BASSET, Robert

Basset’s family appears to have come from Essex, although later pedigrees which indicate that his father was a Robert Basset of Billericay cannot be corroborated with contemporary sources. Nevertheless, it is likely that his family was one of several branches of the Bassets, a family name which can be traced back as far as the reign of Henry I, when a Ralph Basset was chief justice. By the early 16th century a manor known as Bassets Hall, as well as other estates in the county had come into the hands of one John Basset of Great Chishall, the father of William†, who claimed them as a descendant of the wealthy London draper John Hende. The MP’s connexion with the Essex Bassets is therefore difficult to establish, although he had certainly acquired or inherited property of some kind in the county before his death.5 P. Morant, Essex, ii. 24, 66, 156, 262, 268, 606.

Little in fact is recorded of this MP’s early career as a London salter, and almost nothing before the 1450s, by which time he was already a successful merchant. The salters of the city, though few in number, had come to play a disproportionately prominent role in civic affairs, and during the 15th century five members of the Salters’ Company were chosen as sheriffs of London and Middlesex while three, including Basset, were elected to the mayoralty. Basset himself had become a warden of the company by 1455 when he and his fellow wardens were required by another salter, Thomas Beaumond, to administer the latter’s bequest of property to be converted into an almshouse for the poor of the craft.6 A.R. Bridbury, Eng. and the Salt Trade, 147; PCC 9 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 69-70); J. Steven Watson, Hist. Salters’ Co. 26; Salters’ Co. London, H1/2/1/5, 7, H2/1/2. He appears to have remained in office for at least three successive years, but the paucity of records for the company in the 15th century means that it is not known whether he served as warden on a subsequent occasion, although given his prominence in London it is quite likely that he did. Once he had become an alderman he was for a number of years the most senior member of the company. Thus, in December 1474 he headed the list of those who agreed an ordinance establishing a formal organization for freemen outside the livery, who were henceforth to be known as yeomen of the craft. Significantly, the two wardens at that time were Richard Chawry† and William Horne, a future mayor, who frequently acted as Basset’s feoffees in the 1460s and 1470s.7 H. Barty-King, The Salters’ Co. 21.

Basset’s trading activities are not easily discernable from the surviving records. He does not appear in the customs accounts, although he was almost certainly engaged in overseas trade of some kind. In April 1478 he appeared before the mayor’s court to acknowledge a bill of sale concerning his ship called Le Thomas of London, which he sold, along with all its tackle and equipment, to two fellow aldermen, William Haryot and Robert Colwich.8 Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 123. Salt naturally formed the basis of his dealings, although like many merchants of his standing he also dealt in a variety of other goods to bolster his income from his main trade. So, in 1467 he was trading in commodities as diverse as wax, soap, oil, nails, canvas, Brabant cloth and Flemish cloth.9 CP40/829, rot. 143d. He may even have dabbled in the wine trade: in December 1483 Basset, Chawry and Horne entered into a bond in £40 after it was alleged that Horne had received 12 tuns of wine which had been stolen by ‘certain Englishmen’ from an alien merchant.10 CCR, 1476-85, no.1169. Evidence of Basset’s domestic dealings is provided by the numerous ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels made to him during his career, transactions which normally indicated that credit, or a loan, had been advanced by the recipients. In October 1455 a prominent London ironmonger named Henry Blount made such a gift to Basset and Richard Rich, a wealthy mercer, and a business connexion between the recipients is further indicated by a debt of 40s. which they pursued against a husbandman from Gloucestershire. Basset also developed trading links with Buckinghamshire where, in 1459, he was owed 68s. by a chapman from Chipping Wycombe, and with Kingston-upon-Thames where he had dealings with a tallow-chandler. His dealings in London were similarly not confined to members of his own craft, for in January 1457 a gift of goods and chattels was made to him by a cordwainer, which may indicate that he was trading in leather or other animal skins. It may well have been his wide-ranging trading activities which led to his appointment, in May 1462, to a panel of merchants, which included John Norman* and John Bromer*, that was to investigate a complaint made by another chapman from Buckinghamshire against a London mercer.11 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 183, 185; 1458-82, p. 29; CPR, 1452-61, p. 456; 1461-7, p. 1; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 228, 286, 477; 1476-85, no. 657. In addition, Basset may have been active as a financier: among his debtors were men such as the victualler of Calais, Ralph Wolseley*, but also lesser merchants, like the pewterer Thomas Godelok.12 C241/251/8; C1/59/272-3; C4/4/52.

