ii. 152. (although such an amalgamation did not take place until 1452), and the passing of an ordinance regulating mayoral elections. Previously the whole citizenry had taken part in nominating two candidates, of whom the aldermen elected one as mayor, but the ordinance restricted the nomination process to the common councillors and the 24 constables of the city’s wards.26 NCR 16d, f. 27v; R.H. Frost, ‘Aldermen of Norwich, 1461-1509’ (Cambridge Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1996), 38n.

Five months after leaving the mayoralty for the last time, Ashwell gained election to the Parliament of November 1449. He was therefore a member of the Commons house that impeached the King’s chief minister, William de la Pole, by then duke of Suffolk. He is unlikely to have had any sympathy for Suffolk: in the autumn of 1450 juries from each of Norwich’s wards presented indictments against members of the de la Pole affinity. Suffolk’s men were said to have maintained the suit which the prior of Norwich had brought by means of a bill in the summer of 1441 and to have extorted over £80 from Ashwell and his fellow citizens (who had vainly hoped that this gift would win them de la Pole’s good lordship) later in the same year. Rather less credibly, the juries claimed that the indictments brought against Ashwell and other citizens following ‘Gladman’s Insurrection’ were false and the work of Suffolk and his men, who were also accused of instigating the 1,000 mark fine which the Crown had imposed on the city as a punishment for this unrest.27 KB9/267/23, 24; 272/5; Recs. Norwich, i. 346-7. Shortly before the taking of these indictments, Ashwell gained election to his fifth Parliament, called by a government dominated by the now dead Suffolk’s opponent, Richard, duke of York.

After 1450, despite growing political divisions in the country as a whole, the troubles that had afflicted Norwich in previous decades subsided and Ashwell’s later years were quieter as a result. Sickness prevented him from attending a meeting of the common council of St. George’s guild in mid 1452,28 Recs. Gild St. George, Norwich (Norf. Rec. Soc. ix), 46. but he remained active in old age. In 1453 he contributed six marks towards the cost of receiving Queen Margaret, who visited Norwich in April that year (perhaps while on her way to Walsingham to give thanks for her pregnancy),29 Norwich city recs., ‘Old Free bk.’, NCR 17c, f. 18v. and in March 1454 he was chosen to take part in negotiations intended to secure peace with Norwich priory.30 NCR 16d, f. 21. In the following year, his fellow burgesses nominated him for a third term as mayor,31 Ibid. f. 23v. although in the event they chose another, and elected him to Parliament for the last time.

In his will, dated 20 Jan. 1458 and proved on the following 4 Apr.,32 PCC 12 Stockton. See Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct., Reg. Brosyard, ff. 78-79 for another copy of Ashwell’s will. Ashwell requested burial in the churchyard of St. Peter Mancroft, beside the grave of his wife, Alice. He left sums of money to St. Peter’s and other churches and religious institutions in Norwich, including the parish of St. Margaret Westwick, to which he left a worsted gown and an orphrey (gold fringe) of silk for making a vestment. He also made bequests to the parish church at Aylsham, several miles north of Norwich, and the Carthusian priories at London and Mountgrace, Yorkshire. With regard to his real property (valued at £6 p.a. for the purposes of a royal tax in 1451),33 R. Virgoe, ‘Norwich taxation list of 1451’, Norf. Archaeology, xl. 150. he directed his executors to sell his holdings in the parishes of St. Peter Mancroft and St. Swithin (including a messuage which had once belonged to John Bixley†) and at Aylsham. The money raised was to fund masses and pious works, to the benefit of his soul and that of Alice. His other properties, those he had inherited as well as those which his wife had brought to their marriage, were left to his three sons, Henry, John and William, but none of these properties is identified in the will. He bequeathed to his daughters, Katherine and Margaret, both apparently still unmarried, 40 marks and £10 respectively, and he also directed that William should have a chest and all his books, save a ‘grene boke’, if he became a priest. If William decided against the priesthood, the chest was to go to his second son, John, and the books put up for sale. Finally, he named as his executors his sons, Henry and John, Nicholas Colett of Aylsham and the merchant, John Pert senior. Not mentioned in the will is a gift of 100 marks that Ashwell made to the city of Norwich. The mayor informed members of the corporation in May 1459 that their late colleague had left this sum to the city, upon condition that the citizens observed his year’s mind on every Sunday after the Purification for a period of five years.34 NCR 16d, f. 40v. Henry, Ashwell’s eldest son, did not pursue a career in Norwich, since by January 1466 he was a citizen and mercer of London.35 Norwich city recs., ct. roll, 1461-83, NCR 1/19, m. 1.