WYLDE, George (1594-1650), of Droitwich, Worcs. and the Inner Temple

George Wylde was overshadowed both by his father, a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Evesham, and even more by his brother, John Wylde*, who became lord chief baron of the exchequer. The Wyldes of Droitwich were children of a second marriage, and it was the heirs of the first marriage of Thomas Wylde, George Wylde’s grandfather, who inherited the most important property in the family, the Commandery, in Sidbury, Worcester.12Nash Collections ii. 330; VCH Worcs. iii. 62. George Wylde’s father, also George, inherited salt-pans and other property in Droitwich from his mother, one of the Wall family there, and this inheritance brought the Wyldes their membership of Droitwich corporation. George Wylde senior sat in the Parliaments of 1584, 1593 and 1604, and seems to have been more an active committeeman than an orator.13HP Commons 1604-1629. George Wylde junior followed his father into the law and entered the Inner Temple, when his father was treasurer, ‘by special admission’ when he was only ten years old.14CITR ii. 294. After Oxford he returned to the Inner Temple, and enjoyed an orthodox, though unremarkable, rise to be barrister and bencher. As if to make the point that those eminent relatives of his who graced the Inn did not bestow a special status on George Wylde, it was noted that he could accept his call to the bench when he wished, but that delay would not give him seniority over others.15CITR ii. 225.

George Wylde first entered Parliament in 1628, on the interest of his family, but made no mark on that assembly, either in debate or in committee. He was a member of the corporation of Droitwich, because of the family ownership of salt bullaries there. He sometimes attended its meetings, probably to offer advice on legal matters affecting the borough. One of these was the issue of how much the corporation should take from the annual produce of the salt vats.16Worcs. Archives, 261.4/BA 1006/33/680. Wylde was not a regular attender, however, and took no prominent part in routine civic life. He must have spent much of his time at his legal practice in the Inner Temple, although his one nomination as a steward for a feast suggests he did not play a very notable part in the life of the inn.17CITR ii. 189.

Wylde paid £10 poll money in 1641 as a barrister, although there was some dispute as to whether as a former MP he was liable for the tax.18Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend ed. Porter, Roberts, Roy, 72. In the civil war, Wylde’s kinship ties with John Wylde made it unlikely that he would take any path other than of support for Parliament, and he was named to the first county committee for Worcestershire in 1644.19A. and O. There is no evidence that he was active in this body, or that he was involved in any way, military or civilian, with the parliamentarian war effort. He did, however, avail himself of the opportunity to speculate in confiscated lands, and in 1648 bought part of the manor of Kempsey, formerly belonging to the bishop of Worcester, for a little over £132, and by this time had acquired an estate, probably by purchase, at Gressenhall, Norfolk.20Bodl. Rawl. B.236 p.21; PROB11/435, f. 149 (Edmund Wylde).

It seems unlikely that by 1648 Wylde hankered after a place in Parliament, still less that he harboured any particular political ambitions. He was summoned from comparative obscurity by the unexpected assassination of Colonel Thomas Rainborowe, who had been elected Member for Droitwich in January 1647 at the same time as Wylde’s kinsman, Edmund Wylde. The influence of Serjeant John Wylde was paramount in the borough, and when Rainborowe was murdered on 29 October 1648, the vacant seat was virtually in the judge’s gift. Wylde’s election on 7 December was supported by 22 of the corporation, including the two bailiffs and two justices, and was thus acceptable to the civic leaders of the town.21C219/43 iii no.80. Eight days later, however, when Wylde was received into the House, a petition was apparently produced contesting some aspect of the procedure by which he had come there. This petition has not survived, nor does it seem possible to illuminate this challenge.22C219/43 iii no. 80; Perfect Occurrences no. 803 (15-22 Dec. 1648), sig. Kkkkk1v (E.526.42). But it was probably he, rather than Edmund Wylde who was named on 16 December to the committee to restructure the militia and a week later to a committee concerned with stamping out bribery.23CJ vi. 98b, 103a. George Wylde was not associated with the trial and execution of the king. His brother’s absence from the House has been explained by the convention that judges of common law courts did not by convention take their seats.24Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 210. Nevertheless it is worth noting that John Wylde did not attend any of the meetings of the court, although he was named a commissioner for the trial of the king. Only their cousin, Edmund Wylde*, attended meetings of the commissioners.

George Wylde was in the House on 29 January 1649 to be numbered with others who dissented from the vote on the previous 5 December to continue addresses to the king, suggesting that he at least was at this time fully behind the regicide.25CJ vi. 124b; A Full Declaration (1660), 21 (E.1013.22). In the earliest days of the commonwealth, he may have been the Mr Wylde who was named on 1 February 1649 to the committee considering the bill on delinquents’ estates, and he was appointed to a number of committees from May 1649, among them important bodies such as that for the navy and excise, and the committee working on a bill against seditious and scandalous news. His legal training qualified him to be a useful member of committees on jury reform and a review of ordinances relating to Irish prisoners. The fact that he was named to a committee on 12 October 1649 to supervise the taking of the Engagement by all MPs suggests that he was relatively enthusiastic about the new government.26CJ vi. 200b, 219b, 276a, 301a, 307b. It cannot be ascertained with total confidence that it was Edmund and not George Wylde who was the ‘Mr Wylde’ of these committee appointments. During 1649, he must have acquired the status of justice of the peace in Worcestershire.

Whatever the extent of his commitment to the commonwealth, on 15 January 1650 Wylde died in London. He was afforded a funeral in Westminster Abbey, on the north side of the Kings’ chapel near St Paul’s chapel door, on 21 January.27Westminster Abbey Regs. 143. Nicholas Lechmere* was among those attending, and made notes on the sermon by John Ridley on Isaiah 53:6: ‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all’.28Add. 39941, f.17v. Wylde’s tombstone, since re-cut, recorded his relationship to his older brother, and bore the epitaph In vita honest[um] in lege et literis erudit, in morte fortis et pius [upright in life, learned in law and letters, strong and godly in death].29Dart, Westmonasterium, ii. 19. Wylde never married, and seems to have made no will, although he left a modest £10 legacy to the Temple Church, and his Gressenhall estates and salt vats at Droitwich passed to his cousin and fellow-Member, Edmund Wylde.30CITR ii. 294; PROB11/435, f. 149.