WENYNGTON, Robert

Wenyngton came from a family of Norman origins which had settled in England sufficiently recently for him still to be commonly known as ‘de Caen’. Normally resident at Dartmouth, he owned a number of tenements in the town, including an empty plot to the east of the Kingsway which he rented from Thomas Bosse and his wife Denise in 1443 for a term of 80 years at a rent of 6s. 8d. p.a. and 26s. 8d. p.a. thereafter. It was probably on this plot that later in the same year he set about constructing a new house, having first reached an agreement with the widow and sons of a neighbour, Robert Bolt, to defend their joint right to a watercourse running between the two houses against the town authorities.4 Watkin, 123-5.

Like many other Dartmouth men, Wenyngton was a shipowner also active in trade. His business activities extended across England, as the debts he was owed by merchants from as far away as Great Yarmouth in Norfolk and Hamble in Hampshire indicate, and his ships also frequently crossed the Channel.5 CP40/720, rot. 147; 745, rot. 200d; DKR, xlviii. 430. He owned shares in a number of vessels, including a hulk called La Mari of Dertemouth and a barge called La Julyan of Dertemouth, which he and his business associates pledged as security for outstanding customs of £6 in September 1437. A few years later, in 1443, he additionally acquired a share in a Spanish vessel called La Marye which had been captured by one David Roche, master of Le Marye Carewe.6 Watkin, 395, 397. As in this instance, acts of privateering formed an integral part of the activities of the Devon shipmen. Thus, in November 1445 a royal commission was appointed to investigate the taking of a ship belonging to the queen of France by Wenyngton and a number of his associates, including the Kingswear merchant Richard Smith II*. Wenyngton and his fellows were said to have ignored the letters of safe conduct by which the ship was protected and taken it to Fowey, where they had disposed of the cargo of wine and iron and had not only beaten and wounded the crew, but even killed some of them.7 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 420-1. On another occasion Wenyngton had offered to act for a group of merchants whose vessel, the Mighell of Dartmouth carrying wine and other goods worth over £500, had been taken on the voyage from Bordeaux to London by one Thomas de la Terre, a Breton privateer. As a truce between the English Crown and the duke of Brittany was in force at the time, the merchants had sued out letters of privy seal addressed to the duke to claim restitution. The merchants had sought to hire a herald to deliver the letters to Brittany on their behalf, but Wenyngton had approached them and offered to deliver the letters and bring the duke’s response to London, where the complainants were staying in the parish of St. Martin Vintry. Before long, however, it transpired that far from acting out of altruism Wenyngton was in fact in league with de la Terre and had no intention of delivering the royal letters.8 C1/15/52.

In spite of repeated petitions to the chancellor, there is no suggestion that Wenyngton was ever taken to task for his activities, which were in any event far from unusual for a man like him. Indeed, neither the men of Dartmouth nor the government took a particularly severe view of Wenyngton’s actions. In 1445 he was elected bailiff of Dartmouth, and just two years later he was chosen mayor of the town. From early in 1447 he also held office under the Crown as searcher of ships and subsequently as a customer in the ports of Exeter and Dartmouth. Equally, Wenyngton enjoyed cordial relations with his fellow burgesses, for whom he regularly attested deeds, or acted as a feoffee,9 CCR, 1435-41, p. 342; Watkin, 116, 118, 120, 126-9, 132-4, 137, 139. and his local standing, as much as his experience of office-holding and naval matters were probably contributing factors in his election to the Parliament which was summoned to meet at Westminster in early 1449. The Lords and Commons who had not gathered for two years since the troubled Parliament of 1447 at Bury St. Edmunds, assembled while the military situation in Normandy deteriorated dramatically. Indeed, while they were in session it reached a crisis. The safekeeping of the sea became a central concern, both for merchants trading across the Channel and more generally with a view to reinforcing the remaining English garrisons. Urgent action was required, and as the men of Dartmouth had a particularly strong interest in the matter which their representatives probably pressed vociferously, one of their number was a natural choice to be entrusted with the task. Probably assisted by existing connexions at court with men like Thomas Daniell* and John Trevelyan*, who provided ships for the expedition, Wenyngton was retained alongside two other royal servants, Gervase Clifton* and Alexander Iden to go to sea for the ‘rebukyng of the robbeurs and privaters’. At the same time royal letters were sent to 13 of the most powerful men in Devon, including the Courtenay earl, Lords Fitzwaryn and Bonville*, Sir Philip Courtenay* of Powderham, Sir John Dynham of Nutwell and the bishop of Exeter, urging them to assist him in every way.10 E28/78/106; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, i. 489; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 428; Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 463; E. Power and M.M. Postan, English Trade in 15th Cent. 128; CPR, 1446-52, p. 270.

