WEAVER, Richard (1575-1642), of Above Eign, Hereford.

Weaver’s family had lived in Stapleton, where they had achieved the reputation and standing of minor gentry. By the time Richard Weaver was born they had recorded eight generations in Herefordshire. Weaver moved to Hereford, probably in adolescence, to become a mercer. He is known to have been master of the mercers’ company there by 1617, but he probably gained his first foothold on the ladder of advancement within the civic corporation of Hereford long before that. He seems to have made no contribution to debate in the four Parliaments of the 1620s to which he was returned. Like many Hereford men, he could see the potential to the trade of the city of schemes to make the Wye navigable. He sought to remove the weirs along the course of the river; they benefited riparian landowners, but inhibited schemes of ‘navigation’.8HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Richard Weaver’.

Weaver’s relations with the higher clergy of Hereford cathedral were evidently cordial. He was a tenant of theirs, of properties both in Hereford and in the county, and he left a token amount to them in his will. His wife was buried in the cathedral in 1631. More significant as evidence of Weaver’s regard for the institution, he was a benefactor of the cathedral library, presenting the vicars choral with the opus of the Roman historian, Ammianus Marcellinus. In its format as an English translation published in 1609 by the Coventry doctor of physic, Philemon Holland, this work carried a dedication to the mayor and aldermen of Coventry that praised their love of good literature and respect for learning. Weaver evidently hoped that Hereford would follow the same path. His gift survives in the stock of the cathedral library still.9F.C. Morgan, ‘Hereford Cathedral: the Vicars Choral Library’, Trans. Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, xxxv. 236; Ammianus Marcellinus, The Roman Historie trans. P. Holland (1609), epistle dedicatory. Weaver’s sense of his own worth was assaulted, however, in the summer of 1639, when his claim to the standing of a gentleman was impugned by his kinsman, Walter Pye. What seems to have begun as a request that Weaver return a pedigree lent him by Pye turned into a heated exchange in front of witnesses. Weaver claimed in the court of chivalry that Pye had said that ‘the Weavers were base fellows’, and threatened to move the heralds to destroy the ring that bore Weaver’s arms. An added ingredient in the quarrel was Pye’s allegation that Weaver’s business practices were deceitful, but the ensuing case reveals above all how fragile the mercer considered his own reputation.10College of Arms, court of chivalry Mss. 6/97, 2/117, Acta (4), ff. 2-5, 10.

Weaver was elected again to both Parliaments of 1640, but made no impression on either of them. He was robust enough in 1639 to involve himself in the libel case with Pye, bringing a counter-suit against him, but his health must have deteriorated soon afterwards. On 28 March 1641, Brilliana Harley of Brampton Bryan mentioned a report that Weaver was dead. It proved unfounded, but a year later he was still ill, by then evidently mortally so. He had apparently approved of Edward Harley* as his successor in the seat; if this was so, it suggests that Weaver was at least in his last months sympathetic to the Harleys’ fierce anti-popery and possibly to his brand of godly Protestantism.11Brilliana Harley Letters, 122, 154. Weaver died on 16 May 1642, and was buried in the cathedral where his gravestone described him as ‘generally beloved’, ‘six several times freely and generally elected a Member of the honourable House of Commons in Parliament’.12Hist. and Antiqs. of Hereford, 101-2. The writ for a fresh election was moved on 23 May. Both Edward Harley and Weaver’s son, Edmund*, desisted from competing for the seat when it became known that James Scudamore, eldest son of Sir John Scudamore†, Viscount Scudamore [I], was being promoted by his father. Edmund was eventually returned in a recruiter election in 1646.13CJ ii. 582b; Brilliana Harley Letters, 156, 162, 163-4, 165, 166.