MUSTARD, Walter, of Reading, Berks.

A member of the lesser Berkshire gentry, Mustard frequently stood surety for local men between 1398 and 1404.CCR, 1396-9, pp. 396, 504; 1399-1402, p. 308; 1402-5, p. 320.From 1401 he leased at the Exchequer eight acres of land at Whitley, on the outskirts of Reading, and after the lease was granted to someone else, in 1412, he unsuccessfully sought to recover it in Henry V’s reign. Although resident in Reading, he appears to have taken little part in the town’s administration. On the other hand, he was involved to a certain extent in its parliamentary elections. He was present at the hustings of May 1413, and he offered sureties for the appearance in the Commons of the borough representatives in the Parliaments of 1420, December 1421, 1423 and 1426.CFR, xii. 146; xiii. 232; xiv. 16-17; CPR, 1413-16, p. 203; Reading Pub. Lib. cofferers’ acct. 1421-2; C219/11/1, 12/4, 6, 13/2, 4.

Mustard possibly owed his own seat in the Lower House to his position as the duke of Gloucester’s bailiff in Berkshire, a post which he took over at Michaelmas 1413, shortly after appearing in the Exchequer as attorney for his predecessor.E159/189. He retained it certainly beyond Trinity term 1415, probably for much longer.