The belief that Archbishop Walden and his brother, the subject of this biography, came from humble—even artisan—stock springs largely from the highly partisan writing of contemporary chroniclers hostile to Richard II and his adherents. Contemptuous asides dismissing the archbishop as the illiterate son of a butcher from Saffron Walden in Essex may, in all probability, have been little more than propaganda spread by clerics jealous of Walden’s remarkable success, but tantalizingly little is known about the origins of the two men, whose careers were closely connected throughout their lives.
In France and England alike, John and Roger constantly acted together, in an official as well as a private capacity. At a purely routine level they were in great demand as co-feoffees-to-uses and witnesses to conveyances of land.
That John Walden’s growing importance as a landowner was also largely dependent upon the meteoric rise of his ambitious brother goes without question; and it was through him that he established himself among the gentry of the south-east. There is no clear evidence of his occupying much property outside London before 1397, at which point he and Roger rented a tenement near St. Botolph’s priory, and had perhaps already taken on the joint lease for 60 years of two ‘places’ in the close of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, where John and his grandmother were living when Henry of Bolingbroke seized the throne. John’s first wife, Joan, had tenements of her own in the City as well, but it was during the period which saw the dramatic triumph of the court party and Roger’s elevation to the see of Canterbury (in November 1397) that his social and financial position really improved.
The strength of their mutual commitment to Richard II made it inevitable that both John and Roger Walden would suffer a serious reversal in fortune after the Lancastrian usurpation; and to begin with their disgrace seemed complete. Not only was Roger’s archiepiscopal register destroyed, but hangings bearing his coat of arms were torn from the walls of Lambeth palace and thrown out through the windows (an incident gleefully described by Walden’s enemy, Adam of Usk). At least one of John’s Middlesex manors was despoiled by Henry IV’s supporters, and the system of labour services appears to have been seriously disrupted on another for the same reason. None the less, despite the initial reaction against them, the brothers managed to regain at least some of their former influence: while Roger survived a period of humiliation and imprisonment to become bishop of London, in 1405, John was able to establish himself as a prominent figure in the government of the home counties. By then he was held in sufficient regard to be made a j.p. for Cambridgeshire, and he showed his acceptance of the new regime by advancing a loan of £10 to the government later in the year. Commissions and official appointments subsequently came his way at regular intervals, but not always without incident. In August 1410, towards the end of his term as sheriff of Essex, he narrowly escaped with his life while attempting to arrest certain malefactors at Waltham abbey. The mob which turned on him was said to be 200 strong, and it forced him to surrender his prisoners.
Surprisingly, in view of his earlier career, Walden is not known to have sat in Parliament until November 1414, when he was returned as a shire knight for Middlesex, along with his friend, Thomas Charlton, with whom he often acted as a trustee. He had previously attended the county elections of 1411, and did so again in 1415, serving continuously throughout this period on the local bench. Although his last years were spent outside London, Walden maintained close links with the City. From 1392 onwards, if not before, he was a churchwarden of St. Peter’s, West Cheap; and in about 1401 he gained admittance to the popular Trinity Guild at St. Botolph’s church, Aldersgate. The influential mercer, John Woodcock, made him a beneficiary of his will, and he was also on friendly terms with Richard Brigge, the Lancaster King of Arms, who chose him to be one of his executors. Walden was often called upon to act as a trustee and mainpernor, since at all times, whether in or out of favour, he maintained a close circle of friends. Chief among them was John Shorditch II, who joined with him, in 1406, in helping to administer the late Bishop Walden’s estate, and who himself died in the following year, naming John among his executors.
John Walden died on 23 Nov. 1417, and was buried at St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, where his brother had set up a chantry chapel and may well himself have been buried. Since he left no children, he was able to make generous bequests for the good of the souls of Roger Walden and his former royal master, Richard II. His widow, Idonea, obtained livery of her dower in the following February, and clung on tenaciously to the property which her late brother-in-law had purchased in London, despite the protests of his surviving executors. In April 1421 she received a papal indult to make use of a portable altar, and by the time of her own death, four years later, she had made further arrangements for the upkeep of the Walden family chantry.