Yet, the expedition did not go as the Council had intended. Far from protecting English and neutral shipping from pirates and hostile privateers, within a short time of putting to sea Wenyngton’s small force seized the neutral Bay fleet, consisting of over 100 mainly Dutch and Hanseatic vessels, and brought them back to Southampton in triumph. Wenyngton’s own written account of the confrontation, sent to Daniell, survives and suggests that this turn of events was brought about to a large degree by the Dartmouth captain’s own wounded pride. Having encountered the Bay fleet while patrolling the Channel according to his brief, Wenyngton hailed their captains and ordered them to strike their sails. In doing this, he was exercising a right which had been first claimed by Edward III for all English sovereigns, but which was understandably not recognized by the towns of the Hanseatic League. Consequently, the Germans refused to comply with Wenyngton’s demand. Indignant at this perceived slight, the English commander threatened to force them to do his bidding, but as the neutral ships heavily outnumbered his own vessels the foreigners merely laughed at his threats. They found themselves, however, unable simply to evade the English flotilla, which engaged its enemy. Fighting continued all day, and according to Wenyngton’s version of events the Hanseatic fleet bombarded his ships with as many as 1,000 cannon balls, as well as innumerable other missiles, killing and wounding a number of his men. Yet on the second day, a wind started up which enabled the English ships to prepare to ram their opponents, and this manoeuvre caused the Germans to surrender, rather than risk being sunk. Wenyngton successfully escorted the captured fleet to port, but the damage the Hansards had done to his own ships was considerable: he assessed it at as much as £2,000 and in high dudgeon demanded that all the ships and goods should be permanently forfeit. As far as the captive sailors and merchants were concerned, failing other instructions from the King and his Council, he was ‘avesyd, and all my feleschyp, to droune them and slee them’.11 Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, ii. 103-5; I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade, 56-57; W. Country Shipping (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. xxi), p. xvii. There appears to be no evidence to show whether Wenyngton’s actions were officially sanctioned, as is suggested by C.F. Richmond, ‘Keeping of Seas’, History, xlix. 295. It is interesting to note that the precedent set by Wenyngton was drawn upon by the earl of Warwick in 1458, when he captured the Bay fleet a second time, on the pretext that they had refused to salute the English arms: Power and Postan, 130.

Whatever motivated Wenyngton’s attack on the neutral fleet, it triggered a major diplomatic crisis. The towns of the Hanseatic League whose ships had been seized were incensed at this unwarranted attack by a fleet sent to sea for their protection, particularly as the goods of the Dutch and Flemish merchants which had also been taken were speedily restored, leaving the Esterlings as sole victims. The High Master of the Teutonic Order, whose town of Danzig had accounted for 14 of the largest of the captured ships, immediately ordered the arrest of all English merchants and their goods within his territory, as did the duke of Burgundy.12 Hanserecesse, 1431-76 ed. von der Ropp, iii. 402-6; R. Fabyan, New Chrons. ed. Ellis, 621-2; The Brut (EETS, cxxxvi), ii. 515; Griffiths, 554; Power and Postan, 128-9. Extensive diplomatic efforts had to be made to secure the reinstatement of the English merchants everywhere and the duke of Burgundy had to be pacified with a payment of 4,000 marks, which needed to be borrowed from the Calais staplers.13 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 13-14; E401/821, m. 7; E404/67/167; E403/784, mm. 2-3; E28/81/23-26; SC8/63/3141; 132/6576. Further difficulties developed in the Baltic. In late July the English ambassadors to the High Master of the Teutonic Order were captured on their voyage to Prussia by a ship of Lübeck, one of the Hanseatic towns which had suffered most in the attack, and imprisoned there.14 Hanserecesse, iii. 473.

