BAYNARD, Robert

Baynard was born, probably in the second half of the 1430s, as heir to a Wiltshire gentry family of middling status, which by custom alternated the names of Robert and Philip in each generation as their eldest son’s appellation. It is clear that he trained in the law, and he was probably the ‘Baynyard’ who was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn for his first Christmas in 1459.6 L. Inn Adm. i. 14. It is not certain whether Baynard had succeeded to the family estates by the time that he was returned to the Commons as MP for the borough of Calne (which his father had represented in 1450). Just how the inexperienced young lawyer came to be chosen as the borough’s MP is unclear, but it is probable that the Baynards’ connexions with the Lords Hungerford (committed partisans of Queen Margaret’s regime) played a part. Robert frequently witnessed property deeds for Lady Margaret Hungerford, in 1478 he headed the jurors empanelled to take her inquisition post mortem, and some years later he included (Sir) Walter Hungerford† among the witnesses to his own will.7 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, ii. 123, 205, 208, 209, 218, 221, 257, 269; CCR, 1468-76, no. 245; C140/67/40; PCC 3 Blamyr. About the same time, he developed a close attachment to the Hungerfords’ principal legal agent, the grasping lawyer Thomas Tropenell*. Baynard was a regular part of the circle of feoffees employed by Tropenell in his numerous land transactions (most of them designed ultimately to increase the lawyer’s own holdings), in April 1463 he headed the arbiters in a dispute between Tropenell and Richard Keynell, and in 1487 Tropenell named him one of the three executors of his will, promising him a fee of 20s., should he agree.8 Tropenell Cart., i. 65, 66, 111, 136, 164, 240-2, 251, 261; ii. 81, 143, 150, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 219, 222, 252, 257; CCR, 1485-1500, no. 160; KB27/828, rot. 95; 834, rot. 43; 836, rot. 72; C261/11/19; PCC 7 Milles (PROB11/8, f. 56v). Certainly, the Hungerfords were playing their part in the Wiltshire elections of 1459: the heir to the barony of Hungerford himself was chosen as one of the knights of the shire.

His link with the Hungerfords aside, another factor that might have predisposed Baynard against the duke of York and his allies was a private quarrel over feudal rights at Hilmarton in Wiltshire. This dispute, which dated back to the days of Robert’s grandfather, concerned the villein status of the Breche family, tenants of the duke of York, who looked to their powerful lord for protection. In May 1466 Walter Breche even secured Baynard’s attachment by the sheriff of Wiltshire on accusations of attempted murder and sheep rustling, although the lawyer was acquitted of all charges.9 C1/61/397; CCR, 1461-8, p. 361.

Baynard’s father died around the time of his single term in the Commons, and the family estates, centered on the manors of Lackham and Hilmarton in Wiltshire, and said in 1451 to be worth some £40 p.a., now came into his hands. His wealth placed him in the upper ranks of the Wiltshire gentry and should have qualified him for local office under the Crown, but his relative youth, combined with his apparent attachment to the Hungerfords, evidently counted against him after 1460. It was thus not until after Edward IV’s exile and restoration that Baynard was first appointed to office. From the autumn of 1471 he was periodically included in (usually judicial) commissions in Wiltshire, and he had to wait even longer, until 1478, before he was added to the county bench, albeit then as a member of the quorum. By contrast, he seems to have been on good terms with Richard III, and thus evidently took no part in Buckingham’s uprising. This, however, meant that after Bosworth he was once again deemed suspect. He was dropped from the county bench for the first five years of Henry VII’s reign and was entrusted with no other official functions. Indeed, it was his young son Philip, rather than he, who secured election to Parliament for the borough of Chippenham in 1491, the year after Robert’s apparent partial rehabilitation.

Baynard’s political eclipse may have been offset at least slightly by his economic good fortunes, for in February 1489 the death of his paternal aunt of the half blood, Thomasina Martyn, reunited with his estates the family property in Hampshire, which had been settled on the junior line of the Baynards for some 40 years previously. These holdings centred on the manor of Silchester, and were at the time said to be worth £13 6s. 8d. p.a. (probably something of an underassessment, since just eight years earlier another jury had valued them at over £25).10 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 653; C140/80/33.

Throughout his career, Baynard played an active part in local society, serving on juries, acting as a feoffee for his neighbours and attesting their property transactions.11 CPR, 1467-77, p. 374; 1476-85, p. 129; 1485-94, p. 210; CCR, 1461-8, p. 152; 1485-1500, no. 878; C140/65/13, 67/40; KB9/135/27a; 136/9, 31, 43, 78; C1/96/34-5; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 579-80, 670; Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/657. Interestingly, in spite of his legal training there is no indication that he did so in a professional capacity. Nor, indeed, does he appear to have been an exceptionally litigious or quarrelsome man. In the autumn of 1462 he was among a group of local gentry accused of a trespass by Thomas Hungerford* (just three years earlier a fellow Member of the Commons),12 KB27/806, rot. 12. in 1486 he was quarrelling with Thomas Stafford of Bromham over his rights of warren at Lackham,13 KB27/898, rot. 48. and at an uncertain date in the 1480s he agreed with Sir Roger Tocotes† to put a dispute with John Croke over property rights in the same manor to arbitration.14 CAD, iv. A9729; C1/50/53-54.

If Baynard’s first marriage, contracted in his youth, appears to have remained childless, his second one proved considerably more prolific, resulting in no fewer than 13 sons and five daughters. At least one of these, Elizabeth, remained unmarried at the time of Baynard’s death, while her sister Joan was already widowed, having been married to William Temys of Rood Ashton.15 The Commons 1509-58, iii. 434; CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 165, 193; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 386. Baynard made his will on 24 Aug. 1501 and died three days later.16 Baynard’s inquisition post mortem gives the date of his death as 27 Aug., while his brass at Lacock has 26 Aug.: CFR, xxii. 714; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 503-4. He asked to be buried in the eastern doorway of the church of St. Cyriac at Lacock, where a memorial brass survives, depicting him in full armour facing his wife in an armorial cloak.17 E.W. Ives, ‘The Common Lawyers’, Profession, Vocation and Culture ed. Clough, 189; Kite, 3-4. The accompanying epitaph provides a clear indication that he thought of himself as a member of the armigerous landed class, rather than a mere gentleman-lawyer:

Robertus Baynard armiger vir egregius et legis peritus in annis bellicis multum strenuus, dapifer precipuus inter proximos pacis conservator diligentissimus, uxorem habens Elizabeth devotissimam.18 Kite, 3 erroneously reads ‘armis’ for ‘annis’.

He left small bequests to the fabric of the church and to that of Salisbury cathedral, and instructed that a total of £7 13s. 4d. be distributed to the priests and paupers attending his funeral and month’s mind. The principal beneficiary of the will was his daughter Elizabeth, for whose marriage he assigned the sum of £100 (two thirds of which she was to receive from the chief justice of common pleas, Thomas Wood). Baynard’s wife was appointed sole executrix of the will, while his principal heir, not mentioned explicitly in the will, was his 30-year-old son Philip.19 PCC 3 Blamyr; CFR, xxii. 714; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 503.