PAULYN, William (d.1460), of Scarborough, Yorks.

The Paulyn family came from Hunmanby, a few miles south of Scarborough, where they had been established at least since the time of our MP’s great-grandfather, John Paulyn (d.1402). CIPM, xviii. 567. Our MP’s father played the role typical of one of the parochial gentry. He served twice as a tax collector in the East Riding in the early 1430s, and in October 1438 he was a juror in the inquisition held at Old Malton on the death of Maud, widow of Peter, Lord Mauley. CFR, xvi. 66, 193; CIPM, xxv. 244. But he also supplemented his modest landed income with fishing interests. He paid fish tithes to Scarborough’s church of St. Mary for the period for which the accounts survive between 1414 and 1418. Compared with the town’s most substantial fishermen his catches were modest, worth between £18 in 1417-18 and £46 in 1414-15, but the fact that he fished in the distant Iceland waters in 1416-17 shows that his interests were more than casual. E101/514/31, ff. 6v, 23, 36, 51. Since he is described in the records as ‘burgess of Scarborough’, he was probably resident there for some of the time, and it is likely that the two messuages he is said to have held there at the time of his death were of his own acquisition. CP40/706, rot. 145; C139/133/15. Neither the inq. post mortem of Thomas’s fa. or gdfa. mentions property in Scarborough: CIPM, xviii. 567; xx. 696. Yet it was in the church of Hunmanby that he wanted to be buried, and it was our MP who was responsible for developing further the family’s ties with Scarborough. York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 191.

In part this was a result of the marriage Paulyn’s father made for him. His first wife was the daughter and heiress of Robert Bamburgh. This identification depends on a later Chancery petition where Bamburgh is named as the ‘grandfather’ of our MP’s eldest son, also named Robert: C1/33/114. According to the inquisition taken after our MP’s death, his wife brought him four waste messuages, two cottages, and six gardens in Scarborough, with a small estate at Huntington (near York). This property was together valued in the inquisition at only 13s. 8d. p.a., but this was no doubt a very conservative valuation and, in any event, its acquisition explains why our MP began his career in the town while his father lived. C1/33/114; C139/178/52. In 1442 he stood surety on the election of Robert Carthorpe* as MP for the borough, and in July 1443 he witnessed the will of one of the leading burgesses, William Forster I*. C219/15/2; York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, f. 75v. In all likelihood he lived in Scarborough, for it was there that his eldest son was born in the first week of Lent 1443, being baptized in the church of St. Mary with, according to his proof of age in 1465, his young uncle, John Paulyn, aged only ten, bearing the basin for the godparents, Robert Harom, clerk, and Robert Alneth, to wash their hands. C140/18/55. William also developed commercial interests, although these are largely undocumented. In a general pardon he sued out in October 1446 he is described as ‘of Scarborough, mercer’ and when, in 1448, he and his father were defendants in a minor plea of debt he is said to be ‘once of York, merchant’. C67/39, m. 16; CP40/751, rot. 20d.

On his father’s death on 23 Sept. 1448 Paulyn inherited the family lands. These were not valuable (extended at only 39s. 2d. p.a. in his father’s inquisition post mortem) and were, in any event, subject to his mother’s interest, yet they were enough to make him one of the most important of Scarborough’s burgesses. He was returned to represent the town in the Parliament of February 1449 at hustings presided over by his son’s godfather, Robert Alneth, as bailiff; and later he served on the second of the three councils elected annually to assist the bailiffs. C139/133/15; CFR, xviii. 97, 119; C219/15/6; Scarborough ct. bk. 3, f. 122.

Little else is known of Paulyn. Another leading burgess, John Acclom*, named him as one of the executors of his will made in July 1458, and he drew up his own will on 13 Aug. 1460. There he described himself as a ‘gentleman’, and as if to prove the point he bequeathed two weapons – a ‘corace’ and a baselard – to his eldest son, Robert. He divided the immediate tenure of his significant property holdings in the town between his second wife, Avice, and his brother, John, who were named as executors. Avice was to have a life interest in his tenement called ‘Egtonhous’ in the Newborough together with St. Katherine’s close next to Spreight Lane; and John was to hold for life all his messuages in Rasyn Lane subject to the payment of annual rents of 6s. 8d. to his elderly mother and 3s. 4d. to William Rasyn. On their deaths, however, all was to pass to Robert and his issue. No landed provision was made, at least under the terms of the will, for his two other sons, John and William, who were to content themselves with 20s. each. As well as tenements in the town, his brother was to have two tenements with a croft and a bovate of land in Hunmanby on ‘le market hill’ for life, again saving the reversion to Robert and his issue. No doubt the generous provision made for John, who was to represent Scarborough in the Parliament of 1467, was encouraged by the consideration that the heir was yet a minor, albeit less than four years short of his majority. York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, ff. 367v, 432v-33.

Paulyn died only two days after making his will. Since his modest property in Hunmanby was held of the King in chief, his son’s wardship and marriage fell to the Crown. This may explain why so many prominent local gentry, headed by Sir John Hotham and Robert Constable*, served on the jury at his inquisition post mortem held at Market Weighton on 25 Sept. 1460. A month later the Crown, then controlled by the Yorkists, committed the wardship and marriage jointly to a Scarborough man, William Helperby*, and a local lawyer, John Wenslagh of Brandesburton (East Riding). Although, on 26 Nov. 1461, this grant was superseded by another to the Chancery clerk, Thomas Ive, Helperby, who the first grant was presumably principally intended to benefit, was quickly able to reassert his claim, securing a new grant on 6 Feb. 1462. Since he also secured other grants from the new King, it may be that the wardship was part of his reward for some undocumented assistance to the Yorkists during the civil war of 1459-61. C139/178/52; CFR, xix. 295; xx. 57-8; CPR, 1461-7, p.115. The grant also recognized a tenurial connexion in that, although it was omitted from the property detailed in our MP’s inq. post mortem, the Paulyns held of Helperby a bovate of land in Killerby (in Cayton near Scarborough): C139/133/15.