HAYNE, Richard II, of Salisbury, Wilts.

Hayne inherited from his father a messuage in Scots Lane, Salisbury, along with other unspecified lands and tenements. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 16v. The father’s occupation is not known, but Richard himself was initially styled ‘gentleman’ and at his promotion to the higher city council in 1453 and his election to Parliament in 1459 he was designated ‘esquire’. Ibid. ff. 7, 38. Nearly always he was clearly distinguished from another Richard Hayne of Salisbury, who was a tailor. The latter was a member of the council of 48 from June 1444 to Sept. 1466 or later: First General Entry Bk. nos. 390-458; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 3-80 passim. In Nov. 1448 he paid a fine of £2 to be excused the office of alderman (First General Entry Bk. no. 422), but which of the two men was elected one of the serjeants on 2 Nov. 1449 is not known: ibid. no. 436. The tailor, who owned property in Castle Street (Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 80), was most likely he who had been called ‘mercer’ in a suit for a debt of £10 brought in 1439, and ‘merchant’ when he and Robert Gilberd of Salisbury commenced an action in Nov. 1440 under a statute staple sealed at Oxford: CP40/715, rot. 190; C241/230/79. The latter description perhaps denoted not only his status as a landowner, but also his position as a servant of the Crown. Hayne came to hold a substantial amount of property in Salisbury: cottages and shops in Carter Street, ‘Mulmongerstrete’, ‘Cheesecorner’ and Endless Street, a tenement in New Street (which was no longer in his possession in 1455), and jointly with Joan Camel buildings known as ‘Le Bolehall’ and ‘Hampton corner’ opposite the market cross. He expanded his holdings in Scots Lane, but sold or leased out the family house there in 1472. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Misc. Salisbury docs. 164/1/13; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 70, 73, 87; Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, G23/1/215, ff. 16v, 19. In the immediate vicinity of the city he acquired in 1459 lands and tenements in Old Sarum, Laverstock and Stratford sub Castle, which included a tract of land next to the highway from Old Sarum to Amesbury which was afterwards called ‘Haynys Conynger’ (warren). In the 1460s he and his kinsman William Hayne protected their interests at Stratford by bringing lawsuits against a local yeoman, John Nedyller. Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 59-63; KB27/817, rot. 12.

Nearer the beginning of his career, in 1441 Hayne started actions in the court of common pleas against William Temys* of Rood Ashton and Richard Casterton, a wealthy esquire from Lincolnshire, for assaulting him at Calne, but the cause of their quarrel is not revealed. CP40/721, rot. 348d; 724, rot. 187. He indicated an interest in Parliament by standing surety at the Wiltshire elections of 1442 for John Mone*, returned for Old Sarum. C219/15/2. Mone, a landowner from Dorset, held property in Salisbury, and it was probably there that the two men had become acquainted. Both became involved in the administration of the city, in Hayne’s case by starting to attend civic convocations as a member of the council of 48 that same year. First General Entry Bk. no. 368B. However, he was penalized for failing to attend the assemblies held on 16 Jan. and 2 Apr. 1445, on the latter occasion being fined a pound of wax. Ibid. nos. 396, 397. His excuse can hardly have been absence at Westminster attending the Parliament summoned to meet on 25 Feb., to which the citizens had elected him, for the first session ended on 15 Mar. and the Commons then did not reassemble until 29 Apr. After four sessions the Parliament was dissolved in April 1446, whereupon Hayne and his fellow MP William Hore II* sued out writs de expensis from the Chancery for 202 days’ service, at the very high cost to Salisbury of £40 8s. It is scarcely surprising that the civic authorities stipulated that the MPs elected to the next Parliament (in 1447) should serve for half the accustomed wages. Ibid. nos. 403, 408-9.

