LYNEY, Leonard

Nothing is known of Lyney’s antecedents, but there can be no doubt that he came from Bridgnorth. His father was probably John Lyney, bailiff there in 1403-4.1 NLW, Pitchford Hall mss, 428. Another Lyney, Roger of Newport, some miles to the north of Bridgnorth, was an adherent of John Bruyn* in the disturbances that troubled both Bridgnorth and Shropshire during Henry IV’s reign and was alive as late as May 1440 when a juror at the inquisition post mortem held at Ludlow on the death of Beatrice, countess of Arundel.2 E. Powell, Kingship, Law and Society, 221; CIPM, xxv. 380. Yet another, Nicholas (d.1428), was a canon of Hereford cathedral. Our MP was certainly connected with the latter: in Hilary term 1432 the former canon’s executors had an action pending against him for account.3 Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ii. 44; CP40/684, rot. 185. But although Leonard appears to have come from a family of some local prominence, little can be discovered about him.

Lyney was active (according to a later legal action) by the autumn of 1416, when he allegedly broke into the house in Bridgnorth of one Matilda Holt, whom he claimed as his tenant, and took household goods worth as much as £18 10s. By trade he was a vintner, or so he was described when Holt sued him some years later.4 KB27/671, rot. 26; 672, rot. 16d. In other actions he is described more vaguely as either ‘chapman’ or ‘merchant’. It was as the former that he was sued in 1426, after the dissolution of his Parliament, for debts totaling about £35 by two London mercers, John Coventre and John Abbot II*; and as ‘merchant’ that a London hatter sued him in 1429 for £8.5 CP40/662, rot. 288; 663, rots. 16d, 56d; 672, rot. 382. Administratively he served at least one term as bailiff of his home town, but, if an unreliable later list is accurate in his case, he served a further two terms.6 Pitchford Hall mss, 446; Add. 28731, f. 6. He was dead by Michaelmas term 1437 when his widow, Elizabeth, was paying an annual rent of 2s. 8d. to Humphrey, earl of Stafford, for two crofts at ‘Hungrygate’. She was still paying the same rent in 1458 but, by 1463, the crofts had passed into the hands of Thomas Persons*.7 Egerton Roll 2190; Staffs. RO, Stafford fam. mss, D641/1/2/62, m. 7.