ELWELL, Hildebrand

More can be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 19.

The identity of Elwell’s wife has still not been established, but it seems that she was a sister of Maud, wife of the London jeweller and linen-draper Nicholas Orteys, with whom the Elwells quarrelled over a share of property in Wells in 1424. In May the dispute was submitted to the arbitration of William Hall, Robert Fitzrobert, John Cornwaleys and John Hody*, but within a short period a fresh disagreement had broken out, which saw the matter placed before the justices of common pleas.3 CP40/657, rot. 407.

Towards the end of his life Elwell was drawn into a protracted dispute with Robert, Lord Poynings. His disagreement with the peer seems to have originated in an association with one Richard Geddyng, who was disputing Poynings’ title to the manors of Rokesley, Horsmonden, ‘Toryngton’ and Stokes in Kent, as well as a quarrel with the Cornish-born Londoner Henry Cole (whom Poynings supported) over further property in Theale and Amwell in Hertfordshire. On 10 Feb. 1429 Poynings sealed a general release of all actions to Elwell, and six days later Cole bound himself to do likewise after he had been acquitted by the King’s courts, while Elwell promised not to support Geddyng’s claims against Poynings or Cole any further. Litigation between the parties nevertheless continued, and it was ongoing when Elwell made his final appearance in the Commons in 1431.4 JUST1/340/5; KB27/671, rot. 74d; CP40/680, rot. 257; 687, rot. 122. It is possible that the litigation in which he was embroiled played its part in motivating him to seek election, for he was at the same time also facing a series of legal challenges by the former Bridport MP John Hore alias But* and a number of other men for money that had come to his hands in his capacity as administrator or executor of the goods of the Bridport chapman Robert Hore, the MP’s putative kinsman.5 CP40/667, rot. 474; 671, rot. 309; 674, rot. 570d; 680, rot. 30; C241/222/30. Elwell’s ties in the Dorset town went beyond mere trading links, for by the mid 1420s he was in possession of property there, which after his death may have passed to the fraternity of the Virgin.6 Dorset Hist. Centre, Bridport bor. recs., ‘Red Bk.’ DC/BTB/H1, loose folio; deeds DC/BTB/S91; fraternities DC/BTB/CD31. Similarly, he also established interests in the city of Salisbury, where in 1423 Thomas Freeman* granted him three shops in the ‘Potrow’, which he conveyed to the mercer Stephen Couper within the following three years.7 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury Domesday bk. 2, G23/1/214, ff. 75v, 101.

Like other prominent citizens of Wells, Elwell was regularly called upon to mediate in his neighbours’ disputes,8 Som. Archs., Wells recs., convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 216, 222, 223, 225. but he was evidently a quarrelsome man himself, for he clashed with others on a regular basis. Some such clashes evidently had a commercial background, involving weavers, hosiers, brewers and other traders from as far afield as Taunton, Glastonbury and Bristol. Other disputes arose between Elwell and his neighbours in Wells. Thus, in early 1416 he was pursuing the fisherman John Parys for debt, in the autumn of 1417 he was in dispute with William Wey, whom he accused of having sued him in the King’s courts in breach of the privileges claimed by the citizens, and in 1419 Elwell’s later parliamentary colleague John Pedewell* charged him with killing a horse by maltreatment. In the spring of 1421 he was in dispute with Simon Bailly† over various matters, while his disagreement about the same time with Ralph Gosselyn over the question whether one of the city receivers had entered the latter’s house and unlawfully seized his goods arose from Elwell’s tenure of the mastership of Wells.9 CP40/654, rots. 238, 336d; Wells convocation act bk. 209, 215, 222, 226, 233.

It was also during his two-year term in this post that Elwell twice returned himself to the Commons as one of Wells’s representatives, while during his first spell in Parliament he had held office as one of the city constables.10 Wells convocation act bk. 226, 228.