WRITTLE, Walter

Perhaps a lawyer by training, Walter pursued the career of a useful functionary. A fanciful pedigree gives him several knightly ancestors,8 Vis. Essex, ii (Harl. Soc. xiv), 621-2. but his father, Robert, who served as escheator in Essex and Hertfordshire in 1412-13 and on various ad hoc commissions, was never a member of the upper gentry.9 CFR, x. 216, 266; xiv. 6; CPR, 1416-22, p. 69; 1422-9, p. 552. Robert Writtle did nevertheless have connexions with Robert Darcy I* and Richard Baynard*, two important lawyers from Essex, and with the de Vere earls of Oxford, who held substantial estates in the county. In the late 1420s he stood surety for the 12th earl, John de Vere, after the latter had received a heavy fine for marrying without licence while a ward of the Crown.10 CFR, xiv. 437; CPR, 1416-22, p. 440; 1422-9, pp. 470, 543; CCR, 1419-22, pp. 223, 225. It is likely that Walter (whose will indicates that he had been close to the earl’s stepfather, Sir Nicholas Thorley),11 `` PCC 21 Wattys. was also closely linked with the de Veres in his early years, although another magnate, Henry Bourgchier, Viscount Bourgchier and afterwards earl of Essex, would become his most important patron. It is also likely that he had his father’s connexions to thank for his first marriage, since his bride was the grand-daughter of the prominent London draper, John Hende, Richard Baynard’s stepfather and associate.12 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 150.

In terms of landed wealth, Walter was largely a self-made man who bought most of his estates. His limited inheritance comprised a manor at High Laver in Essex and holdings in Southwark which came to him from his mother, and a contingent interest in two manors in Chigwell and Barking from his father. He had some years to wait to succeed to his mother’s lands, for Eleanor Writtle, subsequently the wife of Richard Priour, was still alive in the early 1450s. As for Chigwell and Barking, these did not pass to the Writtles in the MP’s own lifetime.13 Essex RO, Petre mss, D/B T96/96/69; C140/52/32; E326/8684; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 358. Robert Writtle’s interest in Chigwell and Barking derived from a settlement of 1410 in which – for whatever reason – the then owner of the manors, Sir Walter Goldingham, named him as a remainderman. Walter’s purchases included three manors near High Laver. He obtained Bobbingworth (at one time the property of Sir Nicholas Thorley and subsequently acquired by Thomas Tyrell*) in about 1466 and ‘Astlyns’, lying partly in Bobbingworth and partly in High Ongar, later in the same decade, but the date of his purchase of ‘Lampets’ in Fyfield and Moreton is unknown.14 C140/52/32; VCH Essex, iv. 11, 51; Petre mss, D/B T96/42, 43, 51, 52. Late in life, his main residence was Bobbingworth, the parish in which he chose to be buried.15 ‘Of Chigwell’ earlier in his career, he was described as late of Little Hallingbury and Stansted in a royal pardon of Oct. 1468: CFR, xix. 129-30, 178-9; C67/45, m. 5; 46, m. 15. He took advantage of a dispute to acquire Astlyns, formerly the property of Sir Richard de Vere, a younger brother of the earl of Oxford. Bound up with the marriage of de Vere’s stepdaughter to Thomas Bodulgate*, the quarrel saw Bodulgate seize that manor, even though de Vere had sold the reversion of it to the London draper, Thomas Winslow II*. Having presided over an inquisition concerning Astlyns in his capacity as sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in January 1469, Writtle had gained the manor for himself by the end of the following summer, presumably after buying out one or more of the interested parties.16 VCH Essex, iv. 177; C1/38/113; R. Coll. of Physicians, London, LEGAC/Ashlyns deeds 7-22; C131/75/11. On at least two occasions Walter obtained temporary interests in property outside his native county. First, in December 1461 he and Robert Ingleton* paid the Crown 100 marks for the wardship of Edward Ralegh, the son of a minor landowner in Northamptonshire and Devon.17 CFR, xx. 54-55. But the two men would not have had custody of Edward’s lands for long, since the ward was nearly 19 at this date: C140/1/5. Secondly, in March 1468, shortly before the dissolution of his second Parliament, he joined a fellow Member of that assembly, (Sir) Thomas Urswyk II*, and another Essex landowner, (Sir) John Doreward*, in acquiring a 15-year lease from the Exchequer of property in the London parish of St. Mary Staining.18 CFR, xx. 240.

