BASYNG, Edward

Although in his later years Basyng was said to be living in the Somerset vill of Stanton Drew there is no evidence to show that he belonged to the family of Basyng which came from that county or was closely related to Gilbert Basyng, sometime tax collector there, who died in 1436.7 Gilbert, who had inherited the manor of Kentsford in St. Decumans, left as his heir a young son, Simon: CIPM, xxv. 72; VCH Som. v. 155. He is first recorded, as a ‘gentleman of Brinkworth’ in north Wiltshire, which indicates that he was a kinsman of William Basyng, who held property in the same place as a tenant for life. On that occasion, in November 1446, Edward stood surety at the Exchequer for Richard Holway, the lessee of property in Chippenham, the borough which William was later to represent.8 CFR, xviii. 52. Edward’s holdings at Brinkworth are undocumented, and when four years later he was assessed for the purposes of taxation on lands worth £4 p.a. in Wiltshire at large, their location was not given.9 E179/196/118. However, he was deemed to be wealthier than his kinsman, who was assessed on property worth half this amount.

The description of Basyng as a ‘gentleman’ suggests that he was a lawyer, and indeed in the mid 1440s he acted as an attorney in the court of common pleas for litigants from Wiltshire.10 CP40/737, att. rot.; 740, att. rot. Thomas Cricklade* (d.c.1449) thought so highly of his ‘sadness’ and ‘wysdom’ as to make him steward of his estates with an annuity of 20s.11 C1/31/153 (printed in Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxiv. 402). His election to consecutive Parliaments for the Wiltshire boroughs of Calne and Heytesbury, which cannot be explained by any recorded tenure of property in either place, may be ascribed to his links with the baronial family of Hungerford. His second return was for Heytesbury, the principal seat of Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, who died in August 1449, shortly before the Parliament was summoned. Lord Walter had named among his executors his younger son Sir Edmund Hungerford*, one of the King’s carvers, to whose circle Basyng belonged. Sir Edmund may well have expected Basyng to assist in sorting out the business of the late lord’s estate while he was at Westminster. There is no record of Basyng’s movements through the turbulent early months of 1450, when the Parliament met initially in the Blackfriars in London and then in Leicester, only to be dissolved at the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion. Yet he remained close to Sir Edmund, and it was probably through his patronage and influence at Court that he was able to obtain in December 1451 a grant of the office of clerk of the works at Clarendon. Even so, although the grant was supposed to last for his lifetime, he relinquished it less than two years later.12 CPR, 1446-52, p. 505; 1452-61, p. 151.

Basyng served as a juror at judicial inquiries conducted by commissioners of oyer and terminer at Malmesbury in the summer of 1452 and at Salisbury early in 1453, which were mainly concerned with the events surrounding the killing of Bishop Aiscough at the time of Cade’s rebellion.13 KB9/134/1/14; 134/2/108, 110, 112, 114, 149. On a more administrative matter, he also provided information at Warminster in January 1453, for the post mortem on Sir William Fitzhugh.14 C139/151/43. It was as ‘of Faulstone’ that he appeared in the King’s bench in Michaelmas term 1454 as surety in £20 that John Borne esquire would keep the peace, the address indicating links with (Sir) John Baynton*, a close associate of the Hungerfords, whose home it was at Faulstone.15 KB27/774, rex rot. 5. The first name of the attestor is no longer legible, but it was probably Edward Basyng (rather than his kinsman William) who witnessed the Wiltshire elections in the following year, when Thomas Winslow I*, who had joined him in standing bail for Borne, was elected as one of the knights of the shire. Basying appeared in the Exchequer on three occasions in November 1456 to offer mainprise for Sir Edmund Hungerford and his retainer George Howton*, and in July 1460 he not only attested a deed at Oldbury, Gloucestershire, whereby Howton received a grant from Hungerford’s former ward John Thorpe, but was also named as an attorney for the delivery of seisin.16 CFR, xix. 177-8; CCR, 1454-61, p. 487.

