WYTHIGG, Richard

Without doubt a relative of Thomas Wythigg* of Oxford, Richard appears not to have held office in the borough after serving a single term as bailiff. A draper by trade, he resided in a messuage in the parish of All Saints that he rented from Thomas Dagvile*. There is no definite evidence for any other property he might have held, although it is possible he was a tenant of Osney abbey, whose abbot sued him for debt in 1438.2 CP40/710, rot. 3; Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 396, f. 147. He was one of those to whom John North of Oxford and his wife conveyed two messuages in St. Ebbe’s parish in 1430, but he was almost certainly acting as a feoffee on this occasion: Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/D1/9. During the late 1420s and early 1430s, he acted as an executor of Thomas Wythigg’s wife Margaret, who died in late 1427 or early 1428, and for John Ledbury, a canon lawyer at Oxford university whose will was proved at the beginning of 1432.3 PCC 9 Luffenham (PROB11/3, ff. 68-69); Liber Albus Oxoniensis ed. Ellis, no. 209.

In each of his consecutive Parliaments Wythigg sat alongside Thomas Coventre I*, an extremely experienced parliamentarian to whom he must have looked for guidance. During that of 1429, their borough attempted to gain an exemption from the statute of 1406 that restricted apprenticeships to the children of twenty-shilling freeholders, on the grounds that it was harming its economy. The petition failed, but it is unlikely that Wythigg and Coventre were particularly to blame for this outcome since similar petitions that Oxford submitted to later Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign shared a like fate.4 M. Davies, ‘Lobbying Parliament’, in Parchment and People ed. Clark, 146; SC8/28/1388; 132/6599; RP, v. 205, 337-8 (cf. PROME, xii. 157, 444). Another, perhaps more pressing, concern for the townsmen in this period was their ongoing jurisdictional dispute with Thomas Chace, chancellor of the university.5 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 566; ii. 676-7. Coinciding with and perhaps connected to this dispute was a quarrel between Wythigg and Chace. During the second session of the Parliament of 1429, the MP appeared in person in the Exchequer to testify that he was in ‘bodily danger’ from Chace, who was obliged to provide securities that he would keep the peace towards him.6 E159/206, recorda Hil. rot. 14d. By then there was a lawsuit pending between the two men in the court of common pleas at Westminster. In pleadings of Easter term 1430, shortly after the dissolution of the Parliament, Wythigg alleged that his opponent had assaulted him at Oxford on 24 Aug. 1429, taking from him a dagger and baselard and then imprisoning him for three days.7 CP40/677, rot. 270.

Following the Parliament, Wythigg and Coventre sought expenses of £27, equating to a daily wage of 2s. each for the 135 days they spent attending it and travelling between Oxford and Westminster. The Exchequer issued a writ in their favour for this amount, but the mayor and bailiffs of Oxford resisted their claim. They returned that in June 1423 the town had fixed the wages of its MPs at 1s. each per day, a rate to which, in any case, Wythigg and his colleague had previously agreed.8 C219/330/23. Why the two men should have made such a claim is not clear, although it is possible that they felt that they had faced a heavier workload than usual and deserved greater recompense.

Wythigg lived for some years following the dissolution of his second Parliament in March 1431. He was still alive in September 1438, when he stood surety in the university chancellor’s court for Thomas Woller, rector of St. Peter le Bailey and principal of St. James’s Hall, but was certainly dead by July 1442.9 Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. xciii), 41; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 2077; Top. Oxon. c. 396, f. 147. His relationship to a younger namesake from Oxford who witnessed a couple of deeds in the mid 1450s is unknown.10 Oxf. Deeds of Balliol Coll. (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxiv), 246, 271.