ATTWATER, John

The clothier John Attwater was admitted to the freedom of Wells in April 1444, with two of the leading citizens (William Vowell* and John Godwin alias Glasier*) acting as his sureties.4 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 312. He soon began to play an active part in city life, arbitrating in his neighbours’ disputes, attesting the property transactions of both the citizens and members of the cathedral chapter, and periodically finding sureties for new entrants to the freedom (including in 1466 the bishop of Bath and Wells’s bailiff, William Edmund*, and three years later the future master Richard Burnell†).5 Ibid. 1450-1553, pp. 21, 25, 43, 52, 58, 60; Wells City Chs. (Som. Rec. Soc. xlvi), 108, 149, 151, 152, 154, 161, 162; HMC Wells, i. 687-8; ii. 671, 681, 684, 690; CPR, 1446-52, p. 517; CCR, 1476-85, no. 466. In February 1448 he was among those appointed to collect contributions towards the cost of repairing the civic water conduit,6 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 322. and that autumn he was elected one of the constables, a post which he continued to fill for two successive years. In November 1452 he and Thomas Horewode* were elected overseers of the newly established almshouse (a function which the two men were apparently still exercising in early 1460 when they were prosecuting one John Hembury for outstanding rents).7 Ibid. 1450-1553, pp. 7, 31.

In the autumn of 1453 Attwater was elected master of Wells, an office in which he would serve a remarkable ten terms over the course of the next 40 years. When he first assumed the mastership, he was already preparing to return to Reading for the third session of the Parliament to which he had been elected in the spring of 1453, and which had sat for a total period of some three months in the first half of the year. It is not clear whether there was a connexion between Attwater’s election to office and his membership of the Commons, but the citizens of Wells had every cause to want to be represented by a man of local authority in the political crisis that was brewing. In July the last remaining English possessions in Gascony were lost to the troops of Charles VII, and within a short time King Henry VI lost his mental and physical faculties. The session of the Commons summoned to meet at Reading in mid November was immediately prorogued, and Parliament did not reassemble again until February 1454. The King’s recovery in the second half of 1454 proved to be merely temporary, and it may have been in the face of the renewed crisis that Attwater retained the mastership for a full second term.

In subsequent years, Attwater seems increasingly to have been regarded as a safe pair of hands, to be entrusted with the fate of his city in times of crisis. Thus, he served as master of Wells in 1458-9 and again in the troubled year 1460-1, on the latter occasion being returned to the Commons about the same time as assuming civic office.8 The writs for the election had been issued in late July in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Northampton, so the sheriff’s precept must have been directed to Attwater’s predecessor. It thus fell to him to preside over Wells’s elections to Edward IV’s first Parliament on 18 June 1461, and he oversaw not only his own re-election, but also that of his colleague William Vowell.9 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 35. If in returning to Westminster in these uncertain times the two men were motivated by any sense of duty, their public spirit was evidently easily dampened by the prospect of a journey to the north of England. In late 1462 Parliament was summoned to meet at York, a venue clearly insufficiently appealing for any of the leading citizens to seek election, and Wells consequently chose two comparatively insignificant individuals, John Grype† and John Pavle†. Only after the assembly had been cancelled and re-summoned to meet at Westminster in April was Attwater prevailed upon to agree to sit alongside the serving master, his old colleague William Vowell, in what was destined to be his final Parliament.10 Ibid. 42, 43.

Over the years Attwater acquired extensive property in Wells, which by the end of his life included a tenement on the eastern side of the northern end of Grope Lane, four tenements known as ‘Juyhalle’, ‘Orcharde Garden’ and ‘Culver House’, lands in ‘Biestwall’ and ‘Randelcroft’, and two buildings, including a smithy, in the High Street.11 Wells convocation act bks. 1378-1450, p. 325; 1450-1553, pp. 67, 92, 167, 171; PCC 17 Moone. In the autumn of 1467 he was elected master for a fifth term and about the same time joined the ranks of the council of 24.12 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 64.

