BASYNG, William

Although William is not known to have held property in the borough he represented in Parliament, he did have landed holdings a few miles away at Brinkworth in north Wiltshire, which he occupied only for term of his life and by grant of one Nicholas Roberdes. In a final concord made in the autumn of 1442 and completed at Easter 1444 it was stated that he was in possession of a messuage and some 82 acres of land there, now of the inheritance of William Roberdes, for which he rendered the nominal rent of a rose every year. The reversion of the property was then settled on William Benet.2 Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 566. Basyng and his son John formally confirmed Benet’s right to the reversion in July 1446, and a year later at a court held by the chief justice at Salisbury they asked for their deeds to be enrolled in the common pleas.3 CP40/749, cart. rot. However, there were other claimants to the estate. In a petition to the chancellor, probably delivered at a later date, John Norris* and Alice his wife stated that Nicholas Roberdes had granted the reversion to Alice and her heirs, and although Basyng had done fealty to Alice it was rumoured that the legal formalities had not been properly completed, so that she was likely to be troubled in the future. Basyng himself appeared in Chancery and asked that the matter be entered of record.4 C1/16/631-2. The estate was of quite modest value; in the assessments for the subsidy granted in the summer of 1450, William was said to have land in Wiltshire worth £2 p.a., only half the value of that held by his kinsman Edward Basyng.5 E179/196/118.

While Edward trained to be a lawyer, William’s career was less clearly defined, although he moved in the circles of the county gentry and may have belonged to the administrative staff on their estates. He served as a juror at Malmesbury in January 1443 at the inquisition post mortem of Richard, Lord Grey of Wilton, and among those who attested his deeds of 1446 were John Dewall* and John Russell II*, both sometime knights of the shire (indeed, Russell was to sit with him in the Commons of 1450).6 C139/106/23. Through his kinsman Edward he became linked with Sir Edmund Hungerford*, a prominent and longstanding member of the royal household. In August 1450 he was Hungerford’s co-feoffee of certain lands and tenements in Great Chalfield, which they were to settle subsequently on Edward and his wife.7 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 375-8. It may well be the case that this connexion led to William’s election to the Parliament summoned to meet three months later, for in April 1451, before the Parliament was dissolved, he was named by Sir Edmund’s brother, Robert, 2nd Lord Hungerford, and the lawyer Thomas Tropenell* as one of their attorneys to receive seisin of some property at Atworth Magna.8 Ibid. i. 131-2. Basyng is not recorded after August 1453.