AYSSHE, Robert

Both Robert and his putative father used the alias of Stoury.3 Variants: Stowey, Stowry. The older Robert was living in Dorchester by 1407, and appeared there as a feoffee of property in the town, on occasion acting on behalf of his kinsman, William Ash† or Aysshe, a prominent burgess who had represented the borough in the Parliament of 1394.4 Dorchester Recs. 167-8, 175-6, 182-3, 268-9; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 66. Their precise relationship is not recorded, although William’s widow Eleanor referred to Robert senior as her ‘cousin’. In his will of 1410 William left this Robert and his wife Katherine a reversionary interest in a house at Durnegate, to fall to them after the death of his widow, and in her own will, made a few years later, Eleanor herself left him her property in Melcombe Regis. In 1431 Robert senior gave up possession of a burgage in Durnelane, which he had also received from his late kinsman.5 Dorchester Recs. 207-8, 211, 273-4. It was he who attested the parliamentary elections for Dorchester in 1429 and 1432 and those for both borough and county in 1437, acted as an executor for a local widow in 1432, and using the names Aysshe and Stoury interchangeably frequently appeared as a witness to deeds in the town.6 Ibid. 255, 268-9, 273, 277-9, 280-4, 287-9, 305. Aysshe senior was bailiff of Dorchester in 1430-1, 1438-9 and 1448-9, and was named among the ‘fidedignorum’ present at a view of frankpledge in October 1447.7 Ibid. 114, 271-2, 285, 290. A hosteler, he was accused in the common pleas by a London grocer for failing to return a horse delivered to him for safekeeping in 1443. The date of his death is not known, although the suit was still unresolved in 1450.8 CP40/742, rot. 430.

That it was not this older man, but rather a younger Robert Aysshe who sat for Dorchester in the Parliaments of 1447 and 1450, is clear from the description of the MP on both returns as ‘junior’. In the meantime, one or other of the two men stood surety for the two representatives for the borough in the autumn of 1449. A Robert Aysshe served as a juror at Sherborne on 26 Oct. 1450 for the inquest following the death of Reynold West, Lord de la Warre,9 C219/15/7; C139/142/21. and if this was the MP (as seems likely) it was just before the start of his second Parliament, which assembled at Westminster 11 days later. As either Aysshe or Stoury our MP witnessed deeds in Dorchester in the years 1467 to 1486.10 Dorchester Recs. 293, 295-8, 306-7, 309. But despite having represented the borough in two Parliaments he does not seem to have held office in the town until late in his career: he was among the 12 jurors who at Michaelmas 1481 joined the bailiffs in making a grant of a burgage held by the commonalty,11 Ibid. 309. and later that decade he served two terms as a bailiff.

Of Aysshe’s private concerns little is recorded, although it is known that he was a merchant, and that in 1459 he was sued in the court of common pleas by men from Weymouth for debts amounting to £12. A further plea, brought in Michaelmas term 1465 by a clerk called John Osmundston alleged that he owed him £14. At the same time the clerk brought a suit against John Baron II*, another former MP for Dorchester.12 CP40/793, rots. 15, 31d; 817, rot. 45. Aysshe was outlawed after failing to appear in the same court to answer in a similar suit, initially brought during Henry VI’s reign, over the sum of £11 owed to the prominent Salisbury merchant William Swayn*, but he eventually obtained a pardon of outlawry in May 1476.13 CPR, 1467-77, p. 575. He is last mentioned in August 1492, when a deed referred to his house in St. Peter’s parish, Dorchester.14 Dorchester Recs. 307.