BESYNGBY, John

Nothing is known for certain of this MP’s paternity, but it is a fair speculation that, as the surname suggests, his family originated from Bessingby near Bridlington, a few miles to the south of Scarborough. By early in the fourteenth century the Besyngbys lived further to the east at Hutton Bonville near Northallerton, and they later came to have interests in York. John Besyngby served as one of the chamberlains there in 1410-11 and, two years later, his son, another John, was admitted to the freedom as a mercer. It is likely that the latter was our MP’s father.2 VCH Yorks. (N. Riding), i. 401; Freemen of York (Surtees Soc. xcvi), 113,116. On 21 Dec. 1421, described as ‘of York’, he entered into a bond before Hugh Rasyn†, bailiff of Scarborough, and, in 1425 and 1427, he appeared, described as ‘of Scarborough’ in pleas of debt sued by citizens of York.3 N. Yorks. RO, Northallerton, Scarborough recs. DC/SCB, ct. bk. 2, f. 93; CP40/656, rot. 20; 667, rot. 21. Our MP’s maternity is better documented: his mother was the daughter of a prominent burgess of Scarborough, who had represented the borough in the Parliaments of 1394 and 1395, and from him she inherited not only property in Scarborough but other lands in Newburgh, also in the North Riding, and at Cheswick and Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland.4 Her paternity is certain, but it may be that she did not fall heir to her father until the death of her putative brother, Peter, in 1429: Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 563v. He thus appears to have inherited land from both parents, but he was certainly not a man of means. In 1490 his maternal property was to be sold for the modest sum of £22, and, assuming he was the heir of the Hutton Bonville family, its holdings had never been sufficient for it to play any traceable part in local affairs.5 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 487.

Although Besyngby had property in Scarborough, he played very little part in its affairs. In 1443, early in his career, he was named as a remainderman by one of the town’s leading residents, William Forster I*, but he was described as living in distant London.6 Borthwick Inst., prob. reg. 2, f. 75v. Clearly he was already seeking the advancement that was later to come his way. Unfortunately his patron cannot be identified, but it may have been another Yorkshireman, Ralph Babthorpe of Babthorpe, an esquire of the royal household and the son and heir of the former steward of the household, Sir Robert Babthorpe. On 28 May 1444 he joined Babthorpe in taking a bond, dated at London, from a gentleman of Shrewsbury.7 KB27/750, rot. 23. Another likely candidate is Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (d.1455), the natural sponsor of promising men from the North Riding, and there is evidence to connect him with the Percys in the late 1450s. But to whomever he owed his favourable fortune, he had found a place in the royal household by February 1448, when, as a serjeant of the royal chamber, he had a joint grant of the bailiwick of the water of Wiggenhall and the office of gauger of Bishop’s Lynn in Norfolk. Very shortly afterwards he progressed to the rank of a yeoman of the Crown, receiving robes as such from the following Pentecost, and, from Michaelmas 1451, a fee of 6d. a day from the issues of Somerset and Dorset.8 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 128, 544; E101/410/1, 3, 6, 9.

Besyngby’s election to represent Scarborough in the Parliament of 1453 is to be seen as another aspect of his Household service – it was an assembly notable for the many Household men returned – but, although uninvolved in the town’s affairs, his maternal connexions meant that he was no carpet-bagger. It may be inferred that he put his time in this assembly to good use, for at about the time it concluded he made the sort of marriage which would ordinarily have been well beyond the reach of a man of his rank. On 7 Apr. 1454, very shortly before the dissolution, the wealthy widow, Isabel Butler, had royal licence ‘to marry any liege of the King and for such liege to take her to wife’. Since she is known to have married our MP shortly afterwards, it is a reasonable surmise that this licence was granted with this match in mind and, more contentiously, that Besyngby’s place in Parliament had helped him to secure it. The marriage transformed his landed position: Isabel’s first husband, Philip Butler, had held lands in eight counties, principally in Hertfordshire, Warwickshire and Bedfordshire. Less happily, it was a transformation that would only last for her lifetime. She held no lands in her own right, and, since she had had a son as long before as 1435, it was unlikely that the new marriage would be blessed with issue.9 CPR, 1452-61, p. 157; C139/149/27.