At the same time as Basyng assisted Sir Edmund and his associates in their private affairs, the knight was ready to reciprocate. In August 1450 Hungerford and William Basyng had become feoffees of certain lands and tenements known as ‘Wodelye’ in Great Chalfield, in a transaction in which our MP delivered seisin to them. Three years later the feoffees settled the same on Edward and his wife Ellen, daughter of the late John Flory, together with more land known as ‘Smalbonesclos’ and ‘Cokesmede’. For whatever the reason towards the end of 1462 the couple relinquished the property to a group of trustees headed by Gilbert Kymer, the dean of Salisbury cathedral, who were acting on behalf of the acquisitive lawyer Thomas Tropenell* (an important member of the Hungerford circle). Tropenell was always obsessively concerned to retain documentary evidence of his transactions as proof of title, and accordingly Basyng sent him the formal release of the property and nine other deeds relating to it, saying in his letter that if there was anything else he and his wife might do for Tropenell ‘ye shall fynde us both redy, at your cost, at all tymes’. Money had already been offered: he concluded, ‘as touchyng to the xs. I pray you to delyver to my servant’.17 Tropenell Cart. i. 375-8; CCR, 1461-8, p. 152. For Tropenell’s evidences regarding the property, see Tropenell Cart. i. 289-90, 293-4, 343-4. Helpfully, in April 1463 as an arbiter regarding disputed property in Chippenham he made an award in Tropenell’s favour,18 Tropenell Cart. i. 111-12. and it would appear that he did Tropenell other service too, notably after he was pricked as a juror at an assize of novel disseisin held at Salisbury in July 1466 concerning a number of properties in Stitchcombe, currently disputed between Tropenell’s stepson Richard Erle† and Richard Seymour*. Seymour later alleged that the jurors were hired for the part of the plaintiffs, and had been instructed in a bill written by Tropenell as to what to say in their verdict.19 KB27/834, rot. 43; 836, rot. 72.

Basyng long continued his association with Sir Edmund Hungerford. He was among those made feoffees of Sir Edmund’s estates in November 1469, at a time not only of intensifying political crisis nationally, but when the Hungerfords were facing financial ruin following the executions of Sir Edmund’s nephew Robert, 3rd Lord Hungerford, and the latter’s son and heir (Sir) Thomas*.20 CP25(1)/294/74/72. Then, in January 1471 (during the Readeption of Henry VI) he was associated with Sir Edmund’s son Edward Hungerford† in an Exchequer lease of the manors of Corsham and Stratton St. Margaret, Wiltshire, thereby taking over a farm which his patron had held previously.21 CFR, xx. 293. Yet he was also called upon by other landowners in the region to assist with their affairs. For at least nine years previously he had acted as bailiff of the liberties of Glastonbury abbey in Wiltshire; he was a feoffee of the manor of Codecombe Mohun, Somerset, probably on behalf of the lawyer William Dodesham* (at whose inquisition post mortem he was to be a juror at Bridgwater in 1480);22 CPR, 1467-77, p. 115; 1476-85, pp. 234, 253; C140/77/78. and in his later years he served as receiver-general to Edward Grey, Lord Lisle, on his estates in Gloucestershire.

Where Basyng stood politically during the civil war is impossible to know, although his links with die-hard Lancastrians clearly made him vulnerable during the years of Yorkist rule. His brother-in-law John Flory of Cloford initially accepted the accession of Edward IV, but then, having decided to leave England to join the forces of Margaret of Anjou, allegedly plotted the King’s destruction. On 21 Jan. 1465, the last day of the Parliament begun in 1463, the sheriffs of London were ordered to make proclamation that if Flory failed to appear in King’s bench on 1 July to submit to royal grace and answer what was laid against him, he would stand convicted and attainted of high treason and his lands would be forfeited. Flory failed to appear, so incurred the penalty. His heir William Basyng (his late sister’s son by our MP), successfully presented a petition to Parliament in the summer of 1474 asking that the act be made void, and he might duly come into his inheritance.23 PROME, xiii. 124-32; xiv. 224-6. Our MP had married again after Ellen Flory’s death, but this second wife, Joan, also predeceased him, dying at an unknown date before 26 Jan. 1482.24 CFR, xxi. no. 617.

Lying on his deathbed Basyng made a brief will on 20 or 21 June 1490. Describing himself as ‘of Cloford’, he left the residue of his goods to his then wife, Alice, and named his son William as sole executor. Curiously, he asked to be buried in the cemetery of St. Mary’s church at Staines in Middlesex, near the principal river-crossing on the road to London. This raises the possibility that he fell ill while journeying to or from the capital. The inquisition post mortem held in Somerset referred only to a messuage and land he had held in Bruton, and stated that William, the heir, was aged 25. If this was true it would mean that at the time of the petition to the Parliament of 1474 William had still been a minor, and if so his father probably acted at Westminster on his behalf.25 PCC 34 Milles (PROB11/8, f. 275), printed in Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 287; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 717.