There is no doubt that Basset was highly successful in his business dealings. This enabled him to acquire property in London appropriate to a man of his standing. As early as 1451 he was prepared to pay £200 for a substantial residence in Friday Street known as the Saracen’s Head. The vendors were the master and wardens of the Tailors’ Company, with whom Basset was to become embroiled in a lengthy dispute heard in the court of Chancery. According to Basset the sale had been agreed on 20 Nov. 1451 after which the deeds and other documents relating to the property were taken out of the company’s muniment chest and delivered to Basset’s attorney so that the boundaries could be checked and the final documents, including a release to be sealed by the Tailors, drawn up. Nevertheless, the Tailors then failed to seal these documents, and so after six months of waiting for seisin to be delivered to him, he took out an action of covenant against them. This was heard before a jury which subsequently found that the Tailors had indeed broken the covenant made with Basset and were ordered to pay damages of 40 marks and costs of 26s. 8d. In their reply the master and wardens alleged that they had never made any formal agreement with Basset about the Saracen’s Head, and made it plain that any sale was dependent upon the agreement of the ‘hole fraternite and crafte’. They also stated that any dealings with Basset had been dependent on the success of separate negotiations about property in Willesden, and that he had been informed when these failed. Finally they claimed that the jury which heard Basset’s action had been ‘gretely hatyng & evyll willed’ to them. Not surprisingly, Basset rejected their account of events and alleged that the master and wardens had ‘caused all the hole body of the seide crafte … to assemble in theire comyn halle for the seide cause and upon the seide covenaunt to them than there disclosed with one assent agreed to perfourme the same convenaunt’. He added that the jury of ‘suffisant lyvelode men’ had not been biased and that in any case the Tailors had been present ‘with there councell lerned’ and had been able to challenge and remove one of the jurors. In the event he was unable to proceed with the purchase, and the Saracen’s Head continued in the hands of the Tailors. This may have been for the best, however, for by 1489, five years after Basset’s death, it was said to be in a ‘great state of ruin’ and the company took the decision to rebuild it completely.13 C1/22/185; C4/2/154; Merchant Taylors’ Co. Ct. Minutes. ed. Davies, 18-19. This was not the only one of Basset’s property transactions to run into difficulties. At an unknown date the Sussex landowner Sir Henry Hussey sold to the salter his manor of Standen in Wiltshire in return for a promise that Basset would pay some of his debts, a promise on which Robert subsequently appears to have reneged.14 C1/28/162.

Basset’s other attempts to acquire property were more successful and by the mid 1460s he had holdings in several parishes in London. Despite the failure of his negotiations with the Tailors he was able to acquire another building in Friday Street, the Angel, a conveyance of which was made to him by Robert, son of Sir John Fitzsymond in 1466. Fitzsymond also granted him a large messuage with gates on two sides in the parish of All Hallows Bread Street. He subsequently conveyed these properties to Horne and Chawry, his feoffees. Other holdings included a brewery called Le Herte on the Hoop in St. Giles Cripplegate, which he had acquired from the executors of a prominent tailor, Alexander Farnell (d.1440), and tenements in the parish of St. Katherine Cree in the east of the city which he settled on Horne and another feoffee, the lawyer Thomas Rigby. It is not known which, if any of these properties were acquired on his first marriage, and indeed the identity of his wife is not recorded.15 C1/85/41-43, 86/33-34; Corp. London RO, hr 196/16; 212/27; 214/25, 26; 217/9-11; Salters’ Co. London, H1/4/2/1, 4/3/1, 2, 21/2, 4, 5, 7, 23/8. Basset was also occasionally active as a feoffee himself, especially on behalf of his fellow salters: in 1460 he was a feoffee for Laurence Stokwode for lands in Tuddenham and elsewhere in Suffolk, while in 1472 he was among those who, with Chawry and his wife, were granted holdings in Bread Street by Richard Needham*, and in 1476 he was among (Sir) Roger Ree†’s feoffees of the Hertfordshire manor of Watton at Stone.16 Corp. London RO, hr 202/33, 35; CCR, 1476-85, no. 3; Suff. RO (Ipswich), Blois mss, HA30/369/358/iii.

