WALTER, Henry

Henry may have been the son of John Walter, who was a feoffee in the property of a Leicester dyer in 1403. On 10 Nov. 1409, the earliest known reference to him, he witnessed a charter conveying this same property.2 Ibid. ii. 412-14. Whatever his precise antecedents, he emerged into a sudden prominence in the town’s affairs in the early 1420s, perhaps as a result of his marriage to a widow with a substantial estate in the town. Election as one of the town’s bailiffs at Michaelmas 1422 was almost immediately followed by election to represent the borough in Parliament. Yet this prominence was very brief. He attested Leicester’s parliamentary election in February 1426, but soon afterwards his seemingly promising career was ended by premature death. He died between Easter term 1429, when he appeared in person in the court of King’s bench to sue a cooper of Leicester for trespass, and the following 2 Oct., when Alice, once more a widow, was involved in an arbitration award in respect of her first husband’s lands.3 C219/13/1, 4; KB27/672, rot. 2d; CP40/682, rot. 319.

There is little to add to these bare bones. In the course of his brief career Walter was named as an executor by both Nicholas Godezer, vicar of St. Margaret’s, Leicester, and William Dekyn, a chantry chaplain in the local church of St. Martin, suggesting he was a respected figure in the town.4 KB27/642, rot. 109; CP40/684, rot. 186. Nothing is known of his commercial dealings, and only a little more about his family circumstances. His widow was alive as late as Hilary term 1439 when Thomas Burton* had an action against her for a debt of as much as 40 marks.5 CP40/712, rot. 70d. It is also probable that he left issue. This is implied by a much later conveyance. On 5 Jan. 1461 two townsmen settled a messuage in St. Martin’s parish in Gallowtree and a nearby garden in St. Margaret’s parish in Humberstone Gate on one Agnes Wistow for life. On her death the bulk of the property was to pass to Alice, daughter of William Palmer of Keyham near Leicester, in fee tail, with a third of the garden passing to one Alice Tylesley, daughter of Christine Chaddesden, again in fee tail. On the failure of their issue the property was to be sold with the proceeds employed for the salvation of the soul of our MP’s widow. One likely interpretation of this settlement is that Agnes Wistow was our MP’s daughter by his heiress wife, and that the two Alices were his widow’s collateral heirs.6 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 427.