WALWORTH, William

Tradition has it that the Walworths of Ipswich hailed from the same family as William Walworth†, the mayor of London who struck down Wat Tyler at Smithfield in 1381. Such a connexion is impossible to prove, although conceivably they were descendants of Thomas, the mayor’s younger brother. Add. 19154, f. 165.

The subject of this biography was active by 1415-16, when he and other creditors pursued John Shipman, a mariner from Hull, in the petty court at Ipswich. While the suit was still in progress, Walworth took matters into his own hands by seizing and burying in his own garden Shipman’s anchor, probably because he feared that the defendant might set sail without paying his debts. N.R. Amor, Late Med. Ipswich, 88. Probably a merchant, Walworth is likely to have had business dealings in London, for he entered into a bond with two fishmongers from the City in 1417. The bond was a security that he would pay them £50, and they began legal proceedings against him in the spring of 1420, alleging that he had failed to honour this commitment. C241/214/7.

In the later 1420s Walworth and his wife sued Thomas Astylle*, his wife and John Pieresson for unjustly dispossessing them of property at Ipswich, and the matter came before the royal justices of assize for the eastern counties in the spring of 1428. At this point the bailiffs of Ipswich intervened. Citing the privileges of their borough, they asserted that they, rather than the King’s justices, should try the case. The assize court referred their claim to Westminster for consideration although there is no record of how it ended. JUST1/1539, rots. 8, 8d. Before the end of the same decade, Walworth joined Sir John Cornwall, Sir William Babington and several leading East Anglian gentry in suing Joan, the widow of John Rous† of Ipswich, and John French* in the court of King’s bench, for breaking into and damaging a property in Ipswich. The outcome of this case is unknown; presumably, the MP’s interest in the house was that of a feoffee. KB27/674, rots. 6, 68d.

When Walworth gained election to the Commons in 1432 his mainpernors were Thomas Dounham and his former opponent, John French. It was only after leaving Parliament that he began his career in the administration of Ipswich. His last known office there was that of escheator, in which he completed a term in 1448.

As for his property interests in the town, these were spread over several parishes, and in 1443 he and his wife sued William Debenham* in the borough court for an annual rent of 3s. emanating from a tenement in the parish of St. Mary-le-Tower, an action which had yet to reach the pleadings stage, let alone a conclusion, over a year later. W.A. Copinger, Suff. Manors, iv. 131; Suff. RO, membrane, apparently detached from a petty ct. roll, 1443-4, C2/4/2/7; Bacon, 102.

Outside the borough, Walworth held lands at nearby Westerfield and Thurlston of the Willoughby manor of Wicks Ufford. Copinger, iv. 131.

There is some evidence of a number of property transactions in which Walworth participated, either on his own account or on behalf of others. In March 1430, for example, Alice, widow of John Waller of Ipswich, conveyed three plots of arable land in the parish of St. Margaret to him and his wife. Stowe Ch. 396. Less than three years later, the Walworths quitclaimed various lands in the borough and elsewhere to Thomas Denys* and other feoffees, CP25(1)/224/115/29. and in 1435 they made a formal release of the manors of Crowfield and Ashbocking to John Wodehouse*. CP25(1)/224/116/8. Over 16 years later, the MP and others, including his wife and son John, took part in another release, this time of properties in Laxfield and elsewhere to Reynold Rous* and his feoffees. CP25(1)/224/118/30.

It is possible that the MP’s wife possessed estates elsewhere in Suffolk in her own right. At a session of oyer and terminer held in Suffolk in June 1431 a jury indicted the parson of Stonham Aspal and two associates for ejecting a lady named Margaret Walworth from the manor of ‘Crosfeldhalle’ at Tuddenham in the west of the county, after she had taken possession of that property as cousin and heir of John Harneys the previous April. The indicted men acknowledged their guilt by compounding with the Crown in 1435. KB27/687, rex rot. 3. If this Margaret is to be identified with the MP’s wife, Walworth would have enjoyed an interest in the manor in her right, assuming she was able to make good her claim to it.

Not heard of after 1451, Walworth was certainly dead by July 1458. Suff. RO, Ipswich recs., enrolled deeds and wills, 1472-8, C/2/3/6/1. His heir was his son, who had become a freeman of Ipswich in September 1448. Add. 30158, f. 11v. The latter’s son and namesake, John Walworth†, represented Ipswich in the Parliament of 1472.