BAILEY, William (d.1409), of Salisbury, Wilts.

A draper, Bailey presented 18 entire woollen cloths for alnage in the financial year 1394-5. Four years later, in 1399, he sold a tenement and three shops in the market place of Salisbury. At the time of his return to the Parliament of 1406, he was acting as coroner both in Salisbury and in the county at large. Admittedly, on 10 May (during the second session of the Parliament), the sheriff of Wiltshire was ordered to arrange for the election of a new coroner for the county on the ground that Bailey was already too busy as coroner in the city to exercise both offices. But despite this order, Bailey was still occupying the two coronerships at the time of his death.2Ibid. f. 25; E101/345/2; CCR, 1405-9, p. 34; 1409-13, p. 13.

Bailey was elected for Salisbury to the Parliament originally summoned on 26 Oct. 1409 to meet at Bristol in January 1410, but he died shortly before 28 Nov.3Salisbury RO, ledger bk. A, f. 35 (the date of the election is no longer legible). Whether Salisbury returned another MP in his place is not known. In his will, made on 4 Aug. 1407, he had requested burial in the parish church of St. Thomas, Salisbury, and made various small bequests to the poor of the city and to local religious institutions. Personal legacies included the gift of his best basilard to Gilbert Wyke, clerk to William Stourton, the lawyer and future Speaker, and a gown furred with ‘wilde katt’ to a fellow-citizen. Bailey’s two tenements in Salisbury were granted for life to his widow, Alice; after her death they were to be sold, and part of the proceeds given to the mayor and corporation, in return for the annual celebration of obits. The will was proved on 4 May 1410.4PCC 21 Marche.