Family and Education

s. and h. of John Wynter*. m. (1) bef. Jan. 1411, Olive, da. and coh. of Sir William Hampton of Hampton Richards, Herefs., 1s. 2da.; (2) aft. Jan. 1431, Alice (d.1448), wid. of John Wodehouse* of Roydon, Norf.

Offices Held

Escheator, Norf. and Suff. 29 Nov. 1410-10 Dec. 1411, 1 Dec. 1417-4 Nov. 1418, 20 May 1422-13 Nov. 1423.

Sheriff, Norf. and Suff. 4 Nov. 1418-23 Nov. 1419.

Commr. to raise royal loans, Norf. Nov. 1419; of inquiry, Cambs. Dec. 1420, Cambs., Norf., Suff., Essex Dec. 1421 (concealments); to receive sums loaned to the King, Norf., Suff. May 1421; of array, Norf. June 1421; to assess liability for tax on landed income Apr. 1431; apportion tax rebates May 1437.

J.p. Norf. 1 Mar. 1422-July 1423.

Steward of the estates of Richard, earl of Warwick, in Norf. c.1431.

Biography

Edmund may have trained to be a lawyer like his father, and although he never attained John’s prominent position in the administration of East Anglia, or in the counsels of Henry of Monmouth, he did establish for himself a respected place among the gentry of Norfolk. He was present at county courts held in Norwich in 1410, 1411 and 1413 when, on each occasion, his father was re-elected as a knight of the shire. And the measure of his increasing local influence may be gauged by his relations with the civic authorities of the shire town. At some point in the course of the year 1411-12 he acted with his father and Edmund Oldhall* as counsel to the city (the costs of a dinner they had at the Saracen’s Head in London were met by the local treasurers); and when, in February 1415, Norwich’s constitutional difficulties were being resolved, he was present at the deliberations of the mediators.1 John Wynter had then only recently died, leaving Edmund his manor and advowson of Barningham along with a considerable number of other properties in the neighbourhood, all of which were subsequently entailed on his issue by his wife, Olive Hampton. At the time of his marriage to Olive the Wynters’ manor of Bodham, also in Norfolk, had been settled on her as jointure. She was coheir with her sister, Joan, wife of the Huntingdonshire esquire, Robert Scott*, of estates in Herefordshire which included the manor of Hampton ‘Mappenore’, and these the sisters had conveyed in 1412 to their father’s widow, Margaret, and her new husband, John Abrahall*, for term of her life. Perhaps in order to guarantee their continued acceptance of other arrangements regarding the Hampton inheritance, in 1413 the Wynters enfeoffed Scott and his friend, Roger Hunt*, in a moiety of Bodham. Wynter was to keep his patrimony intact in other respects, save that in later years he completed the sale of his father’s manor of ‘Loundhall’ in Saxthorpe to Sir John Fastolf KG.2

Wynter once more attended the parliamentary elections held in Norfolk in March 1416. On the very day of his discharge at the end of his second term of office as escheator of Norfolk and Suffolk (1417-18), he was appointed as sheriff of the joint bailiwick. Holding ex officio the Suffolk elections to the Parliament of 1419, he was responsible for making the return of William Rookwood, whom he had recently named as one of his own trustees for the purchase of the valuable manor of Hengrave in that county. Wynter evidently had influential friends, for among the other trustees of Hengrave (which he sold again in April 1420) were John Wodehouse, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and Roger Flore*, chief steward of the duchy north of the Trent. Wynter was returned to Parliament, apparently for the first time, later in 1420, and towards the end of the session he was put on a commission largely composed of high-ranking Exchequer officials (including Wodehouse, as chamberlain), charged with the investigation of administrative inefficiency in Cambridgeshire. Such connexions at the Exchequer no doubt proved useful to him in later years, as when, in February 1422, he was able to procure the wardship of estates lately held by William Shelton, along with the marriage of his heir (indeed, two of the tellers of the Receipt acted as his sureties), and for his acquisition of a share in a crown lease of the Norfolk manor of Stow Bedon during the minority of the heir of Thomas, Lord Camoys. In the meantime, he had attested the Norfolk electoral indentures for the Parliaments of 1421 (May) and 1423, on the second occasion when once again serving as escheator.3

