LECCHE, William

A native of Aynho in Northamptonshire, Lecche was a merchant who gained admission to the freedom of Colchester in January 1439, probably shortly after he had married the widow of another townsman. He began his official career in 1442, when he joined the borough council. A councillor when returned to Parliament, he became one of the bailiffs of the borough a few months after the dissolution of this assembly. At some point during his time as bailiff, John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, wrote to him and other prominent burgesses on behalf of his fellow bailiff, William Saxe*, but for what purpose is unknown.6 Ibid. D/B 5 Cr56, m. 19; Colchester ‘Oath bk.’, D/B 5 R1, f. 94d. Lecche held property within Colchester and in the hamlets of Bergholt and Mile End outside the town walls, almost certainly in the right of his wife.7 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 26. On various occasions in the 1440s and beyond, juries in the borough court charged him with keeping a dangerous guard dog, illegally occupying the common soil near the north bridge, polluting the river with a fetid latrine and assault. As for the alleged assault, the charge was that he and Thomas Lecche had attacked and beaten John Werkman and John Man with sticks at the North Mill, a fulling mill situated north of the town centre, in August 1444.8 Colchester ct. rolls, D/B 5 Cr60, mm. 2, 2d, 13d, 20, 22; 62, mm. 2, 18; 65, m. 2.

Far more serious than petty local matters were the charges that Lecche would face in the wake of Cade’s revolt. Not only did he come closer to the rising than he could ever have wished, he would find himself accused subsequently of having participated in it. On 1 July 1450, one of Cade’s lieutenants, John Gigges, came to Colchester, to raise rebellion there and in search of the King’s constable of the local castle, John Hampton II*, an esquire of the Household. Failing to find the constable, he apprehended Hampton’s servant and deputy constable, Thomas Mayne*, whom he brought to Cade in Southwark. The unfortunate Mayne made a brief will there on 4 July, before the rebels beheaded him a day later. Of no particular interest for its contents, the will is of most significance for its list of witnesses. At the head of the list are Lecche and a fellow burgess, Robert Selby*, showing that Gigges had brought them to London with Mayne.9 Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 193; I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade, 94; PCC 12 Rous (PROB11/1, f. 91). Although Lecche and Selby did not suffer the deputy constable’s fate, it is very unlikely that they had come to London willingly: the fact that they witnessed his will suggests that they had shared his confinement with him. Furthermore, it is difficult to conceive that Lecche could have become bailiff of Colchester just months after the end of the revolt if guilty of participation in it. Yet when (Sir) John Prysote* and other commissioners of oyer and terminer sat at Colchester in February 1453 a jury asserted that Lecche and other townsmen had risen in support of Cade on the very day that Gigges had arrived in the town. The presenting jurors included John* and William Foorde*, John Wright* and Nicholas Peek*, all leading burgesses, and it seems likely that the indictment arose out of personal enmities amongst Colchester’s ruling oligarchy rather than any actual treason.10 KB9/26/1/17; KB27/778, rex rot. 8. Whatever the case, Lecche had already taken the precaution of securing a royal pardon just a few months before the sessions of oyer and terminer, so ensuring that the indictment came to nothing.11 C67/40, m. 13 (11 Nov. 1452). He must have died not long afterwards, since Thomas Lecche was his ‘cousin and heir’ in 1454-5.12 ‘Oath bk.’, f. 96.