Founded by the bishop of Norwich at the end of the eleventh century, Bishop’s Lynn became a borough in the reign of King John. By the late fourteenth century, when it may have had more than 4,500 inhabitants, it was significantly larger than Great Yarmouth, Southampton and Kingston-upon-Hull, although its population could have dropped sharply in the following decades. An important medieval port, Lynn served as an entry point for imported goods destined for its hinterland of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and the Midlands. Its main export was agricultural produce from the same hinterland, but it also had links with other parts of the country and its many guilds drew new members from as far away as London and Yorkshire.
Foreign trade was vital for Lynn since it lacked any major industries. Particularly important for the town was the Anglo-Prussian trade, and the poor state of relations between England and the powerful Hanseatic League at the turn of the fifteenth century was harmful for its fortunes.
Very usually for England, Lynn was an episcopal town. As a result, its feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich, enjoyed important jurisdictional rights there. He exercised them in the person of a specially appointed steward, and as late as 1420 the mayor-elect of the borough had to present himself to that official for formal approval. There was considerable conflict between the burgesses and their lord during the episcopacy of the high-handed Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich from 1370 until 1406. Recent research has linked an ill-fated attempt by the town’s leaders to free themselves from Despenser’s authority with the internecine dissensions that troubled Lynn in the early fifteenth century. The traditional interpretation of this infighting would have it that it was a struggle between the ruling elite and lesser men of the borough, but it would appear instead to have occurred within the elite. Following the overthrow of Richard II in 1399, the then leaders of the borough, drawn from its older wealthy wool merchants, seized the opportunity to come out in support of Henry IV, in order to gain the advantage over Despenser, a supporter of the deposed monarch. Their ultimately fruitless bid to throw off the bishop’s control proved ill timed, since it coincided with an economic depression, troubled relations with the Hanse (and consequent interruptions to trade) and heavy fiscal demands from the Crown. They spent such large sums in pursuit of this quest for greater autonomy that they undermined the borough finances, an outcome that aroused the opposition of the younger cloth merchants of Lynn and gave rise to the quarrels that afflicted the town in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V.
By 1422, these bitter internal divisions were largely ebbing away, although there were occasional disputes between the burgesses and the bishop of Norwich during the period under review, most notably in 1446. When Henry VI visited Lynn in August that year the mayor took the opportunity to petition him, requesting that on civic occasions the mayor should have his sword of office borne before him, with its tip pointing upwards. When the King accepted the petition, the bishop, Walter Lyhert, made strong representations to him, since the newly won privilege symbolized absolute jurisdiction. In the following November Henry wrote to the corporation to inform it that he had withdrawn the grant, as it was prejudicial to the dignity of the Church, which he was bound by his coronation oath to uphold. The affair did not however cause any lasting bad feeling, since in 1449 Lyhert leased the borough’s fee farm to the burgesses.
On a day-to-day basis, the burgesses ran the borough free from outside interference, even if they were expected to consult with and pay due respect to the bishop of Norwich. While they had significantly diminished by the accession of Henry VI, the internecine quarrels that bedevilled Lynn left a lasting legacy in the shape of a common council of 27, established in 1418. The setting up of the council recreated a bicameral bureaucracy similar to that used nearly half a century earlier, and its members played a role in business relating to taxation and the upkeep of communal properties. In reality, the elite making up the borough’s upper council, the 24, relinquished little actual power, even though a large number of townsmen might attend the common assembly (nominally the chief legislative organ) on important occasions. The 24 vetted candidates for the 27 and dominated the mayoralty, meaning that they remained in control of borough affairs.
The mayor held office for a year, although the same man might serve two or more terms, sometimes consecutive. During the period under review, elections for the mayoralty and other borough offices took place on 29 Aug. each year, a month before they began their duties. The electors comprised a panel of 12 burgesses, themselves chosen by a set procedure. Ex officio, the alderman of Lynn’s Holy Trinity guild had the duty of nominating the first four, who in turn co-opted their eight fellows. As his role in this process indicates, the alderman was an extremely important figure in borough affairs, not least because he was in a position to influence the selection of the mayor. Performing the function of a permanent executive, he often served for life. If the mayor died in office, it was the duty of the alderman to assume the mayoralty for the remainder of the dead man’s term. To all intents and purposes, he held the most senior position in the administration of Lynn, and it was the pattern for those burgesses who became the alderman previously to have served as mayor. The guild of the Holy Trinity acted as the chief bank of the community, and its financial officers, the scabins, performed a role within the guild virtually identical to that carried out by the borough’s chamberlains. As with the relationship between the alderman and the mayor, it would appear that the position of scabin was more senior than that of chamberlain, although the latter office was an important first step for those seeking a political career in the borough. In short, the Trinity guild was the dominant institution at Lynn and its leading members invariably occupied the higher offices in the local administration. Membership cost £5 and brought economic, religious and social benefits, but it was not synonymous with the freedom of the borough. There were three ways of becoming a freeman: through right of patrimony (a privilege reserved for the eldest sons of burgesses), through apprenticeship, or by paying an entry fine of 40s.
