MALLYNG, John

Like many other of Leominster’s MPs, Mallyng, a clothier or draper, was involved in the cloth trade on which his native borough’s prosperity depended. He was probably the son of another John Mallyng: in 1426 this elder John, described a husbandman, was sued by the borough’s overlord, the abbot of Reading, for close-breaking at nearby Winsley; and in 1436, described as ‘senior’, he narrowly escaped outlawry at the suit of the abbot’s bailiff, Richard Winnesley*, for leaving Winnesley’s service at Winsley without licence.1 CP40/663, rot. 25; 699, rots. 285d, 432. It is impossible to tell accurately when the career of the elder John ended, and that of the younger began. Both seem to have been alive in 1441, when, rather ungallantly, our MP, described as ‘junior, husbandman’, pleaded self-defence when sued by a local woman for assault. Thereafter, however, it is a reasonable to assume that all references refer to the younger man. In 1444 he is described as ‘hosier alias draper’ when sued for a debt of over £36 by John Verney, dean of Lichfield.2 KB27/721, rot. 45; CP40/732, rot. 436. More interestingly, he enjoyed no better relations with the abbot of Reading than his putative father had done. In 1448 he was sued by the abbot for taking his goods worth £10 and, more seriously, for assaulting and wounding a monk of the abbey, both offences allegedly taking place at Leominster.3 CP40/750, rot. 483d. Perhaps the dispute that presumably underlay these offences had prompted him to seek election to Parliament in the previous year.

Mallyng sat on the Leominster jury in both August 1452 and April 1457, when royal commissioners came to Hereford to investigate the county’s involvement in Yorkist risings. On the latter occasion, when he headed the jury, he took advantage of his position to secure the indictment of a Welsh yeoman from Bishop’s Castle, who, on the previous 26 Nov., had allegedly stolen cloth worth as much as £20 from his house at Leominster.4 KB9/34/2/6; 35/73, 73d. Personal rather than political reasons explain his presence on these juries, for what little evidence there is implies that his political sympathies lay with York. In his final appearance in the records, he is named last of the 13 attestors to the borough parliamentary election of 25 Sept. 1460, when the leader of the town’s Yorkist faction, Hugh Shirley*, was returned. He died within the next few months – he was certainly dead by the end of Henry VI’s reign – and it may be significant that his widow and executrix, Christine, married (before Easter term 1463) Hugh’s near-kinsman, Thomas Shirley†.5 C219/16/6; KB27/808, rot. 14.