VOWELL, William

Vowell, whose origins have not been established, was admitted to the freedom of Wells in October 1429 on payment of the common entry fine, with a leading citizen, John Godwin alias Glasier*, serving as one of his sureties. Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 269. Although sometimes described as a grocer, KB9/273/1. Vowell, like many other men of Wells, traded in (and perhaps manufactured) cloth. Although there were apparently some questions over the quality of the fabric he sold, his mercantile contacts extended across England and included, among others, the prominent London draper and later mayor, Thomas Cook II*. C1/64/480. It seems probable that the synonymous notary public who served Bp. Bekynton and members of the diocesan clergy in the 1450s was a different man: Reg. Bekynton, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xlix), 549, 1236, 1398. In the autumn of 1435 Vowell embarked on the cursus of office-holding common for the leading citizens of Wells, when he was elected one of the city’s constables of the peace. He remained in post for three successive years, before being elected to the mastership of Wells in 1438. Re-elected a year later, it fell to him to preside over the parliamentary elections of 1439. Perhaps for want of another suitable (or affordable) candidate, Vowell returned himself alongside the relative newcomer Henry Selwood*, who had held no civic office except for a single term as constable in 1426-7. In 1444 Vowell joined the ranks of the city’s council of 24, and in the following year he resumed the mastership for a further two successive terms, and thus presided over the elections to the Parliament of 1447. He probably formed part of the official delegations communicating the names of the city’s chosen representatives for the two Parliaments summoned in 1449 to the sheriff of Somerset at the shire court at Ilchester, for on all of these occasions he found sureties for the attendance of the MPs for Wells, as he would do again in 1453. C219/15/6, 7; 16/2. When he was next elected master, in 1450, the kingdom was in upheaval. The first part of the year had seen the English loss of Normandy and the uprising of the commons of Kent, and when Parliament was again summoned to meet in November the capital was still unsettled. It is not certain whether the parliamentary elections for Wells were held before or after that year’s civic elections, but the choice of both the outgoing and the incoming master as MPs illustrates the tense political circumstances.

For Vowell, the year 1454 was memorable for different reasons. That spring one William Crede, a Southwark hosteler who had been arrested for felony, turned approver and asserted that Vowell and two other citizens of Wells had joined him in July 1449 in a raid on the Somerset church of Chewton and stolen five silver chalices, three silver-gilt thuribles, five copes (three of them of cloth-of-gold and two of silk), a silver-gilt pyx, and two crosses, one of gilt silver and one of gilt copper, of a total value of more than £67. Vowell was committed to the Marshalsea, but regained his freedom as Crede’s appeal failed and he was hanged. KB9/273/1.

In subsequent years Vowell served four more terms as master of Wells and was periodically called upon to audit the civic accounts. He clearly enjoyed a reputation for reliability, for it was to him that the citizens turned in the political crisis of 1460-1. Alongside John Attewater*, who served as master during that dramatic year, he was returned to the two constitutionally momentous Parliaments that met under the auspices of the duke of York’s brief administration and following Edward IV’s assumption of the Crown. It is nevertheless far from clear that Vowell was a willing, let along an enthusiastic Member of the Commons. During his next spell as master in 1462-3 two other citizens (John Grype† and John Pavle†) were chosen to represent Wells in the Parliament which had been initially summoned to meet at York and subsequently at Leicester. Only after fresh writs were issued ordering a new election of Members to meet at Westminster in April were Vowell and his by now regular colleague Attewater once more prevailed upon to serve in Parliament. Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 43. It was to be the last time that Vowell would sit in the Commons. He continued to play a leading role in Wells, and may have seemed a natural choice to assume the mastership in the political crisis of 1470, which had seen Edward IV driven into exile and Henry VI restored to the throne just days before the citizens chose their officers for the year. Certainly they were keen to avoid change. Although the constables, Richard Burnell† and Thomas Piersson, were both newcomers to their posts, Piersson had previously served two terms as civic rent collector, and the two men who now held that important financial office (William Abury alias Pewterer† and Nicholas Pelly) had both done so since 1468. Ibid. 72, 78, 82.

No record of specific events in Wells during the period of Henry VI’s Readeption has survived, but it is probable that (following the execution of Humphrey Stafford IV*, earl of Devon, and with their bishop, the Yorkist chancellor, in sanctuary in London), the citizens looked to Edward IV’s brother, George, duke of Clarence, for patronage. Equally, it is likely that the Lancastrian exiles Edmund Beaufort, titular duke of Somerset, John Beaufort, titular marquess of Dorset, and John Courtenay, titular earl of Devon, sought to raise armed men in the name of Queen Margaret and Prince Edward of Lancaster in Wells, as elsewhere in the south-west. The volatile political situation made the leadership of any urban community a dangerous task indeed, and it is possible that the rulers at Wells, like their neighbours at Bristol, in some way fell foul of the ultimately victorious Edward IV. At the end of June 1471, within weeks of Edward’s triumph at Tewkesbury, Vowell and his son Richard (who had represented Wells in the Readeption Parliament) were bound in the substantial sum of £500 to appear before the King later that autumn. CCR, 1468-76, no. 720. While it is possible that the matter with which the two men were charged was of a private nature, William Vowell’s public career certainly came to an abrupt end. He was able to secure a royal pardon early in 1472, but never again held civic office. C67/48, m. 19.

This was an ignominious end to a remarkable career. Among the achievements of Vowell’s nine terms as master was the recruitment of the lawyer John Chokke as city counsel, the acquisition of Bishop Bekynton’s licence for the construction of a communal water conduit drawing upon the bishop’s own conduit, the replenishing of the city’s council (reduced by a succession of deaths to just five members) to its full strength, and also some cultural successes, such as the commissioning of a ‘Jesse front’ for the Lady altar of St. Cuthbert’s church. HMC Wells, i. 433; Wells convocation act bks. 1378-1450, p. 318; 1450-1553, pp. 64, 89. His regular service in office aside, Vowell had played a conventional part in town life, periodically arbitrating his neighbours’ disputes, attesting their property transactions and finding sureties for new entrants to the freedom. Among the more prominent men for whom he performed the latter service were William Gascoigne II* and John Attewater. Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 312; Wells City Chs., 107, 108, 145, 146; CPR, 1446-52, p. 517; Reg. Bekynton, i. 1264-6; HMC Wells, ii. 671, 675, 677, 679, 681, 684, 687, 688. He evidently maintained a connexion with Gascoigne, and a few years later witnessed the foundation deeds of the chantry established for the benefit of the soul of the lawyer’s uncle, William Gascoigne I*. CCR, 1441-7, p. 404. The date of Vowell’s death has not been discovered, but it probably occurred in about 1476, when his former apprentice John Nichols was admitted to the freedom of Wells. Wells City Chs. 156. Vowell’s death certainly occurred before that of (Sir) Thomas Cook II, who at an uncertain date between 1474 and 1478 sued his executors over a commercial transaction: C1/64/480.