While neither of Writtle’s wives brought him into possession of lands of any significance at the time of their marriages, his first wife, Joan, was the heir of both her father and her father’s younger brother, also named John Hende*. As it happened, Joan did not live long enough to succeed to the Hende estates, comprising a dozen or so manors and other lands in Essex and Kent. Yet after the deaths of her grandmother, Elizabeth (formerly the wife of John Hende the draper and afterwards of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley), in 1462 and the younger John Hende two years later, these properties passed to John Writtle, her infant son and heir by Walter.19 CIPM, xxi. 113-15; C140/7/14; 12/6; PCC 42 Marche (PROB11/2B, ff. 105-6), 21 Wattys. The Writtles had had another son William, who died at an early age: Essex Rev. vii. 140. In December 1462 Walter’s patron, Henry Bourgchier, by then earl of Essex, paid the Crown £80 for the wardship of John, then only some two years of age. Walter stood surety for Bourgchier at the granting of the wardship and it is possible that the earl was acting for his servant in acquiring it. Whatever the case, he must subsequently have conveyed or resold the wardship to Writtle, who by the end of his life was in control of his son’s Hende inheritance. After the MP’s death John’s wardship again escheated to the Crown.20 C140/52/32; CFR, xx. 92-93; PCC 21 Wattys; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 514-15.

Walter’s first recorded office was that of escheator in Essex and Hertfordshire, to which he was appointed in December 1450. He continued to serve the Crown at a local level until his death although he owed his brief Exchequer career of the mid 1450s to Henry Bourgchier rather than to the direct appointment of the King. He also found employment with the Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow, Essex, which appointed him steward of its estates in that county (with an annual fee of 20s. while one John Sandon was still alive and 40s. thereafter), at some stage in the 1450s or 1460s. The appointment was for life but it is impossible to tell whether he did in fact retain the stewardship for the whole of that that term.21 VCH Essex, ii. 151. The day and month (7 Nov.) but not the year of the appointment are recorded, although it took place while John Orwell was prior: he occurs as such in 1458 but not in 1467.

It is very likely that Writtle was already Bourgchier’s man when he became escheator, not least because of the pre-existing connexions between them: Bourgchier’s father had acted as a feoffee for John Hende the draper; Bourgchier himself retained Robert Writtle’s associates, Robert Darcy and Richard Baynard for their legal counsel; and Walter was Bourgchier’s tenant at Little Hallingbury, Halstead, Stansted and Colne Engaine in Essex. Writtle counted Bourgchier and other members of his affinity among his feoffees, and in the mid 1450s he stood surety at the Exchequer for his master’s son and namesake.22 L.S. Woodger, ‘Hen. Bourgchier’ (Oxf. Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1974), 275-6; CIPM, xxi. 113-15; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 152, 752; Petre mss, D/B T96/51, 55; C140/52/32; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 152; CFR, xix. 129-30, 178-9. He also had dealings with another of the peer’s sons, Sir William Bourgchier: in the early 1460s he and Arthur Ormesby† were Sir William’s co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit concerning a property in London, probably in the capacity of the knight’s feoffees.23 CP40/800, rot. 105.

An ally and brother-in-law of Richard, duke of York, Bourgchier became treasurer of England following the Yorkist victory at the battle of St. Albans in May 1455. An office in his gift as treasurer was that of clerk of estreats at the Exchequer, to which he appointed Walter on the following 19 June. The latter held that position, for which he received an annual fee of £10,24 E403/805, m. 3; 807 m. 1. until Bourgchier’s removal as treasurer in October 1456. It was also in the wake of St. Albans that Walter was returned to his first Parliament and became a j.p. His election as a burgess for Maldon must have owed much to his links with Bourgchier, who was lord of the manor of Little Maldon.25 C141/3/31. Sometimes styled ‘Great and Little Maldon in the late 15th and 16th centuries: Essex Archaeology and Hist. xxxi. 150. There is no evidence that he had any connexion with the town before 1455, although a few years after he had sat as its MP he was one of those to whom the bailiffs conveyed a tenement in the parish of All Saints there.26 Essex RO, Maldon bor. recs., deed, 1459, D/B 3/11/17.