In the course of his career Wynter formed some important connexions among members of the nobility who held estates in Norfolk, perhaps by offering them his services as a legal advisor. Thus he was one of those named by Thomas, Lord Morley (d.1416) as trustees of the manors of Buxton and Foulsham, which in 1420 they conveyed to Morley’s grandson. Before 1421 he was associated with Thomas, duke of Clarence, as a co-feoffee for Robert Butveleyn of the manors of Gissing and Flordon, although no evidence has been found to establish that he himself was formally retained by the duke. More significance should be attached to Wynter’s association with John Mowbray, 2nd duke of Norfolk, from whom he held his principal manor. Precisely when he entered Mowbray’s service is unknown, but he had done so well before July 1428 when he witnessed a final agreement made following the duke’s mediation in a local dispute, and he evidently rose high in his lord’s estimation for he not only figured among the executors and attorneys-general named in Mowbray’s ultimum testamentum drawn up in May 1429, but also among those authorized to look after his affairs at home during his absence in France in the following year. Yet it would seem that before he died the duke had found cause to distrust Wynter; in October 1432 when making a deathbed disposition of his estates, he insisted that he should not be allowed to interfere with its administration on the ground of his earlier appointment as an executor. In the early 1430s Wynter took on the stewardship of courts in Norfolk on behalf of Richard, earl of Warwick, from whom he received an annual fee of £4 6s.8d. But he may still have continued to serve the house of Mowbray in the person of John, the 3rd duke of Norfolk, for in his will made several years later he referred to a sum of money owed to him from the ducal estates.4

Wynter’s prosperity increased in the 1430s following his marriage to the wealthy widow of John Wodehouse (his one-time trustee of Hengrave), who held a number of her former husband’s properties, including the sumptuous manor-house at Roydon, for term of her life. He was among those of the gentry of Norfolk required in 1434 to take the generally administered oath against maintenance. Yet he himself was not always law-abiding: in July 1436 his two sons-in-law, John Heydon^† of Baconsthorpe (an apprentice-at-law and former recorder of Norwich) and Ralph Lampet^† of Stody, had to enter into recognizances in £500 to ensure his appearance in Chancery to answer the charges of one John Mariot. His alleged misdemeanours, which must have been serious, are not recorded. Wynter’s last services as a knight of the shire and as a royal commissioner were performed in 1437, but he was still available when needed: early in 1443 he was one of those, headed by the duke of Norfolk, who in the interests of public security entered the city of Norwich to put an end to civic commotions, and to whom letters were sent by the King’s Council on 5 Mar. thanking them for their diligence in seeking out the rioters.5

Wynter made his will at Norwich on 20 Feb. 1448 and after his death six days later was buried before the high altar in Barningham church. He left his widow a life interest in his manor-house at Barningham and in his ‘mansion’ at Norwich, complete with all their contents and specific items of jewellery, all of which were to pass after her death to his son, John. The latter was bequeathed all his books, albeit with certain exceptions, including the one described as ‘de Rege Ricardo et aliis militibus’, which were left to Edmund’s daughter, Margery Lampet. John, Margery and her husband were named as executors, and John Heydon as overseer. Wynter’s widow survived him no more than a few weeks: she made her own will on 15 Mar. and died before 5 Apr. She chose to be buried in Norwich cathedral next to her first husband, John Wodehouse.6

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Authors: J. S. Roskell / L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. C219/10/5, 6, 11/1; Recs. Norwich ed. Hudson and Tingey, ii. 58.
• 2. CP25(1)83/52/46, 169/184/129, 185/5, 33; HMC Lothian, 54.
• 3. C219/11/8, 12/5, 13/2; CPR, 1416-22, p. 413; CFR, xv. 69; J. Gage, Thingoe Hundred, 174.
• 4. CPR, 1416-22, pp. 53, 265; 1452-61, p. 238; CCR, 1422-9, p. 394; Reg. Chichele, ii. 474, 476; SC12/18/45; R.E. Archer, ‘The Mowbrays’ (Oxf. Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1984), 209.
• 5. CPR, 1429-36, p. 404; CCR, 1435-41, p. 64; F. Blomefield, Norf. vi. 505; PPC, v. 235; Reg. Chichele, ii. 436-45.
• 6. Norf. RO, Reg. Wylbey, ff. 147, 150; C139/130/4.