GAY, Richard

Gay’s namesake, who represented Portsmouth in Parliament for the last time in 1417, probably died in 1422, during his final term as the town’s bailiff. His executors (perhaps sons), Richard and John Gay, went to the Exchequer in Michaelmas term that year to render account in his name for goods confiscated from merchants found smuggling wool in the port.2 E159/199, recorda Mich. rot. 16d. This final bailiffship is not noted in The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 169. It is not likely that our MP was Richard the executor, given that his earliest return to Parliament did not take place until 25 years had elapsed. Furthermore, he is not known to have occupied a local office until several years later still.

Gay was also called Richard Mautravers, and when he took out royal pardons, on 10 Nov. 1452 and 24 Feb. 1458, both names were recorded. The pardons gave his place of residence as Kingston, just outside Portsmouth, and his status as ‘yeoman’ or ‘husbandman’,3 C67/40, m. 12; 42, m. 30. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 497, identifies the Portsmouth MP of 1467 with Richard Jay†, the Hampshire lawyer who represented Downton in 1472 and 1478, but there are no sound reasons for doing so, especially as Gay had been bailiff of Portsmouth only a year previously. so it may be presumed that he derived his income from the land, rather than through mercantile activities. As a former bailiff of Portsmouth Gay was summoned before the barons of the Exchequer in the summer of 1461 to respond to a bill brought by Sir John Popham*, who held him responsible for failing to pay the sum of £15 assigned to Sir John from the fee farm of Portsmouth as compensation for his losses as one-time treasurer of Henry VI’s Household.4 E13/147, rot. 11.

The MP’s relationship to yet another Richard Gay, who was chosen bailiff of Portsmouth in 1481, is not known.5 E368/255, rot. 2d.