Thanks to the borough’s hall books, that record the minutes of meetings of its governing body and are an invaluable supplement to the existing formal election returns, we know the names of all 19 of the MPs for Lynn of this period. Without exception, all of them were resident burgesses; the absence of outsiders bears testimony to Lynn’s ability to preserve its corporate independence, notwithstanding its unusual tie with an episcopal overlord. For the remainder of the fifteenth century following the period under review, the great majority, if not all, of Lynn’s MPs were likewise resident burgesses; it was not until after 1509 that the borough came to elect outsiders on a regular basis. Only eight of its Members between the accessions of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were townsmen prominent in municipal affairs, although even then the burgesses already knew most of those from outside the borough whom they elected.
Not all of the 19 were natives of Lynn. Henry Bermyngeham and William Pilton were from the Midlands, and it is likely that Walter Cony also came from elsewhere. Bermyngeham and Cony became freemen after serving apprenticeships. Pilton purchased his freedom, as did several of the MPs definitely from local families, indicating that they were younger sons. Two of the 19, Walter Curson and Thomas Salisbury, were the sons of burgesses, as perhaps were Thomas Botkesham and Henry Thoresby, and it is very likely that Philip and Richard Frank were relatives, if not father and son. Yet the Waterdens provide the only real example of a family tradition of parliamentary service, if one accepts that Richard and John Waterden were brothers and the sons of Thomas Waterden†, a burgess for Lynn in four Parliaments of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. In turn, Thomas was perhaps the son of Robert Waterden† who had sat for the borough in 1390.
All bar one of the 19 were merchants,
After settling at Lynn, Pilton served for almost three decades in the administration of the borough. All the other MPs were also office-holders there, a majority in important roles, and it appears that only Curson and John Waterden had still to begin their careers in municipal administration before entering the Commons,
A handful of the 19 were ad hoc commissioners outside the borough. In February 1431, the Crown appointed Burgh, Philip Frank, John Parmenter and Salisbury to a commission of sewers covering the part of Norfolk in the immediate vicinity of Lynn. At that date, they had already begun their parliamentary careers although Salisbury had only just done so since he was then sitting in his first Parliament. Salisbury subsequently served on two further such commissions in west Norfolk, perhaps thanks to his already noted links with Lord Scales. He also held office as controller or collector of customs at Lynn on behalf of the Crown, as did Burgh and Pygot, all of them before their first elections to Parliament. There is no evidence that any of the 19 served the King in any other capacity within the realm, although Bermyngeham, Burgh and Cony represented the Crown as ambassadors overseas, on diplomatic missions concerned with matters of trade. Cony did not do so, however, until Edward IV’s reign, several years after his parliamentary career had ended. Two other MPs, John Copnote and Curson, also served as envoys abroad, but they did so by appointment of the authorities at Lynn rather than the Crown. A decade before his election in 1425, Copnote travelled to Bergen to represent Lynn’s merchants in a dispute with the Hanseatic League, while the borough nominated Curson to accompany Burgh after the Crown had appointed the latter to meet the League’s representatives at Bruges in 1435. The borough also named Salisbury, some 18 months before his return to his first Parliament in 1431, for a mission to Denmark although in the event he refused to accept the nomination.
It is impossible to prove that Salisbury owed anything to his links with Lord Scales for his parliamentary career, and there is no evidence of other individual attachments between the 19 and particular lords, whether religious or secular. Yet the borough as a body had dealings with various prominent figures apart from the bishop of Norwich, Scales among them. Scales’s estates in west Norfolk, including holdings near Lynn, made him an important figure in that part of the county, notwithstanding his absences abroad in pursuit of his distinguished military career. A regular visitor to the borough, he spent the Christmas of 1444 there. The burgesses often gave him wine and other gifts, and they made special arrangements to entertain him when he visited. It was very much in their interest to secure his good will, since during the 1430s and for much of the 1440s they were negotiating with him to buy his watermill at Lynn. He was also worth cultivating for wider, political reasons by the last decade and a half or so of Henry VI’s reign when he enjoyed a good relationship with the East Anglian affinity of the King’s chief minister, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and served on the royal council. Other important visitors to the borough during Henry VI’s reign included Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, John Mowbray, 2nd duke of Norfolk, and John de Vere, earl of Oxford. The King himself also came to Lynn in early 1434 as well as in August 1446.
