IN 1417 a royal inquisition into the troubles in Lynn described ‘divers dissensions, discords and debates which have continued for no small time and still do so daily’. It admitted that King Henry V ‘… has so far been unable to induce the parties to compromise, negotiate and make a final agreement … or to obtain true knowledge of the cause’. These troubles had by then been grinding on for a decade and would continue for another three years. By 1420 the parties had exhausted themselves and a modus vivendi was adopted which finally seemed to suit both sides. However, convincing arguments to explain these upsets have still not been satisfactorily demonstrated. The question that presents itself is why did Lynn suffer from factionalism and unrest in the early fifteenth century when all the evidence points to a unity of purpose and conduct for the previous twenty-five years? This paper offers a theory which unravels this tangle and will explain, for one thing, why both parties were particularly keen that the king should never know the true reasons for the quarrel.

Ostensibly, disagreements over money brought the troubles to a head. Sometime between 1406 and 1411 five former mayors, who had been in post between 1399 and 1406, were accused of recklessly spending over £450 against the wishes of the majority and in conspiracy against their lord, Henry Despenser, the bishop of Norwich. Although it is difficult to make monetary comparisons with today's values, one multiplier indicates that the mayors’ alleged debt was, at least, £1,275,000 in today's terms. Not unexpectedly, the five former mayors vehemently denied the accusation, saying that all the money had been spent on behalf of the borough in their official capacities. On the contrary, they countered, the town owed them around £380 which they had spent from their own pockets for the benefit of Lynn. To settle matters the town empanelled eighteen of its inhabitants as arbitrators, specifically including men from the three classes of town society: the powerful, middling and lower orders, or as they described them more precisely in the records, potentiores, mediocres and inferiores non burgenses. These set aside the mayors’ counterclaim, and insisted in future that the mayor should be advised by a fiscal council of nine, comprising members of the three orders.