While up at Westminster Hayne came to the attention of the government, and shortly before the start of the third parliamentary session he was granted for life on 28 Sept. 1445 the office of clerk of the King’s works on the manor of Clarendon. CPR, 1441-6, p. 372. The post, in which he acted as lieutenant to the keeper of the lordship and park, initially the duke of Gloucester and from 1447 the courtier Sir William Beauchamp*, earned him 6d. a day. E101/460/10. While in office he again stood surety for a local MP (Thomas Temys*, his former adversary’s brother, elected for Salisbury in 1447), participated in the Salisbury election to the Parliament of November 1449, and stood as mainpernor for Thomas Burghill* and John Yelverton* returned for Old Sarum in 1450. On the last occasion, dubbed ‘esquire’, he also attested the indenture recording the county elections to Parliament held at Wilton. C219/15/4; 16/1; First General Entry Bk. no. 434.

These elections were held on 13 Oct. 1450 when the region had yet to recover from the severe unrest caused by Cade’s rebellion and the murder of Salisbury’s bishop, William Aiscough. Justice had not yet been done to the satisfaction of the royal authorities, and Hayne’s own actions that summer came to be viewed with suspicion. When commissioners of oyer and terminer came to Salisbury in July 1451 he was indicted with another ‘esquire’, Edmund Langtoo, for having risen in ‘manner of war’ with ‘many other’ malefactors, and congregated at ‘Hermanneshill’ on 30 June 1450 plotted to kill diverse lieges of the King and steal their goods. KB9/133/24. Even so, no immediate action seems to have been taken against them. Hayne was at large in November 1451 (serving as a juror at Heytesbury at the post mortem on Richard Milborne*), but on 4 Dec. he was removed from his royal office at Clarendon. C139/142/19; CPR, 1446-52, p. 505. During the Easter term of 1452 the sheriff of Wiltshire on being instructed to bring him and the many other men who stood accused with him to the King’s bench, returned that he had been unable to arrest them. Although the suit was carried over to the following term, nothing more is heard of it. KB27/764, rex rot. 21d.

In the interim, Hayne had continued to attend civic assemblies at Salisbury, and on 2 Nov. 1453 he was elected to the superior council of 24, on the same day paying £4 to be excused the offices of alderman and reeve. First General Entry Bk. no. 451; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 7; Salisbury acct. rolls, G23/1/44, no. 3. He participated in the parliamentary election held at Salisbury on 20 June 1455, Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 8, 11, 12, 16v, 17v. but on that occasion was himself returned for the borough of Heytesbury. It might be inferred that he had formed links with Robert, Lord Hungerford, who was seated there, and indeed he was in receipt of a life-annuity of 26s. from one of Hungerford’s manors, and was to serve on the jury providing evidence at inquisitions post mortem on the lord’s stepmother in November that year. SC6/971/12; C139/159/35. Even so, it can only be surmised that he owed this election to noble patronage. The Parliament met for three sessions, before it was dissolved in March 1456. While it was still in being, Hayne fell out with the civic authorities at Salisbury. In about November 1455 his personal quarrels with the mayor, William Swayn*, had been put to the arbitration of seven of his fellows on the council of 24, who required that as a peace-offering he should supply wine and a dinner of cygnets, rabbits and woodcocks for them all to consume. But this did not put an end to the bad feeling, for on the following 13 Apr. he was expelled from the council for having violently assaulted another member, John Honythorn. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 13v, 18, 25. Although demoted, after a delay of 14 months Hayne returned to civic assemblies, albeit only as one of the lower council of 48 once more. Ibid. ff. 27v, 31, 32, 33v, 34.

After the death of his former superior at Clarendon, Sir William Beauchamp, Lord St. Amand, Hayne registered grievances at the Exchequer regarding the handling of his accounts as clerk of the works. He said that St. Amand had ordered him to build a gatehouse at the manor and erect two new chimneys at the lodges and a bell tower in the chapel, as well as carrying out other ‘grete werkes’. Accordingly, he had hired many workmen, including masons and carpenters, agreeing to pay some of them 6d. a day, and others 5d. or 4d., but the Exchequer had only allowed him expenditure according to the statutes of Cambridge (which restricted wages to 2½d. a day for an artificer and 1d. for a labourer). As Hayne had found that labour could not be had in Wiltshire for such low wages, he had suffered ‘grete losse and importable hurt’. An order went to the Exchequer on 5 May 1458 to accept his accounts according to his oath, and allow him expenses on all his outgoings, the statutes notwithstanding. He duly presented his accounts, which revealed that he had spent more than £62 than he had received. E159/235, brevia Trin. rot. 16d; E364/93, m. H.

