SCUTTING, Richard

Richard was possibly the son, but almost certainly a relative, of Clement Scutting, a tailor active at Dunwich in the 1430s and 1440s.4 KB27/694, rot. 3; 702, rot. 45d; C1/9/84. Several estreat rolls kept by the town’s bailiffs provide the earliest known references to him. These show that in the mid 1430s he paid the corporation annual rents of 4d. for a messuage and 6d. for a shop in the market-place. They also record that his wife (not identified by name) was fined for breaking local bye-laws concerning brewing in July 1434. In a leet held in the town three years later, he himself was amerced 20d. for assaulting another local resident, Peter Skynnere, in his own house.5 SC11/886, mm. 19, 20, 27, 28d; 887; Add. Rolls 40728-9. Returned to the Commons at least twice, Scutting held his only known offices at Dunwich, those of coroner and bailiff, after sitting in the Parliaments of 1449-50 and 1453.

Scutting made his will on 20 May 1459 and was dead by the following 21 June when it was proved.6 Archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/2/24. He sought burial in the parish church of All Saints, to the high altar of which he left 20s. He also made smaller gifts to several other churches and religious institutions in Dunwich, including the Maison Dieu, a refuge for the local poor and handicapped, which lay next to a close he owned. Scutting ordered the sale of this close to raise the money necessary to support a chantry priest to pray for the souls of himself and his deceased first wife, Margaret. For the further good of Margaret’s soul, he bequeathed to Master Walter Mendilsham, apparently a local friar, the sum of 6s. 8d., presumably for prayers on her behalf. To his second wife, Cecily, Scutting left his chief messuage and an adjoining marsh for life, after which it was to be sold; to each of his two daughters, Katherine and Agnes, he bequeathed five marks. Neither daughter was yet married, suggesting that they were still quite young, but it is impossible to tell if Margaret or Cecily was their mother, or whether they were half-sisters. Scutting himself was probably not very old when he died, since he bequeathed a debt of £14 owed to him by his brother, John, to his unnamed parents who were still alive. Among those he appointed his executors were his then wife Cecily and Master Mendilsham. Not mentioned in the will is William Scutting, described in a royal pardon of May 1450 as of Blythborough, merchant, and late of Dunwich, yeoman,7 C67/43, m. 3. but presumably he was another of the MP’s relatives.