YON, Hugh

The identity of Dartmouth’s second representative in the Parliament of 1433 cannot be established with absolute certainty. While the sheriff’s indenture names Yon, the composite schedule listing all the men returned throughout the county suggests that it was the more experienced Thomas Asshenden I* who represented the borough in that year.

Yon, who normally lived in a tenement by the Kingsway, held a total of ten messuages and other property in Dartmouth, Southtown Dartmouth and Kingswear.5 H.R. Watkin, Dartmouth, 128-9, 134; CP25(1)/46/83/104, 85/172. Like many of his neighbours, he earned his income at sea. The scale of his activities is hard to gauge, but a debt of £30 7s. 7d. owing to him from an Exeter tailor in 1449 suggests that they were of some substance.6 CP40/752, rot. 268. Over the course of his career, Yon acquired shares in a number of ships. Thus, in 1428, along with Nicholas Stebbing* and other Dartmouth merchants, he purchased a barge called La Kateryne, which appears to have belonged to John Stanbery and John Cleve, themselves Devon men. Yon and his associates for their part claimed that the vessel had been taken by the English fleet from Breton enemies on its way to Bordeaux and brought to Dartmouth, where it was purchased by Yon and the rest for 45 marks. Arbiters appointed by the court of admiralty awarded the ship to its original owners, but determined that they should pay Yon and his fellows their 45 marks, as well as an additional £6 10s.7 Watkin, 392. In the event, the matter seems to have been settled amicably, for Yon eventually went on to act as a feoffee for Cleve.8 Ibid. 133-4.

On other occasions, too, Yon’s title to his acquisitions was called into question: like Stanbery and Cleve before him, John Baron, another Exeter merchant, challenged his possession of a share of a vessel called La Marie, which Yon claimed to have acquired legitimately in the court of admiralty.9 C1/69/122. Certainly, acts of privateering formed an integral part of Yon’s activities. In August 1431 a commission was issued for his arrest, after he and a group of mariners, sailing in two barges known as Le Gabriell and La Petyr and two balingers called La Marie and Le George had captured a ship belonging to merchants from Ghent and Sluys and sold its cargo at Dartmouth.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 154.

Yon was respected among his fellow burgesses, as the frequency with which he was called upon to witness local deeds, appraise contraband or to act as an executor amply testifies. The men with whom he was thus connected included many of the leading men of the town. Apart from Stebbing, who had been his business partner in 1431 and took his side in his dispute with Robert Hill*, he was at one point or another associated in various transactions with Robert Steven*, John Walsh alias Gregory*, Robert Wenyngton*, Richard Carswill, Robert Bowyer and John Brushford*, all of whom in their turn served as mayors of Dartmouth.11 Watkin, 108, 114, 115, 124, 126, 127, 129, 133; E122/222(2)/38/1-2. In 1443 Yon acted as attorney for a land conveyance for Thomas Bosse and his wife Denise, the daughter of William Clerk (the mayor at the time of Yon’s possible return to Parliament). Nor were his connexions limited to Dartmouth: by 1438 he had formed close links with the Carewe family and was associated with Sir Nicholas Carewe and his mother Elizabeth in a dispute with Nicholas Stebbing over a tenement in Dartmouth. The parties agreed to submit themselves to the arbitration of John Hyndeston, John More, Henry Drewe and John Brushford, and should these arbitrators fail to reach agreement to accept a decision by John Mules* and William Wynard.12 Watkin, 396.

By the mid 1420s, Yon was sufficiently established in Dartmouth to secure election as one of the town’s bailiffs. Perhaps in this capacity, he attracted the attention of the Crown, and on relinquishing office was promptly appointed one of the customs collectors in the south Devon district of Exeter and Dartmouth. He may have carried out his official duties to satisfaction, for in the course of 1431 he was included in a number of ad hoc commissions in his locality.

By the time of Yon’s election as bailiff of Dartmouth he was probably married. His wife’s paternity has not been discovered, but it seems that she was in some way related to the Hills of Shilston, for by the later 1420s Hugh was in dispute with Robert Hill over property rights within the manor of Shilston. Hill accused Yon and his associate Stebbing of forging a series of charters relating to the descent of Shilston and publicizing their contents, in breach of the statute of forgeries of 1413, as well as breaking into his close and houses within the manor and threatening his tenants. There can be no doubt that Yon was guilty as charged, for he attempted to escape conviction by a series of legal manoeuvres, securing two writs of protection for planned voyages to France in the retinues of Sir John Radcliffe* and the duke of Bedford, but never set out on either expedition. Once the writs had been annulled, Yon was duly convicted in early 1433 and condemned to pay the huge sum of £200 in damages, but it is probable that his decision to seek election to Parliament later that year was motivated by the intention to influence proceedings at Westminster in person, and in this he succeeded, for the justices of common pleas did not simply confirm the verdict reached at Exeter, but set a separate day for their judgement in the autumn. A further delay ensued, as Yon had failed to provide his attorney, William Kirkesby*, with the requisite warrant, but there was no further question of a challenge to Hill’s title to his manor.13 CP40/682, rots. 119d, 306d; 689, rots. 121, 329d; 693, rot. 139. Yon’s protracted quarrel with Hill may have played a part in bringing his brief public career to a temporary close in 1431. By the early 1440s, and perhaps under the impression of the deteriorating military and fiscal situation, the government once more called upon his experience. He was reappointed as customs collector in Exeter and Dartmouth, and charged with raising shipping for the French war. This renewed period of office-holding lasted for a mere two years, before Yon retired, this time for good.

Little is known of Yon’s final years. In early 1447 the abbess of Syon accused him of having taken her goods worth £10 at Sidmouth. No details of the case have come to light, and it is possible that the supposed offence dated back to his time as customs collector.14 CP40/745, rot. 51. Not long after giving up that office, he came into conflict with John Roche, a townsman of Fowey in Cornwall. In 1450 Roche appeared in the court of common pleas to bring a suit over a bond for £20. According to Yon’s version of events, he had sealed this bond on 24 Aug. 1444 under coercion, being at the time held captive by his opponent. The background to these events is uncertain, but the men of Fowey were no less prone to privateering activities than those of Dartmouth, and it is possible that Yon had been taken captive at sea during one such exploit.15 CP40/758, rot. 219. Yon is last heard of in 1453, when his former fellow customer Henry Russell alias Gascoigne* sued him for a debt of £16 13s. 4d. probably relating to their joint term of office,16 CP40/769, rot. 238. although it may have been he, rather than a kinsman of the same name, who at the parliamentary elections of 1467 stood surety for the Exeter Members.17 C219/17/1. He is not known to have left any descendants.