HAYNE, Richard I, of Chichester, Suss.

The Haynes of Chichester were related to the Sussex family which lived at Warnham near Horsham and numbered among their members the Richard Hayne ‘senior’ who was party to a conveyance of land in Slinfold in 1401. Bodl. Ch. Suss. 205. In the same year Thomas Hayne sat in Parliament for Chichester. Thomas went on to serve as mayor for two consecutive terms, and is last recorded in 1415 as an attestor at the shire elections held in the city. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 337; C219/11/7. Evidence of the precise relationship between Thomas and the younger Richard, our MP, is lacking, although it may have been that of father and son. Richard, whose occupation has not been discovered, made his first appearance in the records in August 1413, when as ‘of Chichester’ he stood surety for two local men, a baker and a tailor, put in exigent for their ransom by reason of their conviction for trespass and conspiracy against a London ‘patynmaker’. He guaranteed under penalty of £10 to bring them before the King’s bench at the quinzaine of Easter following, but one of the men proved to be so ‘languid’ that he arrived at the court, then in session at Leicester, a day late, and judgement was given that the mainpernors should forfeit their bonds. Fortunately for Hayne, in October 1414 the King pardoned him the sum due. CCR, 1413-22, p. 87; CPR, 1413-16, p. 240. He may have been the Richard Hyne noted on the parliamentary return of 1420 as pledge for the appearance at Westminster of the representatives elected by two other Sussex boroughs, Lewes and Horsham. C219/12/4. Towards the end of 1424 he served as a juror at two inquisitions post mortem held at Chichester, and he witnessed a deed there in June 1435. C139/20/39; 24/36; W. Suss. RO, Diocesan recs., Cap. I/15/7. His election to represent the city in Parliament occurred 18 months later.

We may be reasonably sure that our MP was the Richard Hayne alias Grasyer of Chichester who together with his wife Clemence conveyed to the lawyer Edmund Mille* three messuages, five cottages, two shops and 16 acres of land in Horsham and Roffey in 1445. CP25(1)/241/89/24. Doubts remain, however, about his identification with a namesake who seven years later, together with a wife called Maud, was confirmed in possession of some 60 acres of land in Warnham, and at the same time relinquished possession of a house in Horsham. The same or another Richard Hayne was recorded in deeds at Warnham in the 1460s, and himself possessed a toft, three gardens and some 170 acres of land there, which he sold at some point before the early 1480s. CP25(1)/241/90/24, 25; W. Suss. RO, Add. mss, 39956, 39958; C1/53/175. This last was probably the Richard Hayne who, together with his wife Isabel, dealt with land in Warnham in 1482: CP25(1)/241/93/34.