BARON, Richard

Of obscure background, the MP may have been Richard, son of William Baron, a London dyer, who confirmed the estate of feoffees in a plot of land in ‘Hethe’ Street, in Northfleet, Kent, in 1439,3 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 249-50. but even if this was the case nothing more has been discovered about his immediate family save that he later had a son named John. What is certain is that before the Parliament of 1433 (which met from July to December) Baron had joined Nicholas Wycombe as one of the two ushers of the Parliament chamber. He and Wycombe acted together in this role until 1447, when Wycombe was replaced by Simon Edward, who in his turn gave way to John Frampton III* before March 1454.4 E101/408/14, 19, 21; 409/2, 4, 6, 12, 18; E361/6, rots. 44d, 45d, 50, 51d. Baron himself continued in office throughout the political changes of the late 1450s and early 1460s, so that at the end of his career he could look back on 30 years of experience in the preparation of the meeting places of the Lords and Commons in Parliament and of the enlarged gatherings of the King’s Council.

Although the two ushers received livery from the great wardrobe every year, they were paid no regular salary, fees, annuities or ‘bouche de court’. Instead, ‘rewards’ were forthcoming at intervals on an ad hoc basis, always retrospectively after a Parliament or a great council had ended. These stuck to a standard rate of payment of £5 for a Parliament (whatever its duration), and £2 10s. for a great council meeting, these sums being shared between the two officials. Thus, authorization of such payments to Baron and his colleague were made after the close of the Parliaments of 1433, 1435, 1437, 1439 and 1445, and for a council meeting in July 1435, two in May 1436, three at Canterbury and Westminster in 1437, one at Sheen and others at Eltham and at the ‘L’oustiel de Saint John’ in London in 1438, at Fulham, Eltham and Westminster in 1439-40, and five at Westminster in the years 1440-3.5 E404/50/161, 51, 352, 52/202, 354, 53/291, 54/282, 56/179, 62/61. It was appreciated that for the Parliament of 1447 which met at Bury St. Edmunds the two ushers would have to meet additional costs for travelling to and from Westminster and for their lodging, making it ‘more chargeful unto them than any parlement hath be herebefore’, so it was arranged that the two men should have in addition a further £5 by the King’s gift. Yet although this was warranted on 4 Mar., the day after the Parliament was dissolved, payment was not actually made at the Exchequer until December, and the two men had to return to the Receipt for fresh assignments in June 1448 and again in May 1449 when they proved unable to cash the original tallies.6 E404/63/28; E403/769, m. 8; 771, m. 5; 775, m. 2. It is clear too that besides the difficulties of obtaining payment, the delays between the end of parliamentary sessions and the issue of warrants for the rewards of Baron and his fellow usher for their labours grew even more prolonged as the crisis in the government’s finances deepened.

In addition to these ‘rewards’, the ushers were occasionally reimbursed for the cost of rushes (usually half a mark) they had purchased to spread on the floors of the chambers,7 E403/719, m. 12; 721, m. 5; 725, m. 18; 733, m. 16; 736, m. 10; 749, m. 11; 781, m. 2; 786, m. 2; 796, m. 13; 801, m. 7; 812, m. 3; 814, m. 1; 824, m. 4. and for furnishings they provided.8 E403/777, m. 12. Specifically, in 1448 Baron and his colleague bought four ‘fourmes and barres of tree’ costing 4s. for the Parliament chamber at Westminster, while nails and ‘pynnes of iren’ for the ‘barres’ cost 12d., and they also made a ‘chaire of astate’ for the King to use at Winchester and mended a form at the bishop’s palace at Wolvesey.9 E404/65/12. As we have seen, Parliaments summoned away from Westminster placed an extra burden on the ushers. They were paid an additional £5 for the third session of the Parliament of 1449 (Feb.) to cover costs incurred in travelling to and from London and Winchester, and the Parliament of 1449 (Nov.) saw them having to prepare rooms not only at Westminster but also at the Blackfriars in London and then at Leicester for the third session in the spring of 1450. Very unusually, for the latter Parliament as well as for councils at Eltham and Sheen the sums warranted were paid to each of the ushers separately, rather than being shared between them as was normal,10 E404/65/246, 66/172. and they were also reimbursed 11s. for a ‘chaire’ for the King to use at Leicester.11 E404/66/167. On occasion in the 1440s Baron performed services for accountants, tellers and others by receiving on their behalf expenses incurred in coming to the Exchequer by order of the treasurer.12 E403/747, m. 14; 749, m. 11; 753, m. 9; 765, m. 9.