In May 1455 Basset was appointed for the first time to one of the many committees established by the city government in London to examine particular issues relating to the city and its inhabitants. The particular task of this committee, and of those to which he was appointed in August the same year and in December 1459, was to oversee the financial administration of the city which was in the hands of the chamberlain and the auditors. This experience stood him in good stead, for in March 1460 he was himself chosen to act as one of the auditors after John Harowe* relinquished his post. In September the same year he was formally re-elected to the office, the first rung on the ladder of civic government. His career had in the meantime received a further boost with his election as one of London’s MPs, chosen to attend the Parliament summoned to meet on 7 Oct.17 Corp. London RO, jnl. 5, ff. 240v, 256; jnl. 6, ff. 199v, 207v, 223, 266, 267. During this Parliament a petition from the Commons requested the release from prison of Walter Clerk*, then representing Chippenham, who had been imprisoned after lawsuits had been brought against him by John Payn I* and by Basset. The dispute between Clerk and Payn originated in the bitter faction-fighting among the burgesses of Southampton, although Basset had probably become connected with Payn as a result of the latter’s trading activities in London. Indeed it is likely that he acted as either a partner or as Payn’s factor in business transactions judging from a reference to Basset as Payn’s ‘servant’. The protracted litigation appears to have started with a quarrel in January 1456 when, Payn subsequently alleged, Clerk had brought a false indictment before the j.p.s in Middlesex in which he claimed that Payn and Basset among others had assembled at Hillingdon and assaulted him. Payn also asserted in the court of King’s bench that Clerk had himself assaulted and wrongfully imprisoned Basset. By the autumn of 1460 these and subsequent suits had not been resolved, and when Clerk arrived at Westminster to attend the Parliament he was arrested and imprisoned in connexion with the sum of £40 he was required to pay the King as a fine, as well as for 20 marks he owed to Basset in an action of trespass and £20 in which he was condemned to Payn in an action of maintenance. These events incurred a ‘grete delaye’ in the start of proceedings at the Parliament and the Commons complained that they were entitled to ‘free commyng, goyng and … abidyng’ and that consequently Clerk’s imprisonment infringed their liberties. Their petition requesting his release was successful, although Basset and Payn were to have justice once the assembly had been dissolved.18 PROME, xii. 515-16; KB27/790, rot. 3d; 794, rot. 67, rex rot. 6. The reason for Basset’s involvement in these disputes is not clear, although it is possible that he had established trading links with some of the Southampton merchants in Payn’s faction during the mid 1450s.

While Parliament was in session Basset made his first bid to become an alderman, putting himself forward first for Queenhithe ward and then for the ward of Dowgate in December 1460. His candidacy was rejected on each occasion and again in early March the following year when he tried to secure the aldermanry of Cordwainer ward. Two days after this attempt, however, on 9 Mar. he was successfully elected as alderman of the eastern ward of Aldgate.19 Jnl. 6, ff. 14-14v, 283, 284v. Further appointments to civic committees occurred later that year, and in September he was chosen as one of those who was to hold the food assize in the city. In the autumn of 1463 Basset was elected as one of the sheriffs, and in September 1465 he began serving the first of two further terms as an auditor. An indication of his standing both within his craft and in the city government at this time was his appointment in February 1468 as one of those charged with resolving a dispute between his company and the city over the office of measurer of salt.20 Ibid. ff. 21-23v, 82v; Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, 76. In the meantime he had also begun to lend money to the Crown, for in November 1462 a loan of 100 marks was made the subject of letters authorizing repayment by assignment. He made a further loan of 200 marks at some point before July 1468, and in May 1468, along with 62 other Londoners, headed by the mayor, Basset entered into a bond in 200 marks as part of arrangements to secure the payment by the merchants of the Calais staple of £10,000 to Charles, duke of Burgundy, for his marriage to Edward IV’s sister, Margaret. In December 1470 the Crown issued more letters, authorizing repayment of debts owed to Basset, which by that time totalled £160.21 E404/74/1/45; E403/827A, m. 12; 840, m. 11; 848, m. 13; E405/40, rot. 1; 48, rot. 1d; Gt. Chron. London ed. Thomas and Thornley, 429; C.D. Ross, Edw. IV, 111. In August 1470 Basset was appointed to his first royal commission, this one being charged with investigating the poaching of swans and swans’ eggs on the Thames. The salter was chosen again as one of the city’s auditors in September that year, an unusual appointment given that he had already served two years in the post while an alderman, but one that perhaps testifies to some degree of expertise in the financial administration of the city. A few months after his election, however, the city was threatened in May 1471 by the approach of forces led by Thomas, the bastard of Fauconberg, against the newly-restored Edward IV. Once again the seizure of the city of London was seen as key objective for those seeking the removal of the monarch, and on this occasion the main attack against the city came from the east where forces raised from Essex attacked Aldgate, the principal gate on that side of London. Basset, as the alderman of Aldgate ward, was in charge of the defences and when the attacks became heavier he acted decisively:

Then the aldyrman of that ward beyng in a blak jak or dobelet of ffens named Robard Basset and wyth hym the Recorder of the Cyte callyd Mr [Thomas] Ursewyk [II*] lykewyse apparaylid Commandid in the name of God & Seynt George the portculious to be upp drawyn, the which was shortly doon, and therupon issuyd owth wyth theyr people and wt sharp shott and ffyers ffygth putt theyr enemyes bakk as fferre as Seynt Botulphis Chirch.