On 5 Nov. 1459 Hayne was elected for Salisbury to the Coventry Parliament, once more with William Hore as his companion. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, G23/1/2, f. 38. There is nothing to show that he supported the proscription of the Yorkist lords which the Parliament pushed through. Rather, in due course he may have favoured the latter, for in January 1461, following the reversal of political circumstances, and when the Yorkists were in power, he was commissioned to arrest and bring before the King and council certain named persons such as the Lancastrian Simon Milborne, who were their opponents. CPR, 1452-61, p. 657. During this period of crisis and civil war the authorities at Salisbury needed to take measures for the defence of their city: at an assembly on 21 Mar. men were appointed to safeguard the gates and bridges, with Hayne being put in charge of the gate facing towards the castle at Old Sarum. Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 49v. He appeared in the Exchequer in January 1462 as mainpernor for John Whittocksmead*, the bishop of Salisbury’s bailiff in the city, and a year later was a juror at Salisbury for the inquisition post mortem on John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton. Also in January 1463 he participated in Salisbury’s election to the Parliament summoned to meet at York. Ibid. f. 59v; CFR, xx. 50; C140/8/18.

Thereafter, Hayne took no further part in the administration of Salisbury. This may be because royal office took him elsewhere, at first (from July that year), to Poole, where he had been appointed collector of customs and subsidies. He left that post in March 1466 only to be then granted for life the constableship of Old Sarum castle, which had been in ruins for many years. Clearly, this was a sinecure. CPR, 1461-7, p. 524. Having been reappointed customer at Poole in February 1467, he was holding office in the port when returned to represent that borough in the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on 3 June, and retained it for the duration of the assembly. Hayne was pricked as a juror at the important treason trials conducted at Salisbury in January 1469, when (Sir) Thomas Hungerford* and Henry Courtenay were condemned to death. KB9/320/4, 13, 17. Where he himself stood in the political conflicts which followed is unclear, although he saw fit to sue for a pardon from Edward IV (as ‘of Newton Westgate, esquire, keeper of Old Sarum castle’) on 5 May 1470. C67/47, m. 6. That summer he encountered difficulties at the Exchequer over sums of money he had collected as customer in Poole. Henry Councell* (who was shortly to be made controller of customs there) came to the court on 19 July to lodge a bill against him, alleging that he had unjustly detained £6. The barons found against him and had him imprisoned in the Fleet. More seriously, five days later another creditor claimed that on the previous 6 Apr. Hayne and other malefactors had attacked him at Knightsbridge, and stolen his horse, a bag containing £11 6s. 8d. and goods worth 20 marks. The outcome of this suit, which was carried over to the Michaelmas term, does not appear, E13/156, Trin. mm. 3d, 5d, 7. but by then Edward IV was in exile and the government of the Readeption had seen fit to reappoint Hayne as customer on 26 Oct. The same government granted him a pardon as ‘of Salisbury, esquire, alias constable of the castle of Old Sarum and keeper of the gaol there’. C67/44, m. 7. On Edward IV’s return to power Hayne was removed from office at Poole, although for a while he retained his sinecure post at Old Sarum. A writ was out for his arrest, in March 1472, for failing to pay one John Stanford, gentleman, the sum of £20 in which he had been bound at the staple at Westminster nearly two years earlier. He obtained another royal pardon in the following May, C241/254/102; C67/49, m. 29. but he was clearly no longer in favour with the Yorkist regime, and in 1474 someone else was appointed constable of Old Sarum, with effect back-dated to 3 Dec. 1471; Hayne surrendered his patent for life. CPR, 1467-77, p. 389.

Hayne is last recorded in October 1478, completing transactions regarding his landed holdings. Tropenell Cart. i. 63. It has not been discovered whether he ever married or left children.