WARD, Richard

Like several of Northampton’s MPs during this period Richard Ward was a dyer. The first of his few appearances in the records is his election as bailiff in 1425. He was well connected with townsmen more prominent than himself. When Ralph Passenham* was elected to represent the borough in Parliament of 1427, he was one of those who stood surety for his appearance, and at the next election in 1429 he fulfilled the same role for Henry Stone*. He himself was returned when the borough electors next met on 22 Dec. 1430.2 C219/13/5; 14/1, 2. All else that can be discovered about him comes from his occasional appearances in the records of the central courts. At the time of his election he was defending an action of close-breaking at Far Cotton, just outside the town, sued against him by a local esquire, James Swettenham. Of more interest, in Michaelmas term 1432 he was one of several townsmen, the principal of whom was Edwin Stannop*, who were to be arrested to answer the King on a plea of contempt and trespass. Unfortunately the exact nature of their supposed offence does not appear, and our MP was not unduly troubled by the process against him.3 CP40/682, rot. 45d; KB27/686, rex rot. 23. In Easter term 1434 he offered mainprise for another former Northampton MP, John Bertram*, who had been distrained to appear in the court of common pleas. Two years later, Thomas Rastell, a prominent dyer of Coventry brought an appeal of mayhem against our MP and three other dyers of Northampton and writs for their outlawry were issued in Trinity term 1436.4 CP40/693, rot. 158d; KB27/699, rot. 42; 700, rots. 17, 65; 701, rot. 5. Thereafter the appeal disappears from the plea rolls but Ward may already have been suffering under the disability of an outlawry for debt at the suit of his old adversary, Swettenham. Not until 1439 did he secure its reversal. He last appears in the records in 1441 when defendant in an action of debt.5 CPR, 1436-41, p. 211; CP40/722, rot. 277d.