Meanwhile, after a spell in the Isle of Wight, from where he wrote to Daniell on 25 May, Wenyngton may have attended the final session of the Parliament, held at Winchester for a month from 16 June. At home at Michaelmas he renewed an earlier settlement of his property on prominent trustees.15 Watkin, 132. Yet in spite of the fall-out from his naval engagement, in the late autumn he was re-elected to take one of the Dartmouth seats in the second Parliament of 1449, summoned to assemble on 6 Nov. Even while the Commons were in session, events that threatened to deprive Wenyngton of his powerful allies began to unravel. In April 1450 Parliament forsook the restive city of London for the Lancastrian stronghold of Leicester, and was still gathered there when news of Jack Cade’s uprising in the south-east caused its hurried dissolution, albeit not before Wenyngton had been replaced as a customs collector.16 Griffiths, 611. His principal associates at court, Trevelyan and Daniell, were among the men marked out for particular opprobrium by the rebels, and he himself, less than popular in some quarters of the merchant community – where his exploits were justifiably blamed for the seizure of English ships and cargoes abroad – may also have thought it prudent to lie low. He probably returned at least temporarily to Dartmouth.17 Hanserecesse, iii. 506-11; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 101; PPC, vi. p. xxv; Harvey, 131. It was at one time believed that Wenyngton was the same Robert de Caen who, sailing in the Nicholas of the Tower, was responsible for the murder of the duke of Suffolk in May 1450, but in the light of his connexions at court this seems improbable, and there were in any event other Robert Canes in the south-east: HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 933; R. Virgoe, ‘Death of Wm. de la Pole, duke of Suffolk’, Bull. John Rylands Lib. xlvii. 494-5; J.H. Ramsay, Lancaster and York, ii. 121; E179/124/138, rot. 3d.

Before long, the unrest blew over, and far from being charged with his unwarranted attack on the Bay fleet, the only proceedings Wenyngton faced concerned private, and by comparison relatively minor, quarrels. Thus, a commission of oyer and terminer appointed in late July 1450 was instructed to investigate his earlier attack on a local gentleman, Walter Reynell* of Malston. Wenyngton was accused of assaulting and imprisoning Reynell at Dartmouth, refusing to set him free until he agreed in writing to cease all litigation against his captor and consented to arrange the release of one John Purchas, who was held prisoner by his associate John Lake. By the time of the appointment of the justices of oyer and terminer, Reynell had been liberated and himself headed a further commission charged with Wenyngton’s arrest.18 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 387-8. In addition, Reynell brought proceedings in the court of common pleas against a number of prominent Dartmouth townsmen, including Wenyngton.19 CP40/760, rot. 208d; 761, rot. 200; 766, rot. 122d. Once again, all these attempts to bring him to justice came to nothing. In early 1451 he sailed for Portugal, perhaps on a trading venture, and in January 1452 he secured a general pardon.20 E159/227, brevia Hil. rot. 20; C67/40, m. 24. Moreover, with the earl of Wiltshire’s appointment as treasurer in March 1455, he was allowed to resume his duties as a customs collector, and he remained in post until the end of 1457. His final year as customer coincided with a second term as mayor of Dartmouth. Having relinquished his customs office, Wenyngton was now also free to pursue his mercantile interests once more, and seems to have done so with renewed vigour.21 DKR, xlviii. 430.

In spite of his earlier association with Henry VI’s courtiers, Wenyngton seems to have switched his allegiances to the Yorkist cause with some dexterity. It is quite possible that he had done so as early as 1455, for he served as customs collector throughout the period of the duke of York’s second protectorate. Certainly, his subsequent support for the house of York was more than nominal, for in February 1462 Edward IV granted him an annuity of £10 from the customs of Exeter and Dartmouth ‘for good and unpaid service to his great contentment’.22 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 75, 137; CCR, 1461-8, p. 122; E356/21, rot. 49. Wenyngton lived to enjoy this annuity for only a few years. The exact date of his death is uncertain, but it occurred before November 1466, when his widow sealed a bond for £3 2s. to William Oliver I* of Bridport.23 CAD, i. C1081.