WALSALL, Thomas

Of uncertain antecedents, Walsall was probably related to the Robert Walsall of Worcester whom John Sharp I* sued for forgery in the 1430s. CP40/678, rot. 427; 684, rot. 111; 713, rot. 313d; 714, rots. 112, 112d; CPR, 1436-41, p. 159. A Thomas Walssh of Shelsley Walsh, a parish some miles to the north-west of Worcester, was a tax collector in Worcs. in the late 14th and early 15th centuries (CFR, xi. 26, 139, 264; xiii. 64), and William Walshale was escheator there in 1404-5, but it is impossible to prove that either of them was related to the MP. A Thomas Walshes attested the combined return of the knights of the shire for Worcs. and the burgesses for Worcester to the Parl. of 1427, and the election of the county’s MPs in 1467. Like Robert, Walsall was a mercer by trade, and he appears to have had business dealings in the city of London. In Hilary term 1450, he was the subject of a lawsuit brought in the common pleas by Cristoforo Cattaneo, a Genoese mercer, and Richard Cable of London, who claimed that he owed them £16, a sum he had undertaken to pay them while in the City. By the same Hilary term Walsall was also a defendant in another common pleas suit, this time over another debt (of £13 6s. 8d.) contracted in London. The plaintiff was John Chambir of Worcester and Walsall’s co-defendants were his wife Alice, executrix of the Worcester skinner John Orchard, and John Porter I*, her co-executor. Although not identified as such in the plea rolls, it is possible that Alice was also Orchard’s widow and had only recently married Walsall. CP40/756, rots. 27, 83d. These lawsuits were not the end of Walsall’s troubles, for by February 1450 he was a prisoner in Worcester castle. He is referred to as such in a commission of gaol delivery issued on the 18th of that month to Sir Thomas Blount and others but the reason for his confinement is not known. Another of the prisoners named in the commission was William Walsall, presumably a relative. CPR, 1446-52, p. 384.