BAKER, William

Baker is difficult to distinguish with any certainty from numerous other contemporaries of this name, and there is no sound reason to identify him with William atte Melle* (who sometimes used the alias of Baker), the Reigate MP of 1423.

Yet although his place of residence is not known, Baker’s presence in the Coventry Parliament of 1459 was almost certainly the result of an association with John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, who had inherited the manor of Reigate 20 years earlier. His connexion with the duke had been established before November 1447, by which time he had been appointed to the trusted position of Mowbray Herald. He continued to occupy this post at least until April 1452, at a time when Norfolk was becoming ever more sympathetic to the cause of Richard, duke of York, and it is likely that he was still employed in this capacity in May 1455 when, immediately before the battle of St. Albans, Norfolk allowed York to use his herald in his negotiations with Henry VI and the duke of Buckingham. The ‘Fastolf Relation’, notable for its relatively objective account of the events, suggested that Buckingham, who had been appointed as constable of England in place of the duke of Somerset, had admitted to Mowbray Herald that the King had not been shown York’s letters. Norfolk himself was regarded as an enemy by the Crown, but did not take part in the battle, and thereafter took care to remain publicly loyal to the King, though still privately sympathetic to the Yorkists. This approach led him to take the oath of allegiance at the Parliament of November 1459, summoned for the purpose of attainting the Yorkist lords. This was the Parliament to which Baker was returned as an MP.2 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 743-4; C.A.J. Armstrong, ‘Politics and the Battle of St. Albans’, Bull. IHR, xxxiii. 19, 30-31, 65-67; L.E. Moye, ‘Estates and Finances of the Mowbray Fam.’ (Duke Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 21-22.