BYLE, William

William Byle came from an important Wareham family, members of which represented their home town in eight Parliaments of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and, even more significantly, in eight of the nine Parliaments which met between 1425 and 1437, thus dominating the borough’s representation in that period. Unlike his putative father, who was a merchant, William entered the legal profession, training to be an attorney. It may have been because it was known that he was travelling to Westminster to do business in the law-courts that he was elected to the Commons by the burgesses of Wareham on at least six occasions. Perhaps he offered to serve the borough at a reduced cost. Attendance in three Parliaments preceded his service in 1432 as collector of customs at Melcombe, and it was during his term of office that he was returned to the Parliament which met in May that year. He owed his nomination as customer to Sir John Radcliffe*, but no formal record of appointment was enrolled in the records of Chancery.3 E122/103/40. The fact that he attested the Middlesex elections to this Parliament of 1432 indicates that at least some of the time he was resident in that county (where the Westminster courts lay), rather than in Dorset. Clearly, on this particular occasion he was in breach of the statutes which required MPs to be living in their constituencies at the date of the writs of summons. When conducting his business as an attorney he apparently dwelled in Lambeth, situated conveniently close to the courts across the river. While attending the Parliament of 1432 Byle took the opportunity to bring suits in the court of common pleas on his own account, appearing in person to sue Thomas Stevens, a Wareham merchant, for a debt of £5.4 CP40/686, rot. 238.

In the early 1430s Byle was the subject of serious accusations, levied against him by William Frome, the son and heir of Richard Frome of Wareham, who petitioned the chancellor, Bishop Stafford of Bath and Wells, with regard to the ‘divers wronges and disceits’ committed by our MP. Frome said that he had paid Byle fees to be his legal counsel and act as his attorney in a suit against Agnes Brecheford of Wareham for withholding certain title deeds. Agnes capitulated and delivered various parcels of evidences to Byle to pass on to Frome, but he only handed over ‘some bot noght of all’. Furthermore, he allegedly followed Frome to the chapel of St. Laurence, a mile from Wareham, and wrested other documents from him ‘with strong hand’. Worse was to come: when Frome and his wife went to London to start legal proceedings against him, Byle lay in wait for them at the church of St. Mary Le Strand on 23 June 1430, persuaded Frome to accompany him into a nearby house, where he ‘smot’ him on the head so that he swooned, beat him, breaking two of his ribs, and then, grasping him ‘be the mydyll’, would have thrown him down a well had not a woman cried out for help and a mason working in the church come to his rescue. At other times Byle had had the complainant imprisoned. Frome reminded the chancellor how ‘ye wer prayed be all the comons of the last parlement to be gracious lord to your besechere aforsaid that ye shuld have full power to determyn before yowe in the chancery all this grevances wronges and deceytes’.5 C1/11/76. There is now no record of this parliamentary petition, sponsored by the Commons; nor do we know to which Parliament – 1431, 1432 or 1433 – it was presented. There is, however, more evidence of the sequel to the quarrel. As William Byle ‘of Dorset, gentleman’, though dwelling in Lambeth, he was bound over to keep the peace towards Frome’s wife Joan, and she was similarly bound to keep the peace towards him, but owing to her failure to provide sureties she was committed to the Fleet prison at some point before Michaelmas 1434. Byle fared little better: proceedings were begun against him and his mainpernors (three of whom came from Yorkshire, the other being a London skinner), and he too was committed to the Fleet, before being released on sureties offered by the warden of the prison, William Venour, and by John Bluet, a gentleman from Somerset. Nevertheless, he and other mainpernors subsequently broke another bond not to harm Joan, made on 26 Oct. 1437.6 E159/211, recorda Mich. rots. 17, 17v; 214, recorda Mich. rot. 11.

It may have been in order to escape prosecution on the Fromes’ charges that, on 9 May 1433, in the middle of the dispute and described as ‘of Wareham, gentleman or attorney’, Byle had obtained letters of protection, to be effective while he was in Ireland in the company of the King’s lieutenant, (Sir) Thomas Stanley II*.7 CPR, 1429-36, p. 265. Yet if he did go to Ireland he did not stay there long, as in Michaelmas term that year he appeared in the Westminster courts in person,8 To bring a suit over chattels worth £5 against two Dorset men: CP40/691, rot. 55d. and he was in England in the autumn of 1435 when he was again returned to Parliament. By this time Byle had acquired property in Middlesex, and in the subsidy returns made in the following year he was said to have land in that county and Dorset worth as much as £16 p.a.9 E179/238/90. Although he retained his links with Wareham,10 KB27/709, rot. 81. he sat in Parliament for the borough for the last time in 1437, and it was on Middlesex that his career became focused for the next few years. He was appointed escheator in that county and Kent in 1438. Characteristically, more unsavoury incidents were laid to his charge. It was alleged in the court of the Exchequer in December 1439 that on the previous 12 July, while escheator, he had unlawfully seized at Stratford-le-Bow the goods and chattels of Robert Otterton, yeoman, worth £7 2s. 4d., and although he denied the charge a local jury proclaimed his guilt at Easter 1440, assessing damages at six marks and costs at 26s. 8d. Orders were issued for Byle’s arrest and the recovery of eight marks from his possessions.11 E13/141, rot. 14. Furthermore, an inquisition taken in Kent found that on Byle’s instructions as escheator one of his men had committed extortions in the parish of St. Laurence on the Isle of Thanet, and he was attached to answer for a fine.12 E159/216, recorda Easter rot. 28d.

Further disgrace followed for Byle, with two sentences of outlawry in his native Dorset. First, he was outlawed for failing to bring an indicted felon, Clement Johard of Wareham, into court on the appointed day, and then for not appearing in court to answer one William Bogell regarding a debt of £5. He eventually obtained pardons of the sentences, on 6 July 1441 (after giving himself up at the Marshalsea prison), and 6 Nov. 1442, respectively.13 CPR, 1436-41, p. 554; 1441-6, p. 118. For a while Byle retreated home, and he served as a juror at an inquisition post mortem conducted at Wareham in October 1443.14 C139/109/29. Yet within three years he moved again, this time to Basingstoke in Hampshire. In yet another pardon, dated 9 July 1446, he was described as formerly of London, gentleman, late of Wareham, esquire, former escheator of Middlesex and Kent, and alias of Basingstoke. He made sure that the Exchequer was sent a writ in October 1447 not to trouble him about any matters outstanding for which he owed the Crown money.15 C67/39, m. 38; E159/226, brevia Mich. rot. 15. Byle acted as a juror at the post mortem held at Basingstoke on the Wiltshire lawyer Robert Long* in April 1447.16 CIPM, xxvi. 506. He is last recorded when named as a collector of parliamentary subsidies in Hampshire in August 1449.