As in many other constituencies, the electorate valued previous parliamentary experience in their representatives. In only the Parliaments of 1422 and 1425 were both MPs newcomers to the Commons. Even then, one of the men returned in 1422, Richard Waterden, could probably look to his relative, John, who had sat for Lynn in the previous Parliament, for advice before departing for Westminster. In nine of Henry VI’s Parliaments, both the MPs for Lynn had previously sat for the borough and there were several instances of immediate re-election. Richard Waterden and Petipas, his fellow of 1422, also sat in the following Parliament, and Petipas was a Member of the consecutive assemblies of 1426 and 1427. Furthermore, Parmenter attended those of 1429 and 1431, John Waterden those of 1432 and 1433, Burgh those of 1435, 1437 and 1439, Richard Frank those of 1447 and February 1449, Salisbury both those of 1449 and Pilton those of 1459 and 1460. Such continuity of representation did not represent a break with the immediate past, since in the years 1386-1421 the borough generally preferred to return at least one burgess with previous parliamentary experience to the Commons.
The method of electing Lynn’s MPs was similar to that for choosing mayors, although it fell to the mayor, rather than the alderman, to nominate the first four (comprised of two men from the 24 and two from the 27) of the 12 electors. A borough assembly of January 1442 ordained that the mayor should make his nomination freely, perhaps because in the past other burgesses had tried to influence his choice.
During the first two decades of Henry VI’s reign, Lynn continued to pay its MPs 3s. 4d. each per day, the rate it had paid its representatives since the mid fourteenth century. To raise such generous wages, the borough authorities sometimes resorted to ad hoc measures like the imposition of local taxes to find the necessary funds. MPs frequently had difficulties in securing their wages, even after the daily allowance was reduced to 2s. in 1442, and Pygot and Pilton took the precaution of obtaining an advance of £5 before departing for the Parliament of 1459.
Thanks to the invaluable hall books, there is far more information for the activities of Lynn’s MPs while they were attending Parliament than there is for those of most other boroughs. Their duties frequently extended beyond the Commons’ chamber, for the community might ask them to seek renewals of its charters, to promote petitions, to meet the bishop of Norwich (when he was attending the Lords) and to transact other business on behalf of the borough. During Parliaments, the MPs and mayor often corresponded with each other. Of particular note is a letter that Parmenter and John Waterden sent home during the Parliament of 1429. They reported that their counterparts from London, Bristol, York, Hull and elsewhere were planning to lobby the knights of the shire in order to secure ‘a restriction of the subsidy’ (pro restricione subsidii), business that does not feature on the Parliament roll. On their return to Lynn, whether at the end of a session or at the dissolution of a Parliament, the MPs would go to the guildhall to declare before their fellow burgesses about legislation passed and any other important news they had brought home with them. The hall books also show that the borough customarily issued its MPs with warrants or letters of attorney to act on its behalf before they left for Parliament. Once at Westminster, however, the Members of 1425 sought additional letters authorizing one of them, Copnote, to receive repayment from Henry IV’s executors of a loan of more than £330 that Lynn had afforded that King. Two decades later, the mayor sent an Exchequer tally to Lynn’s MPs at Westminster, so that they might recover a sum of 20 marks the borough had lent to the Crown. Sometimes the borough entrusted the MPs with charters or other documents to take with them to Parliament. In 1439, for example, Burgh and Salisbury departed for Westminster with the charter Lynn had received from Henry IV so that they might get it confirmed. Earlier, the MPs of 1427, Philip Frank and Petipas, took with them a charter and ‘many writs of King Edward’s time’ concerning the borough’s liberties. The burgesses also entrusted Frank and Petipas with other important tasks – the pursuit of a lawsuit against Sir Henry Inglose* and the recovery of 400 marks, Lynn’s contribution to a loan of 1,000 marks Henry V had raised in Norfolk in 1415. Once at the Parliament, however, they wrote to the corporation to inform it that it was impossible to obtain more than £100 from the dead King’s executors, an offer for which in due course they received authorization to accept. In the same letter, they took the opportunity to warn their fellow burgesses about a ‘malicious bill’ against the borough that the Dominicans had brought to the royal council. During the Parliament of 1429, Lynn’s MPs acquired a charter of liberties known as ‘the Rider’ for their borough and obtained a royal commission for the repair of the town ditch. During that of 1442, Curson secured a confirmation of a charter. It may well be that he accomplished this task during the first three weeks of this assembly, in the absence of his fellow burgess Richard Frank, since the hall book entry in question also notes that he departed for Westminster on 22 Jan. that year (three days before the Parliament opened) but that Frank remained in Lynn until 16 Feb. The reason for Frank’s late departure is unrecorded.