HAYNE, Walter (b.c.1397), of Pilton and Barnstaple, Devon.

Hayne’s parentage is obscure, but his family may have originated in Pilton, to the north-west of Barnstaple, where he owned property. CAD, vi. C5589; North Devon RO, Pilton mss, 1239F/T3; Barnstaple bor. recs., B1/4925. A John Hayne of Pilton served as a tax collector and commr. de mutuo faciendo in the early 1420s, and another man of the same name was searcher of ships at Bristol in 1459: CFR, xiv. 299, 315, 417; xv. 7; xix. 220. His entry to the port’s merchant community probably owed much to his marriage to the daughter of a prominent former mayor and parliamentarian, the wealthy merchant Thomas Holman. Like his father-in-law (whom he served as an executor), Hayne styled himself a merchant, and like him he probably traded in a wide range of commodities. CP40/715, rot. 249; 720, rot. 104; Barnstaple bor. recs., B1/496. Nevertheless, he evidently also had some connexions among the gentry of the region, and may be found among the jurors at the proof of age of the young John Arundell, grandson and heir of the leading resident landowner of Cornwall, Sir John Arundell I*, when he recalled being present in the parish church of Bideford at the boy’s baptism on 9 June 1421, and remembered the day as exceptionally rainy. C139/112/68.

Hayne’s career was essentially a local one, and he is not known to have ever held office under the Crown, but he evidently rose to some prominence among the merchants of Barnstaple, and from the later 1430s served several terms in local office. In the mid 1440s his neighbours elected him mayor of the borough, and he was serving in this office in December 1446, when writs were issued from Chancery summoning Parliament to assemble at Cambridge the following February. Before an election could be held, the meeting place of Parliament was changed to Bury St. Edmunds by fresh writs of 20 Jan., and Hayne, like many mayors of remote boroughs, faced an acute problem. When Parliament met at Westminster, the proximity of the markets of London and the central law courts inclined individuals to offer themselves as MPs, whereas the provincial backwater of Suffolk represented a far less appealing destination. It may thus have been an inability to find anyone prepared to travel to East Anglia, rather than a conscious breach of electoral convention, which prompted Hayne to return himself alongside the comparatively obscure Totnes yeoman William Davy alias atte Lake*.

Although evidently respected by the Barnstaple merchant community, Hayne did not enjoy universal popularity among his neighbours. In 1437 he and his brother-in-law, John Holman, had been accused by John Coffyn of felling and stealing his timber to a value of £40, KB27/703, rot. 45d. and in the summer of 1440 three other local men, Nicholas Tyrant, William Orchard and Walter Loppethorn brought proceedings for an unspecified trespass against Hayne and an fellow merchant, John Mules*. KB27/717, rot. 9. Similarly, Hayne was said to have been associated with Mules and John Raymour in the imprisonment of one Robert Hugh, who complained to the chancellor, Bishop Stafford of Bath, that he had been forced to seal bonds to a total value of £60 to prevent him from suing his captors for false imprisonment. C1/45/213. In 1442 Hayne was in dispute with John Inner over possession of a tun of wine, which Walter claimed to have received as surety for a debt owing to him from James Marchant. CP40/727, rot. 529. Apparently more serious was Hayne’s quarrel with the influential John Hacche*, who claimed that in December 1447 he and a group of local ruffians had assaulted and threatened Hacche’s servant Robert Parys at Pilton, preventing him from collecting rents and buying victuals for his master’s table. CP40/748, rot. 263; 749, rot. 229; 755, rot. 326.

The date of Hayne’s death has not been established, but he may have died, probably without surviving issue, before 1459, when his brother-in-law John Holman (who two years later became vicar of Barnstaple), arranged for his paternal family lands, including those originally settled on Walter’s wife, to be used for the foundation of a chantry. Hayne’s own property in Pilton went to the leper hospital of St. Margaret there, to provide for prayers for his soul, as well as those of his wife, their children, parents and benefactors. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 398; Barnstaple bor. recs. B1/4925.