John Walwayn

John Walwayn (died 1326) was an English royal official and scholar, and a proposed author of the chronicle known as Vita Edwardi Secundi a partial record of the reign of Edward II.

Walwayn was a "clerk" (which, in medieval England, meant a scholar or administrator) and civil lawyer who entered the service of the Earl of Hereford and became his protegé. He subsequently became canon of Hereford and of St Paul's Cathedral in London. By 1311, he was employed as a royal clerk and held the office of escheator "south of Trent", that is for the southern half of the country. The escheator was one of two royal officials that managed escheats, the process whereby baronial land reverted to the crown when the owner died without heirs or had been executed as a traitor.

In 1311, he was present during Edward II's campaigning against Robert the Bruce in Scotland. In February of that year, he was mentioned in a letter to the Earl of Richmond: apparently, Walwayn was arrested and imprisoned in Berwick "because he suddenly went towards those parts [the vicinity of Perth] to speak with Robert Bruce". The purpose of his mission is unclear but he may have been sent by Edward to negotiate a place of refuge in Scotland for Edward's favourite, Piers Gaveston. Gaveston had been under attack from the English baronial opposition to Edward. It is possible that Walwayn may have been imprisoned on Edward's orders to prevent the purpose of his mission leaking out.

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