ATTWYLL, William

Attwyll was admitted to the freedom of Exeter at an uncertain date before 1424-5, when he served as sub bailiff of the corporation’s manor of Duryard to the receiver, John Salter I*. It took several further years before he began to play a full part in local government, and by the time when he attended his first mayoral election in the autumn of 1434 he had already served as the royal searcher of ships for almost three years. It was during his tenure of the searchership that Attwyll became implicated in an act of piracy against a Portuguese vessel. In the late autumn of 1433 the Commons heard a complaint from the Lisbon merchant John de Port who asserted that he had brought a ship containing some £400 worth of salt, oil, hides and other merchandise into the port of Dartmouth and registered the cargo before Thomas Gille I*, then one of the customers there. On 12 Aug., however, Attwyll, John Hull* and two other Exeter merchants, as well as the deputy butler at Dartmouth, John More II*, who was shortly afterwards to be elected mayor of that town, had come with 60 armed men, cut the sail from the yardarm of the Portuguese ship and raided the crew’s coffers. They had then entered the cellars where de Port’s goods were stored and carried them off. Having failed to gain redress locally, the Portuguese merchant had set out for London to present his complaint to the chancellor, but had been intercepted by his opponents at Honiton on 26 Oct. and taken to Exeter, where he was placed in irons. De Port had nevertheless succeeded in procuring writs of corpus cum causa and subpoena to secure his freedom and force Attwyll and his associates to appear in Chancery, but apparently with little success. Although the Lords and Commons agreed that the sheriff of Devon should be instructed to make proclamation for the miscreants to appear in court, this was evidently also of only limited effect, for in September 1434 Gille, John Hawley*, and the clerk Richard Olyver were ordered to inquire into the injuries done to the Portuguese trader.6 SC8/135/6718; KB27/691, rot. 73; C1/9/177; CPR, 1429-36, p. 469.

Despite such questions over Attwyll’s official conduct, the government appears to have been satisfied with the manner in which he discharged his office, for he served as searcher without interruption for more than 15 years, and during this period he was also appointed to office as a royal commissioner to procure shipping for Sir John Speke*’s expedition to France in 1440. He was eventually dismissed from the searchership in January 1447, perhaps on account of a further misdemeanour of which he had apparently been guilty three years earlier in December 1444, when he and a group of retainers were said to have attacked a balinger in the Exe estuary and to have despoiled it of its cargo and tackle, all of which Attwyll had then loaded into a great ship of his and taken it to his house at Topsham.7 E207/15/13, 14.

By this date Attwyll was already well established among the citizens of Exeter. He had first been elected one of the stewards of the city in the autumn of 1437, but (perhaps on account of his official duties as searcher which often called him away from the city) for a decade thereafter he did not play any further part in civic government beyond regularly appearing among the citizens choosing the mayor and senior city officers. After surrendering the searchership, he served a second term as steward in 1449-50, and joined the ranks of the city council after the increase of its numbers from 12 to 24 in 1454, initially as one of the second dozen of councilmen elected ‘for the commonalty’.8 Exeter mayor’s ct. rolls 13-20, 22-29, 31-37 Hen. VI, 39 Hen. VI-3 Edw. IV. Nevertheless, when Attwyll was first returned to the Commons in 1455 he was an unusual choice. Normally, Exeter’s MPs tended to represent their city early on in their careers, and it is as indicative of the gravity of the political crisis which engulfed Exeter at the height of the earl of Devon’s violent assertion of his regional predominance as of the increasing difficulty that the citizens were experiencing in persuading any of their own number to undertake the costly journey to Parliament at their own expense that Attwyll was chosen alongside the earl’s man Thomas Holland*. On 20 June two leading citizens, Vincent Hert and John Betty, sealed bonds for £20 to the commonalty that Attwyll would not claim more than 20s. in parliamentary wages, while his colleague was allowed the barely more generous payment of 26s. 8d. Holland’s wages were eventually paid in 1457-8, but Attwyll may not even have received the token sum allowed to him.9 Ibid. 33-34 Hen. VI, rot. 36d; Exeter receiver’s acct., 36-37 Hen. VI, m. 2. This failure to secure any payment whatsoever may explain why on the occasion of his next return in the summer of 1460 Attwyll took care to ensure that he was paid his wages (once more a token 20s.) before he set out.10 Exeter receiver’s acct. 38-39 Hen. VI, m. 1d.

The extent of Attwyll’s property is uncertain, but it included holdings in Topsham as well as in Exeter itself.11 CP40/845, rot. 387. A merchant, the commodities that he traded in probably included goods like the hogshead of red wine and the pipe of cider which Margaret, widow of Edward Pomeroy† of Sandridge, claimed as her rightful property, after they were purportedly purloined by Attwyll in 1451.12 CP40/765, rot. 407. Besides the great ship already mentioned, he owned a share in a balinger, which in the summer of 1450 was said to have been engaged in acts of piracy in the Channel against shipping from Guernsey.13 C1/22/10. Otherwise, Attwyll appears to have been generally well regarded among his neighbours who from time to time called upon him as a feoffee or executor.14 CP25(1)/46/80/49; CP40/804, rot. 186d.

The date of Attwyll’s death has not been established for certain, but it probably occurred in about 1463, the year when he last served on the council of 24. He was certainly dead by the autumn of 1466, by which date his executors, his sons Richard and John, were engaged in the administration of his affairs.15 CP40/821, rot. 127d.