AYLESBY, John

Although Aylesby remains an obscure figure, it appears that he began his career in Henry V’s reign, trading as an ironmonger in London, and also dealing in wine,1 e.g. with Sir John Mortimer: C1/6/190. and these interests continued after he set up in business in Wiltshire. He sometimes lived in Salisbury, but he is not recorded taking any notable part in the administration of the city, or as being assessed for contributions to the many loans which it made to the Crown.

At some point in the late 1420s or early 1430s Aylesby fell out with one of the most prominent merchants of Salisbury, the fiercely litigious Thomas Freeman*. He was forced to petition the chancellor to try to obtain repayment of sums of money he had guaranteed for the ransoms of certain Englishmen taken prisoner across the Channel. After the four men (who came from Newcastle, Chichester, Guildford and Sandwich) had been seized by Bretons and taken to St. Malo, Aylesby’s factor Ralph Somer of Salisbury had raised a total of £22 for their ransoms, and the prisoners were bound to the factor as security, to content Aylesby. But Somer, for the ‘graunde affiance et troust’ which he had in Freeman, handed the obligations over to him to levy the sums due from the goods of the prisoners. Aylesby had no remedy in common law to enable him to retrieve his money.2 C1/7/160. This was not the end of the matter, for Freeman then sued Aylesby under the Statute of Labourers for allegedly having taken Somer into his service after Freeman had himself engaged him. The suit led to Aylesby’s outlawry for failing to appear in court to answer the charge. The timing of these lawsuits is uncertain, but it may well be the case that Aylesby sought election to the Parliament of 1437 in order to combat Freeman in the courts at Westminster, or, indeed, to take advantage of the parliamentary privilege of freedom from arrest. He was returned for the decayed borough of Old Sarum, just outside Salisbury, and in the company of another Salisbury man, John Wylly*. As ‘of Salisbury, merchant’ he successfully sued for a pardon of his outlawry on 4 Feb. 1439.3 CPR, 1436-41, p. 210.

A few years later Aylesby moved back to London. As ‘the elder’ and described once more as ‘citizen and ironmonger’, on 1 May 1445 he placed his goods and chattels in the hands of a number of ‘gentlemen’, a draper and a scrivener of London, and two Salisbury men (one of them being Simon Poy*).4 CCR, 1441-7, p. 402. Before he had left Salisbury he had been enfeoffed by William Pakyn* (one of his fellows in the Commons of 1437) of lands in Fisherton Anger, just outside the city. He finally relinquished his title to this property to Robert, Lord Hungerford, and others in February 1459.5 CCR, 1454-61, p. 402.