WELBURN, William

Welburn, previously ‘unidentified’, The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 796. is first heard of in 1405, when he, then an unmarried clerk, was to be examined by the official of his diocesan, the bishop of Lincoln, for his suitability to practise as a notary public by papal authority. CPL, vi. 93. He evidently passed muster and established himself in that capacity in the county town he would represent in the Commons. He may have owed his election to his standing among his neighbours, for it was in association with one of the leading men of Bedford, the mercer John Frepurs*, that in 1418 he fell foul of the Earl Marshal, John Mowbray (to whom one third of the ancient barony of Bedford had descended from his Beauchamp ancestors, and who asserted his claim over the town by holding regular courts baron on the site of the ruined castle), by fishing in the fishery Mowbray claimed as his seigneurial right. CP40/629, rot. 146d.

Welburn did not live for long thereafter: he died intestate, and thus perhaps unexpectedly, at an uncertain point between 1420 and 1422. The administration of his affairs was entrusted to William Lee, the parson of Bletsoe, who soon found himself embroiled in litigation over the dead notary’s substantial outstanding debts, some of which had been guaranteed by Richard Spicer† of Huntingdon and others. CP40/647, rot. 139d; C1/7/82.