PAYN, Stephen, of Horsham, Suss.

Payn, who lived in the town which he represented in Parliament, was often asked to witness local deeds, CCR, 1441-7, p. 377; Cat. Wiston Archs. ed. Booker, 84. It is unlikely that he was the man of this name who had been an officer in Henry V’s household in the summer of 1415: E404/31/415. and frequently called upon to serve as a juror at inquisitions post mortem conducted in Horsham. He did so in 1422 (regarding the heirs of John Lewknor), 1424 (following the death of Margaret, wife of Sir Roland Lenthall, and aunt of the borough’s lord the duke of Norfolk), 1425 (on Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Norfolk), and 1433 (Sir John de Bohun and the duke of Norfolk himself). In all these cases his local knowledge about these leading landowners would have proved useful for the escheator. C139/5/35; 8/89; 16/25; 58/33; 60/43. More out of the ordinary was his association in August 1430 with two prominent figures from Worcestershire, John Throckmorton I* and John Wood I*, in receiving a release from the widow of a Horsham man of her title to land in the neighbourhood known as ‘Wollokkes’. The three men were in all probability acting in the interest of Hugh Cokesey*, of the Worcestershire gentry family, who had inherited property in the locality, for both Throckmorton and Wood had long been involved in the administration of Cokesey’s estates. CAD, i. B1615 (wrongly calendared to the reign of Hen. VIII), 1621; E326/1621. Over a period of 12 years Payn was elected for Horsham to as many as five of the eight Parliaments for which the borough’s returns survive. He is not recorded after the last of these, which was dissolved at the end of December 1435.