A few months after the dissolution of the Parliament of 1455, Writtle began a suit in the Exchequer against John Wingfield†, the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk when that assembly was summoned. He asserted that Wingfield had wrongfully returned William Jenney* as one of the knights of the shire for Suffolk to the Parliament, because a majority of the electors had actually chosen William Lee‡ to sit alongside the county’s other MP, Wingfield’s brother, Robert*. In response to Writtle’s claim, the ex-sheriff stated that he was already subject to a similar action by William Mounteney and that this was still sub judice. Assuming the case against John Wingfield was true, it is hard to explain why Lee had not taken legal action himself. No doubt financial gain was Writtle’s primary motivation, since he made a claim for £100, the sum awarded by statutes of 1429 and 1445 against sheriffs who made false returns. The Exchequer plea rolls do not record a conclusion to the case and it is unlikely he ever received his hoped for reward. Both Jenney and Lee were servants of John Mowbray, 3rd duke of Norfolk, suggesting that personal rivalries among the duke’s followers may have played a part in the affair, although there is no evidence that Writtle himself had a connexion with Mowbray.27 E13/146, rots. 69-70d, 81d; R. Virgoe, E. Anglian Soc. ed. Barron, Rawcliffe and Rosenthal, 57-58, 64.

Following the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton in July 1460, Bourgchier was for a second time appointed treasurer of England and he continued in office after the accession of Edward IV who created him earl of Essex. He remained treasurer until April 1462, employing Writtle on several occasions during this second term to collect instalments of his fee as treasurer from the Exchequer. Like his patron, Writtle benefited from Edward’s accession. He regained his place on the commission of the peace in Essex, on which he had not sat since 1458, and of which he became a member of the quorum for the first time. He was also made surveyor of customs at Bristol and a customs collector at Sandwich. The latter position was clearly no sinecure: in March 1462 he and his fellow collector, the London draper, John Shukburgh, were granted £50 as a special reward for their work, and four months later (by which date they had left office) a further sum of £31 8s. 4d. In November the same year Writtle and John Oter, acting on behalf of Bourgchier and the earl of Warwick, collected £300 from the Exchequer for the wages and expenses of the two peers, both of whom were then campaigning against the Lancastrian forces in the north of England.28 E403/820, m. 2; 823, m. 1; 824, mm. 2, 4, 7, 8, 10; 825, m. 7; 827A, m. 8.

No doubt Bourgchier supported Writtle’s election as a knight of the shire to the Parliaments of 1467 and 1472 and his appointments as sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in November 1468 and April 1471. A few days into the first of these terms as sheriff , the King excused him from having to account for nearly £200 of the issues of his bailiwick.29 CCR, 1468-76, no. 335; Woodger, 276; E404/74/1/113. In spite of his long-term attachment with Bourgchier, Walter was described as ‘my Lord of Claraunce man’ in the early autumn of 1469, before that term had expired. At this date the duke and his ally, the earl of Warwick, having taken Edward IV prisoner during the previous summer, were in control of the government. Their seizure of power precipitated a crisis of law and order in many areas of the country, and several powerful figures viewed it as an opportunity to pursue private quarrels free from outside interference. In East Anglia, John Mowbray, 4th duke of Norfolk, laid siege to the Paston family’s castle of Caister near Great Yarmouth. Faced with such lawlessness, Clarence called together the lords of the Council, among them the earl of Essex. Presumably acting on Bourgchier’s recommendation, the lords sent Writtle to Norfolk to secure a suspension of the siege. During his mission, which took place in September 1469, he wrote to several of Mowbray’s councillors, urging them to persuade their lord to avoid bloodshed. Their master did agree to a truce but he rejected the terms of a settlement proposed by the Council. In the meantime Sir John Paston†, then in London and hoping to obtain a royal order commanding Norfolk to lift the siege, beseeched Writtle to have the truce extended. Then evidently unaware of the desperate situation faced by the defenders of Caister, Paston received a letter from his mother, Margaret shortly afterwards. She explained that the garrison was short of supplies, that two of its members were dead and that many others were wounded. It is this letter that refers to the MP as Clarence’s man but the fact that the lords of the Council, headed by Clarence, had sent him on his mission may have prompted her use of that term. Writtle’s efforts came to nothing, for his intervention made Mowbray more determined to take the castle and its garrison surrendered soon afterwards.30 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 344-5, 347, 401-5; ii. 431-2, 577-9; M.A. Hicks, False, Fleeting Perjur’d Clarence, 38, where it is assumed that Writtle was Clarence’s servant and that he went to Norf. at the duke’s instigation.

