REDWYN, Henry

The Redwyns were a family well established in fifteenth-century Barnstaple. An earlier Henry Redwyn was trading as a mercer in the town in 1416,2 N. Devon RO, Barnstaple bor. recs., B1/465; CP40/622, rot. 23d. while another kinsman, William Redwyn, rose to considerable prominence and was elected mayor of the town on at least three separate occasions in 1433, 1437 and 1443, before securing special royal exemption from any future office-holding.3 The list of mayors provided by J.B. Gribble, Mems. Barnstaple, 199 is largely spurious and William Redwyn is variously called Bedwin or Bowdon: Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME736; N. Devon RO, Incledon-Webber mss, 3704M/EL1/2; C1/9/413; KB27/750, rot. 5; CAD, vi. C.4395; C147/150, 3401; HMC 9th Rep. pt. 1, p. 208; CPR, 1441-6, p. 451.

Few details of Henry’s own career have been discovered, but it appears that he, styled a gentleman, had some training in the law, for he occasionally appeared in Chancery as a pledge for a plaintiff or found surety at the Exchequer for one of his neighbours.4 C1/74/107; CFR, xviii. 186. He evidently maintained close links with the town of his birth, and in his transactions was regularly associated with local men, as well as Londoners.5 CP40/739, rot. 188; 740, rot. 60; 761, rot. 329; CCR, 1447-54, p. 413. He owned property both in Barnstaple and Newport Bishop (the episcopal suburb to the south-east of the borough), as well as further afield in South Molton.6 CP25(1)/46/89/258; HMC 9th Rep. pt. 1, pp. 209-10. In view of his contacts, as well as his family’s standing in Barnstaple, Redwyn was probably an obvious choice as a parliamentary representative, and there is no sign of opposition to his candidacy in February 1449. On the occasion of his second return, however, the names of both Redwyn and his parliamentary companion, Thomas Gille I* (a Crown official who regularly sat for Dartmouth, but was on no other occasion chosen for Barnstaple, where he had no obvious ties) were entered into the sheriff’s election indenture over an erasure. The accompanying schedule showed no evidence of similar interference, but since Barnstaple was there listed last of the five Devon boroughs it is possible that there was some form of irregularity in the return of its representatives.7 C219/16/1.

Nothing is known of what part, if any, Redwyn played in the dramatic proceedings of either of his Parliaments, but during the first session of that of 1450 at least he found time to transact personal business, for he stood surety at the Exchequer for a grant of land to a client.8 CFR, xviii. 186. It may also have been about this time that a transaction took place which led to a quarrel between him and a clerk, William Elyot, in early 1454. The details of the dispute are now obscure, but it concerned vexatious litigation that Redwyn was supposed to have begun against Elyot over a bond guaranteeing the grant of an annuity to an accomplice.9 C253/34/226; C4/120/86.

Redwyn’s will has not been discovered, but it appears that he settled his property on feoffees, stipulating that the revenues should be used to establish a chantry in the lady chapel of the parish church of Barnstaple, where prayers should be said for him and his wife, and their parents and ancestors. In the event, it seems that the chantry was established in the chapel of St. Anne.10 HMC 9th Rep. pt. 1, pp. 209-10; Chantry Certificates Devon ed. Snell, 51.