The MP’s attitude towards Henry VI’s readeption is uncertain, but like the bishop’s bailiff, William Edmund, he took the precaution of securing a pardon from the restored Edward IV in December 1471.13 C67/48, m. 25. Whatever the truth of the matter, he nevertheless continued to be held in high regard by his neighbours, serving five more terms as master. On the first of these occasions, one of Attwater’s first official duties was to preside once again over the elections of the city’s representatives in the drawn out Parliament of 1472, as he would do for a last time in 1485. When Edward IV suddenly fell ill and died in the spring of 1483, it was Attwater whom the citizens of Wells chose to represent them in the first Parliament of the young Edward V.14 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 136. It is not clear whether he and his colleague, the equally experienced Richard Vowell*, ever rode to Westminster, but if they did, they arrived to find the meeting of the Lords and Commons cancelled, and the King in the Tower, within days to be replaced on the throne by his uncle, Richard, duke of Gloucester. Parliament was re-summoned to meet in November to offer its sanction to the change of ruler, and the citizens of Wells (who had in the interim passed an ordinance banning the election of outsiders to the Commons) stuck with their earlier choice of representatives. But once again the meeting was cancelled, as the King dashed west to suppress the duke of Buckingham’s rebellion.15 Ibid. 137, 138. When a third Parliament finally assembled in early 1484, Attwater was not among its Members, having been replaced as his city’s MP by Richard Burnell. It is, however, possible that in the prevailing atmosphere of political uncertainty his experience was needed at home: that September he was once more elected to the mastership of Wells. Certainly, the year proved a turbulent one: before the next civic election fell due, Richard III was dead and the earl of Richmond had claimed the crown as Henry VII. In the circumstances, the citizens of Wells once again sought steady leadership, and confirmed Attwater as master for a further year.

Attwater’s position as one of the leading citizens of Wells was now beyond question: in March 1487 he was singled out alongside three of his most prominent neighbours (the serving master, Richard Vowell, Richard Burnell and John Draper) for a royal request for a loan of £80. The four men skilfully shifted the burden of the King’s demand onto the wider community: Attwater and Vowell each lent £4 3s. 4d., while Burnell and Draper each found 70s., but the remainder of the city’s eventual total loan of £40 was raised from other citizens.16 Ibid. 153. Throughout the 1490s, Attwater continued to serve as a member of the council of 24, and was in most years charged with the audit of the city accounts.

After more than half a century of near-continuous public service Attwater made his will on 23 June 1500. He asked to be buried at the northern end of the Trinity altar of St. Cuthbert’s church in Wells, and left 6s. 8d. to the works of the church, as well as a shilling to each altar. By contrast, a mere 3s. 4d. was assigned to the works of the cathedral church of St. Andrew. He bequeathed the profits of his two tenements in the High Street to the Trinity guild at St. Cuthbert’s, which was to include him in the prayers customarily said for its members, and asked that masses be sung for him and his two wives, their parents and children for a term of seven years. Other legacies went to his daughters and their husbands: Joan and her husband Thomas Champneys were assigned the testator’s best silver-gilt salt and a number of household items, Humphrey Hervy†, the former husband of Joan’s sister Agnes, was to receive his father-in-law’s best silver-gilt standing piece, while the third daughter, Margaret Ruynon, was to have his second best silver-gilt salt. Attwater’s four grandchildren by Joan Champneys were to share a pipe of woad, while their cousins, the two sons of Humphrey and Agnes Hervy, and Thomas Ruynon, son of the testator’s daughter Margaret, were each assigned a quarter of the same commodity.17 Margaret Attwater’s relationship (if any) to the later Wells MP Richard (or Robert) Ruynon† is unclear: The Commons 1509-58, iii. 239. Attwater’s grandson Alan Wyse, another son of Margaret Ruynon (probably by an earlier marriage), was assigned not only a partly-gilt covered silver salt and some of the tools of his trade, but also the tenement in Grope Lane then inhabited by one David Gough, while ‘Juyhalle’, ‘Orcharde Garden’ and ‘Culver House’ fell to Humphrey Hervy. Other kinsfolk remembered in Attwater’s will included Dr. John Attwater who received his secular namesake’s second best silver-gilt standing piece, and Richard Attwater who was assigned his second best gown, a quarter of woad and an entire bed.18 PCC 17 Moone. Some years earlier, in June 1492, Attwater had transferred to Richard, his wife Alice and their son John the title and pasture rights he possessed in seven acres in the fields around Wells: Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 167. Among a range of bequests (generally of household items) to Attwater’s servants, the mattress, bolster, pair of blankets and pair of sheets with coverlet, a quarter of woad and two blue Bristol cloths, a crock, a pan, a basin and a laver left to Alison Loveney, the testator’s ‘nevewe’ (sic) and servant, stood out, while Thomas Hynkeley, priest of the Trinity guild and Attwater’s confessor, was to receive a furred violet gown. As his executors the clothier appointed his kinsman Dr. Attwater, his sons-in-law Champneys and Hervy, and his grandson Alan Wyse. Probate was granted on 18 Nov. 1500, and the execution of the will committed to Hervy and Wyse.19 PCC 17 Moone. If Joan, the wife of John Mawdeley†, was indeed an Attwater she was apparently not a daughter of this MP: The Commons 1509-58, ii. 591.