BEYE, Richard

In June 1420 a presentment was made in the Exchequer that Beye together with Richard Hert* and Simon Stubbere*, all described as ‘shipmen’ of Portsmouth, had failed to pay customs due on shipments of foodstuffs across the Channel to Normandy from their home port on Le Marie and Le George in the previous few months. They all appeared before the barons on 8 July, to explain that they had frieghted the goods concerned to victual the royal garrisons in the duchy, and protest that no subsidies were payable. Beye himself said that he had shipped 20 quarters of oats (worth 3s. 4d. per quarter) to Rouen. As required, the three men and Henry Abraham*, accused of abetting them, made regular appearances in the Exchequer in successive terms until the end of Henry V’s reign.2 E159/196, recorda Trin. rot. 13.

Beye was first elected to Parliament at the end of his term as bailiff of Portsmouth, when he was due to present himself at the Exchequer to account for the town’s fee farm. It was a practical expedient to combine his duties as bailiff with the role of representative in the Commons. He is recorded as a witness to a deed at Portsmouth in February 1425, two months before the assembly of his second Parliament, on 30 Apr.3 Winchester Coll. muns. 15239. During the first session he was once more summoned with Hert (his fellow MP) and Stubbere to answer for their alleged evasion of customs duties. Hert and Stubbere chose to appear by attorney, but Beye himself came to the Exchequer in person, to ask for an official inquiry into the charge. On 12 May each of them paid 6s. 8d. for the costs of the inquiry.4 E159/201, recorda Easter rot. 9d, fines rot. 5. Its outcome has not been discovered.

Beye is not recorded thereafter. A tenement in Portsmouth for which he paid rent to the local authorities was no longer in his possession in 1469.5 Portsmouth Recs. ed. East, 496.