HAYNE, Roger

The Stanburghs appear to have originated in Gloucestershire, although their background remains obscure. In the spring of 1447 Sir Maurice Berkeley I* of Uley was to claim that the family were his villeins, pertaining to his manor of Aylburton, but a jury found in favour of Roger and his descendants, and it is possible that Berkeley was simply using the charge as a defence in a dispute over a cloth sale that had turned sour.3 CP40/745, rot. 117. Certainly, by this date Roger (now regularly known by the alternative name of Hayne) had long been established among the merchants of Bath. Even by 1422 he was among the citizens who alongside the mayor attested local deeds at the guildhall, a function which he frequently performed in subsequent years.4 Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/3/26; 5/18, 28; Reg. Bekynton, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xlix), no. 537. The extent of his property in Bath is uncertain, but it included a tenement in Northgate Street known as ‘Goldesplace’, which he had newly acquired in 1443, a plot of ground known as ‘Merechirchehey’ and gardens in Plumtree Lane and in the suburb under ‘lez Burghwalles’.5 Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/2/80; 5/59; Walker-Heneage mss, DD\WHb/258.

Although Stanburgh is not known to have held the mayoralty of Bath, he was clearly of some standing in the community. He served as one of the city constables in 1427-8, in 1432 he was among the four men who certified Bath’s choice of MPs to the sheriff of Somerset and by June 1450 he was ranked among the city’s aldermen.6 C219/14/3. He was thus beyond doubt of sufficient standing to represent his neighbours in the Commons, but it is tempting to speculate whether his dispute with the influential Sir Maurice Berkeley, which came to trial after the dissolution, played a part in persuading him to seek election to the Parliament of 1447.

Few details of Stanburgh’s commercial activities have come to light, but he evidently traded in cloth as far afield as Salisbury and even London.7 CP40/745, rot. 117; 780, rot. 258d; 782, rot. 501d. It was probably in the course of one such transaction that he incurred the substantial debt of £20 6s. 8d. to a Salisbury merchant, as a result of which the sheriff of Wiltshire was ordered to begin outlawry proceedings against him and his son William in early 1456. By the summer of that year, the parties had agreed to negotiate, and discussions were evidently still ongoing in the following year.8 CP40/780, rot. 258d. The outcome of the matter is not recorded, and Roger is not heard of thereafter. William followed his father into the Commons and went on to serve several terms as mayor of Bath in the reign of Edward IV.