WATERDEN, Richard

A wool merchant from a prominent Lynn family, Richard was possibly the son of Thomas Waterden, a leading participant in the political struggles which afflicted the town in the early fifteenth century. Whatever the exact relationship between the two men, it is likely that Richard was an elder son: there is no record of his admission to the franchise, indicating that he became a freeman of the borough by reason of his birth, a privilege reserved for the first-born sons of burgesses.5 M.D. Myers, ‘Violence in King’s Lynn 1380-1420’ (Univ. of Notre Dame, Indiana, D.Phil. thesis, 1996), 128, 193. He would appear to have come of age by 1406,6 CPR, 1405-8, pp. 269-70. although he was not active in local affairs until five years later, when the disputes between Thomas Waterden and other ‘potentiores’ on the one hand and the commonalty of Lynn on the other were referred to arbitration. Richard was one of the burgesses of second rank (‘mediocres’) who each gave bonds of £50 to accept whatever award the arbitrators made. In the event the award did not favour his putative father. Thomas Waterden’s demands for reimbursement of the expenses he had claimed for his mayoralty were rejected, and certain privileges were restored to the inferiores of Lynn, from whom several of his opponents were drawn.7 HMC 11th Rep. III, 191-4. Not long afterwards Richard was implicated in disturbances which Thomas and his faction were said to have provoked, and he was obliged to enter a bond to the mayor, Roger Galion, and the corporation as a guarantee of his own good behaviour.8 King’s Lynn bor. recs., ‘William Asshebourne’s Bk.’, KL/C 10/2, f. 9.

Richard began his career as an office-holder upon joining the common council or 27. He was subsequently promoted to the 24, the upper council which dominated borough affairs, and he was elected mayor shortly before his death. Like other members of the 24 he had dealings with Lynn’s feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich, and in 1424 he participated in important discussions with Bishop Wakering about securing an adequate supply of fresh water for the borough. Later in the same decade he was one of the burgesses who rode to Norwich to attend the installation of Wakering’s successor, Bishop Alnwick.9 KL/C 7/29, pp. 19, 169.

In both his Parliaments Waterden’s fellow MP was Bartholomew Petipas*, Thomas Waterden’s principal opponent a few years earlier, but the fact that the two men were elected to consecutive assemblies suggests that they were able to work together. Before they set out for the Parliament of 1423 the corporation issued them with a copy of a charter to show the bishop of Norwich, who was attending the assembly as a member of the Lords. The document in question was undoubtedly Henry V’s confirmation of Lynn’s charter of 1410, since this confirmation was itself renewed a few months after Parliament was dissolved.10 Ibid. 5; CPR, 1413-16, p. 191; 1422-9, p. 134.

During the same Parliament, Richard and several other merchants from Lynn were involved in a dispute with John Smyth, a mariner from Danzig. Some time earlier, they had won a suit against Smyth in the English admiralty court, but he had successfully appealed against the verdict in the summer of 1422. They responded by petitioning the Crown, which in December 1423 appointed John, bishop of London, along with the keeper of the privy seal and future bishop of Norwich, William Alnwick, and others to investigate the matter, but with what result is not known.11 CPR, 1422-9, p. 160.

Waterden ended his career as mayor of Lynn, dying in office in February 1430, having served less than half his term. There is no evidence that he had any children, although it is possible that William Waterden, who had become a member of the 24 by the early 1430s, was his son.12 Myers, 129n; KL/C 7/29, p. 283; King’s Lynn bor. recs., hall bk. 1431-50, KL/C 7/3, ff. 1, 15, 29. The Thomas Waterden who completed an apprenticeship at Lynn in 1446 could also have been a son of his: KL/C 7/3, f. 215v. Waterden’s will has not survived but Exchequer records show that his executors were John Waterden, probably his brother, and Philip Frank*. In Michaelmas term 1431 they had to render account in that government department for goods that he had seized for the Crown in his capacity as mayor.13 E159/208, recorda Mich. rot. 5d.