WILDE, Thomas

It is unlikely that Wilde was descended from the Goldsmiths, a family prominent in Oxford in the late 1200s, since his alias arose from his trade.3 VCH Oxon. xi. 216. It is also unlikely that he was related to his contemporary, William Goldsmith of Oxford, since William’s alias was Huchons: Wood’s Surv. Antiqs. Oxf. iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xxxvii), 20; C219/12/3, 5, 6; 13/1; Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/9-10. There is scant evidence for his property in the town, although for the purposes of the subsidy of 1436 he was estimated to enjoy a landed income of £5 p.a.4 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (vii, xii). Local records do however show that he and his wife obtained a toft near the castle in Oxford from Thomas Gybbus and his wife in April 1420, and that he held a shop in the parish of St. Martin and two cellars in that of St. Peter le Bailey.5 Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/7; Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xc), 72; iii (ibid. xci), 231. In Nov. 1440 he and Michael Norton released various properties in Oxford and its suburbs to John Fitzaleyn* and his wife, but they probably did so as trustees for the couple: Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxviii), 182-3; Surv. Oxf. ii (ibid. n.s. xx), 93, 95; Liber Albus Oxoniensis ed. Ellis, no. 218. In August 1441 Wilde conveyed a couple of shops in St. Martin’s and a messuage situated partly in St. Peter le Bailey and partly in the parish of St. Ebbe to Richard Broun, archdeacon of Rochester, and John Aston (chaplain or rector of St. Martin’s), but it is unclear whether he did so as a feoffee or on his own account.6 Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. 73. The deed in question refers to Richard, ‘bishop of Rochester’, but William Wells was bishop at this date and Broun resided in Oxford for much of the time: ibid. 73n.

Before becoming an MP, Wilde served two consecutive terms as bailiff of Oxford. A petition complaining about the behaviour of Irish students attending Oxford university, which the Commons submitted in the Parliament of 1422, suggests that his time in the office proved a difficult one. The petition accused the Irishmen of wanton lawlessness in Oxford and elsewhere in the Thames valley and further alleged that they had menaced anyone in authority who had tried to take action against them, including the town’s bailiffs. Although the petition does not name the bailiffs, it is almost certain that Wilde, recently re-elected to that office, was one of the officials in question. According to the petition, the bailiffs had fled the borough for fear of the miscreants, meaning that they were unable to collect its fee farm or perform any of their other duties. The Commons concluded the petition by asking the King to evict all Irishmen from the realm, save for senior members of the universities, those with English benefices or an English parent, or those of good repute residing in English towns and cities. The petition was granted, although the university was afterwards permitted to admit law-abiding Irishmen who could produce ‘lettres testimoniales’ guaranteeing their good behaviour.7 PROME, x. 57-58.

A few weeks after the Parliament ended, Wilde was obliged to enter a recognizance for a debt of £100 he owed the Crown. This security was taken from him in his capacity as bailiff of Oxford, suggesting that this significant sum represented arrears due from the borough, perhaps of the fee farm the lawless Irishmen had made too difficult to collect.8 E159/199, recogniciones, Hil. rot. 1. Presumably Wilde acquitted himself well after taking up his seat in the following Parliament, for his fellow burgesses re-elected him in 1425 and 1426 and then returned him to the Commons for a fourth time in 1432.

A little over a year before Wilde entered his final Parliament, Joan and Elizabeth, the daughters and coheirs of Sir John Drayton†, and their respective husbands, Drew Barantyn* and Christopher Preston, sued him in the court of King’s bench. The suit reached pleadings in Hilary term 1431 when the plaintiffs alleged that he and the town clerk of Oxford, Michael Norton, had forcibly broken into their house in the town. Wilde and Norton were represented in court by their attorney, William Betley, but it fell to Hugh Holgot, an attorney employed by the borough, to respond to the plaintiffs’ plea. Citing Oxford’s royal charters, Holgot claimed cognizance of the suit for the borough, on the grounds that both defendants were burgesses and the alleged offence had occurred within Oxford. The court adjourned after instructing the parties to reappear in the following quindene of Easter, but it is possible that the case was settled out of court since there is no trace of it in the plea roll for Easter 1431.9 KB27/679, rot. 71d.

Wilde was caught up in another dispute later that decade, when he and several other Oxford men were among those chosen to collect Oxfordshire’s contribution to the subsidy granted to the King in the Parliament of 1435. Upon their appointment, made in January 1436, the borough protested that none of its inhabitants had served as tax collectors in the wider county in the past.10 This was not in fact true since previously at least four other 15th-century MPs, Hugh Benet†, William Brampton*, Thomas Cowley† and John Fitzaleyn, had served as tax collectors for Oxon. But all of them owned lands in the wider county and Fitzaleyn appears to have served as such before settling in Oxford. It is possible that Wilde and two of the other Oxford men appointed collectors, Thomas Waldef and John Quarame†, refused to take up their duties, for in February 1439 the Crown issued a commission for their arrest, so that they might be made to account at the Exchequer. Included on the commission were several of their fellow collectors, who may well have resented any shirking of responsibility by some of their number. In the following May, however, the authorities admitted that a breach of custom had indeed occurred and instructed the Exchequer to issue the three men with a discharge.11 E159/215, commissiones Hil., brevia Easter rot. 24. In Oct. 1440 John Buldry of Drayton, one of those appointed to the comm. of 1436, acknowledged that he owed £60 to Wilde, Quarame and two of the other collectors, John Asshebury and John Mershfeld; why is not recorded: E159/217, recogniciones Mich.

It appears that Wilde was not chosen for any further public office after this affair, although he remained active in the late 1430s as a surety and arbitrator for those involved in suits brought before the chancellor of Oxford university. In February 1439, he himself was party to a case heard in the chancellor’s court, at which it was ruled that he owed John Quenarton, a fellow of New College, just over 40s. The records of the court show that he freely acknowledged the debt, although not how it had arisen in the first place.12 Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. xciii), 32-33, 35, 49, 52, 61-62; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1537.

Not heard of after 1441, Wilde is likely to have died soon after making the previously mentioned conveyance to the archdeacon of Rochester and John Aston. A William Wilde, possibly his son or grandson, attested the return of Oxfordshire’s knights of the shire to the Parliament of 1472.