The early 1450s were a busy period for Baron and his fellow usher, who had to prepare for the Parliament and great councils at Westminster in 1450-1, for meetings of the council at Reading in November 1452 and Sheen after Christmas 1453, and for the Parliament which assembled at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453 and ended at Westminster in April 1454. Yet although warrants were eventually sent to the Exchequer (on 12 Apr. 1455 after the King had recovered from his mental breakdown), ordering that each usher should receive £2 10s. per council and £5 per Parliament, further serious delays occurred before payment was actually made in July 1457.13 E404/70/2/52; E403/810, m. 9.

While Baron’s constant attendance at Parliaments from 1433 onwards may be assumed from his duties as usher, he took on a different role in the Parliament of 1453-4 when he sat as a Member of the Commons, representing the borough of Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire. His motives for seeking election can only be guessed. He had no known connexion with borough or county, and it is clear that the electoral indenture, dated 24 Feb. 1453, was tampered with. Both Baron’s name and that of his fellow Member, Thomas Umfray* (a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer associated with Thomas Thorpe*, the Speaker in this same Parliament) were written over erasures, but at what stage their names were substituted for those originally chosen is not known. Perhaps the change was not made until the Parliament assembled, and at the behest of the royal government, which sought to have supporters or at least compliant yes-men in the Commons.14 C219/16/2. In the late 1450s Baron continued to attend on the Lancastrian court as it moved from Westminster to Coventry, his office requiring him, for instance, to prepare rooms for council meetings at Coventry in May 1457.15 E403/810, m. 1.

Aside from his duties as usher, there are other glimpses of Baron in the records. In the spring of 1449 he had in his possession at his house at Westminster a robe of ‘scarlet’, ‘cum penula de menever’, worth ten marks, which had belonged to the late Robert, Lord Poynings (d.1446). How he had acquired it is not stated; perhaps it had been worn by Poynings in the Parliament of 1445-6 and left in the usher’s keeping. In any case, it was allegedly stolen by one John Dowde, a ‘yeoman’ of Westminster, but the culprit was freed on a technicality.16 KB27/754, rex rot. 22. It seems likely that Baron supplemented his sporadic income by engaging in other activities. He may well have been the ‘tailor’ of Westminster who made a ‘gift’ of his chattels in May 1449, for among the recipients was a yeoman of the Crown and a servant in the King’s pantry. Certainly, he (described as one of the keepers of the Parliament chamber) and his son John were associated with Henry Langton* of the Household as recipients of a similar gift from a London gentleman in September 1454.17 CCR, 1447-54, p. 141; 1454-61, p. 27. Another sideline of Baron’s may have been keeping an inn; he was perhaps the man of this name who was in charge of the Swan with Two Necks in Lad Lane, London, in the summer of 1455, and the ‘hosteller’ who disposed of his moveable goods at a time of political crisis in December 1460. Two months earlier the hosteller and his wife Sybil had contracted to pay one John Dryland the sum of £10 18d. at the staple of Westminster, but failed to do so on the appointed day at Christmas.18 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 76, 486; C241/244/23. It seems very likely that he was the ‘gentleman’ and ‘citizen and brewer’ of London who was granted on 6 Oct. 1460 an unusually wide-ranging royal pardon of all treasons, murders, rapes, rebellions, insurrections, felonies and conspiracies and every other conceivable crime.19 CPR, 1452-61, p. 629. The government was then in the control of the Yorkists, following their victory at the battle of Northampton, and it may be significant that there is no record of Baron’s service as usher in the Parliament which opened a day later on 7 Oct., save for a payment made to him and Frampton over a year later, on 26 Nov. 1461, for reeds bought for the chamber during the ‘last Parliament’. This may, however, have been referring to Edward IV’s first Parliament, which was then in progress.20 E403/824, m. 4.

Baron continued in office for at least three years more, but although his name is recorded in the accounts of the keeper of the wardrobe ending in April 1465, his colleague Frampton was acting alone at Michaelmas 1464, and was certainly sole usher by 1468.21 E361/6, rots. 54d, 56d; E405/41, rot. 1d; E403/840, m. 4. It cannot be stated with certainty that the MP was the Richard Baron appointed gauger in the port of Sandwich by the government of the Readeption in Oct. 1470: CPR, 1467-77, p. 230. Baron may have died in the meantime.