Although Edward IV recovered control of his kingdom in October 1469, the series of crises marking the latter part of his first reign was not over and he fled the realm in the face of renewed rebellion a year later. Writtle’s links with the Yorkist Bourgchier probably explain why he lost his place on the Essex bench when Henry VI was restored to the throne, and in the Readeption period he took the precaution of securing a royal pardon.31 C67/47, m. 8 (15 Feb. 1470). Following Edward IV’s triumphant return in the spring of 1471, he was appointed to his second, abbreviated term as sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, in place of Sir Henry Lewis, the appointee of the Readeption government.

By then approaching the end of his life, Writtle drew up his will two years later. In the will, dated 6 Oct. 1473,32 PCC 21 Wattys. he sought burial beside Sir Nicholas Thorley, in the knight’s grave in the parish church of St. Germain’s, Bobbingworth, directing his executors to place a tombstone over their shared grave. It was to bear the inscription ‘Hic Jacent Nicholaus Thorlee miles et Walterus Wirtyll armiger’ and a portrayal of the Writtle arms. As this striking request indicates, he must have enjoyed a close relationship with the knight: possibly Thorley, who had died without surviving issue in 1442,33 CIPM, xxv. 536-7. had come to regard him as a surrogate son. Writtle left his second wife, Katherine, all his goods and jewels, along with a life interest in his purchased lands and High Laver, the manor he had inherited from his mother. In return, he expected her to settle his debts and to find a chaplain to sing for ten years in the church of St. Germain’s, for the souls of himself and others, including Thomas Lampet, a previous lord of the manor of ‘Lampets’ in Fyfield and Moreton. He also entrusted her with the upbringing and marriage of her stepson during the remainder of John Writtle’s minority. He provided for John to succeed to the lands that she held for life, although if she should happen to bear him a posthumous son these properties were to pass to that child and his descendants instead. In the event she did not, meaning John succeeded to these holdings as well as the Hende lands. It was probably because John was already well provided for as the heir to the Hende inheritance that the testator was prepared to make such a generous arrangement for any son by his second marriage. At the end of the will, he directed that the rector of Bobbingworth and his successors should receive 3s. 4d. p.a. from his lands at Moreton, provided they said prayers over his tomb each day at mass. Writtle died on 8 Apr. 1475 although the will was not proved until the following 19 Feb. He had named two executors, his wife and the lawyer, Humphrey Starkey, but Katherine took on the administration of the will alone because Starkey declined to play any role in it.34 C140/52/32.

In May 1475 the MP’s widow and three associates, Starkey, (Sir) Thomas Urswyk II, chief baron of the Exchequer, and the Exchequer official, William Essex*, obtained the wardship of her stepson from the Crown.35 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 514-15. John Writtle, who was married to Starkey’s daughter Anne, died of the ‘sweating sickness’ in October 1485, shortly after coming of age. His son and heir, another John, was born several months later, and the Crown sold the infant’s wardship to Sir Reynold Bray†, John Shaa† and his uncle, Sir Edmund Shaa.36 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 49, 50, 109, 459, 1165; Essex Rev. vii. 140; CCR, 1485-1500, no. 39; CPR, 1485-94, pp. 95, 268. The younger John Writtle, who was married to John Shaa’s daughter, Audrey, also died at an early age, in 1507. The last of the Writtles in the male line, he was succeeded by his daughter, Juliana. She was also dead by November 1509 when the Writtle-Hende estate was divided between the MP’s two surviving daughters, Eleanor and Griselda, and their respective husbands, James Walsingham and Edward Waldegrave.37 VCH Essex, iv. 89-90; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 358, 429-30; LP Hen. VIII, i. no. 289 (16, 17); Petre mss, D/B T96/69. Writtle’s widow, who afterwards married John Green and then Richard Haute† (the MP’s fellow knight of the shire in the Parliament of 1472), survived him by nearly two decades. Following her death in July 1493, Katherine was buried beside her father in the church of St. Pancras in Soper Lane, London. In her will of the same month she had bequeathed vestments, altar cloths and a chalice to the parish church at Bobbingworth, in return for prayers for the souls of all three of her husbands.38 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 895; PCC 4 Vox.