In the meantime reinforcements had arrived under the command of the constable of the Tower, and this enabled Basset to launch another assault on the rebels

in such maner, that there was slayn many of the said rebellys and shortly afftyr put unto fflygth, whom the said Robert Basset wyth the othir cytyzyns chacid unto mylis end and ffrom thens unto popeler some to Stratford some to Stepnyth and soo unto everyn place ii myllis abowth that partis of the Cite.22 Gt. Chron. 219-20.

The successful defence of London undoubtedly boosted Basset’s reputation in the city, despite the fact that he represented a relatively poor ward and was himself not among the most prominent of the city’s merchants. Recognition of this was evident in his appointments in 1472 and 1475 to two commissions which were to hear appeals from the court of the constable of England at Westminster, while in October 1475 he was chosen as mayor, a fitting culmination to his civic career. Relatively little is recorded of him after the end of his term of office: he was appointed to another commission on the Thames in 1477 and in London he continued to be one of the most frequent attendees at meetings of the court of aldermen until the autumn of 1483.23 Cal. Letter Bk. London, L, passim. This gave him considerable influence in the city courts, as his former apprentice Thomas Ayleton complained to the chancellor. According to Ayleton, Basset retained a sum of money with which he had been entrusted with the intention that he should return it to him on completion of his term. This he refused to do, and Ayleton, who had left London and established himself in Abingdon, despaired of getting a fair hearing in the London courts, where ‘þer dare noon attournay nor othir lerned counsell of þe Citie bee ayeinst him in no matier ... nor dare doo or say thing which may sounde to the displeasure, hurt or losse of the said Robert Basset for eny fee’.24 C1/64/978.

By this time Basset had married again, his second wife, Elizabeth, being the widow of Richard Nayler, a former master of the Tailors’ Company who had died in August 1483 leaving his five sons and four daughters the sum of £100 each. Elizabeth’s own share of her late husband’s goods must therefore have been significant, although it is uncertain whether she brought with her any of Nayler’s lands and tenements.25 PCC 7 Logge (PROB11/7, ff. 52-52v). Her own origins are not recorded although some years later she was said to be a kinswoman of John Catesby of Althorp (uncle of William† the Speaker) who had offered her marriage with the promise of an income of £100 p.a. from estates in Northants.: CPR, 1485-94, p. 235. The marriage was not to last long, however, for Basset himself had died by 12 July 1484 when a writ of diem clausit extremum was issued to the escheator of Essex concerning his lands in the county. His will does not survive, although his executors, Thomas Rigby and William Horne, soon took charge of the disposal of his London properties: in December 1484 they conveyed the brewery in St. Giles Cripplegate and the tenements in St. Katherine’s parish to Basset’s son, also named Robert. The Angel was settled on Elizabeth for life.26 CFR, xix. 288; Corp. London RO, hr 214/25-26, 217/9; Salters’ Co. London, H1/21/2, 4, 5, 7. The younger Robert Basset did not survive his father for long. By 1493 he was dead, leaving an under-age son, Thomas, and a widow, Elizabeth, who went on to marry John Barell: C1/85/41-43, 86/33-34. Following Basset’s death Elizabeth married another London alderman, John Stokker, who died in 1485, before taking as her fourth husband George Neville, Lord Abergavenny. She eventually died in 1500. By her will she bequeathed a tablet of gold set with stones and pearls with an image of the Trinity to the Salters’ Company, and provided for prayers for the soul of Robert Basset, along with those of her two other husbands, in the church of St. Martin Outwich, where she chose to be buried next to her first one.27 Beaven, ii. 12; PCC 8 Moone (PROB11/12, ff. 58-59v); C.W.F. Goss, ‘St. Martin’s Outwich’, Trans. London and Mdx. Arch. Soc., n.s. vi. 1-91. Basset’s daughter, Elizabeth (or Isabel), married the Essex landowner William Tey of Layer de la Hay. Their son Thomas† went on to represent Maldon in the Reformation Parliament.28 C1/89/31; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 613; The Commons 1509-58, iii. 436-7.