Despite the lands he held in Isabel’s right, Besyngby played no part in county affairs and the Household remained the focus of his interests. On 25 Nov. 1455 he joined other household men in offering surety in the court of King’s bench for the good conduct of their violent colleague, William Tailboys*; and, in March 1457, he offered mainprise for a fellow yeoman of the Crown, Henry Spencer*, in a royal grant of the keeping of a manor in Berkshire. More significantly, on the following 14 May, in the august company of two prominent supporters of the Lancastrian government, Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, and Eleanor, countess of Northumberland, he and others entered in a bond in the massive sum of £16,000, undertaking that the countess’s son, Richard Percy, would be a ‘true prisoner’ in the Marshalsea.10 KB27/778, rex rot. 36; CFR, xix. 186; CCR, 1454-61, p. 223. Such connexions explain why his fortunes soon made another significant advance. On 23 Nov. 1458 he was awarded the wardship and marriage of a royal ward, James Fynaunce of Stagsden in Bedfordshire, near the property he held in his wife’s right at Bromham. He had clearly acted quickly to secure the grant for it was made on the very day that the inquisition post mortem of the ward’s mother was delivered into Chancery. Further, the Crown was ready to disregard the unlicensed enfeoffment the mother had made to avoid her two manors at Stagsden and Husborne Crawley falling into wardship, and our MP was awarded their custody on very favourable terms. He was to pay but four marks p.a., with a further payment of £8 for the marriage of the heir. The manors had been valued, no doubt conservatively, at £9 p.a. in the inquisition, and the grant thus promised our MP a worthwhile profit in the four years before the heir came of age.11 CFR, xix. 223; C139/171/10: CPR, 1452-61, p. 507.

Unfortunately for Besyngby, his happy situation was not to last. His rise was brought to an abrupt end by the Lancastrian defeat at the battle of Northampton in July 1460, and he quickly returned to the obscurity from which he had sprung. He makes few appearances in the records in the 1460s. In April 1463 he sued out letters of protection as about to depart on royal service in the company of John Wood III*, victualler of Calais, but, if this was an attempt to resurrect his career, it failed, for the letters were quickly revoked when he stayed in London. No more is heard of him until December 1468, when he took the belated precaution of suing out a general pardon, and, in January 1470, he witnessed a grant of goods by John Watkins*, then resident at Westminster and a former servant of the exiled duke of Exeter.12 C67/46, m. 11; CPR, 1461-7, p. 259; C76/147, m. 15; CCR, 1468-76, no. 433. The restoration of Henry VI briefly promised him better fortunes: on 18 Feb. 1471, described as King’s servitor, he was re-granted the bailiwick of the water of Wiggenhall and the office of gauger of Lynn. He presumably lost these appointments on Edward IV’s restoration, but he did not drift into permanent retirement. On 20 May 1475, as the King made final preparations for the invasion of France, our MP sued out letters of protection as departing abroad in royal service, and it is probable that, despite his advanced age, he served in the campaign.13 C76/159, m. 16.

What else is known of the last ten years of Besyngby’s life suggests that, despite his profitable second marriage, he was beset by private difficulties. At an unknown date Stephen Lambourne recovered a debt of £40 and damages of two marks against him and secured his conviction for trespass; the result was his outlawry in both Middlesex and Bedfordshire. This was pardoned on 6 Nov. 1477 after he had discharged his debt.14 C66/541, m. 28; KB27/865, rot. 29. There are other indications that he was suffering from financial difficulties. In the late 1470s he pursued three petitions in Chancery. Two concerned bonds, probably for loans: in one he claimed that his stepson, John Butler, intended to sue him on an obligation in the sum of ten marks although it had been discharged; and in the other he made a similar complaint against two London mercers over a bond in a paltry £4. The third petition, sued jointly with his wife, is more interesting: they claimed that her formidable and very elderly mother had failed to endow her with the valuable goods her father had settled upon as his favourite daughter.15 C1/54/285, 64/624, 66/454. Perhaps a favourable settlement of this last claim solved his apparent difficulties. He last appears in an active role in July 1480 when, with others of London, he was a recipient of the goods of a London goldsmith, Robert Bateman. This is consistent with residence in the capital, but it may be that, for unknown reasons, he spent his last years in Norwich. In the indenture of 1490, by which his daughter and heiress Margaret sold her inheritance, he is described as of that city.16 CCR, 1476-85, no. 846; 1485-1500, no. 487.