BARET, Henry

Baret’s father, John, a minor Dorset gentleman, had taken a keen interest in parliamentary matters, attesting eight of the county elections between 1413 and 1437,7 C219/11/2, 12/5, 6, 13/1, 4, 14/2, 3, 15/1. and on occasion he served as under sheriff to the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.8 Doing so in Som. in 1426-7 and 1437-8: JUST1/1540, rot. 36d; KB9/231/1/126; KB27/721, rex rot. 23. By a final concord of 1441 he and his wife settled a messuage, land and pasture for 300 sheep and other livestock at Pimperne in remainder in tail on Henry, the future MP, and his six siblings.9 Dorset Feet of Fines, 359. It remains uncertain when Henry inherited this property. At least two years before the settlement at Pimperne was made, he had entered the King’s service, and may therefore have spent much of his time at Westminster. As a royal servant at court, he occasionally assisted the great officers of state, as in November 1440, when he received a prest at the Exchequer for the wages owing to the chancellor, Bishop Stafford of Bath and Wells, for his service on the council.10 E403/740, m. 4. There were a few marks of royal favour to him personally. In November 1439 he had been granted the custody of a messuage and land in Yeanston in Somerset, which had previously belonged to the alien priory of St. Sever, and which he was to hold for a period of seven years at an annual rent of £7,11 CFR, xvii. 152. and, perhaps of greater significance, on 2 Mar. 1442, along with two other members of the Household, William Ludlow II* and his kinsman John Ludlow, he was granted the reversion of the offices of constable of Carisbrooke castle and master forester of Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, to fall in after the death of the incumbent, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.12 CPR, 1441-6, p. 74. More immediate rewards came in the form of two grants, each of £5, which former sheriffs of Somerset had been fined, and, in 1444, as a groom of the cellar, he received the goods and chattels of a Dorset husbandman who had died by misfortune.13 E159/219, brevia Mich. rot. 12d; 222, brevia Mich. rots. 7, 12.

It appears that the Barets dabbled in trade: on 23 Mar. 1444 Henry and John Baret (either his father or brother) were granted licence to export skins called ‘moreyns’,14 DKR, xlviii. 362. and it may be that our MP was already holding office as water-bailiff of Dartmouth, an office pertaining to the duchy of Cornwall and at the King’s disposal in the absence of a duke. He was certainly occupying the post by May that year, though perhaps merely as deputy for John Gissing, the serjeant of the scullery who had been granted it in 1433.15 CPR, 1429-36, p. 328; 1446-52, p. 221. In this capacity Baret was appointed to commissions to deal with instances of piracy in the port,16 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 288, 465. but failed otherwise to play any part in Dartmouth’s affairs. His position as a groom of the cellar was comparatively lowly, and as a consequence he lacked much influence at court. In March 1446 the offices on the Isle of Wight which he had been granted in reversion four years earlier were promised instead, and in tail-male, to one of the King’s esquires, Henry Trenchard*.17 CPR, 1441-6, p. 462. It is unclear, too, for how long he kept the water-bailiffship of Dartmouth after the summer of 1446. Even so, it was probably because he was a royal servant that Baret was returned to Parliament early the following year. He is not known to have had property in Wareham, the borough in east Dorset which he represented, although his interest in land at Pimperne did take him to the locality, and perhaps his marriage had given him other interests there. In addition, his trading concerns and water-bailiffship of Dartmouth may have brought him to the Dorset port. Perhaps he still entertained hopes of attaining the offices on the Isle of Wight following the downfall of the duke of Gloucester, whose proscription was the prime purpose of this Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds, but if so he was to be disappointed. After the Parliament he received no further rewards or appointments, and by November 1448 the office at Dartmouth had reverted to John Gissing.

The date of Baret’s marriage to Anne or Amy Cammell, daughter of a Dorset landowner, is not known, although in April 1449 the couple were named first in the successive remainders of the Cammell manor of Burton Plecy in Northamptonshire, which they and Anne’s issue were to hold after the death of her grandfather John Cammell.18 CPR, 1446-52, p. 278. They may also have been given Anne’s parents’ property at Lillington, some two miles south-west of Sherbourne – at least, the manor and advowson of Lillington, whether derived from the Cammells or from Baret’s own family, were destined to descend in Baret’s line.19 Dorset Feet of Fines, 365-6; J. Hutchins, Dorset, iv. 194. But Baret himself did not live much longer. His death came suddenly, and he died intestate, leaving as his only child and heir his daughter Joan. Under the pressure of the administration of Baret’s affairs, his widow remarried before the summer of 1450, taking as her second husband the experienced royal servant Thomas Gille II* of Nethway. Together with Gille and her uncle John Wyke II* she set about discharging her obligations to the deceased by suing his debtors in the court of common pleas. She seems to have held the manor and advowson of Lillington as her jointure. In 1457 they were settled on her and Gille for her lifetime, with successive remainders to the young Joan Baret and her issue, and to Henry Baret’s surviving two brothers and two sisters. Through her marriage, Joan was to take Lillington to the Kayleways of Sherborne.20 CP40/758, rot. 46; Dorset Feet of Fines, 383-4; Hutchins, iv. 194. Despite the earlier entail, the Cammell manor in Northamptonshire apparently never came to our MP’s widow or her daughter, passing instead to Anne’s brother William Cammell.21 J. Bridges, Northants. ii. 222-3; VCH Northants. iii. 182.