PAYN, Maurice

Of unknown origin, Maurice was perhaps related to Thomas Payn, escheator of Worcestershire in 1466-7. Royal pardons he purchased in March 1460 and February 1472 reveal that he possessed the alias of Sherman and that he was a draper by trade.5 C67/43, m. 5; 48, m. 15. He is likely to have had business dealings in London, since in 1450 he sued two clothiers from the City, claiming that each of them owed him £22.6 CP40/756, rot. 433; 759, rots. 231, 415. Nothing definite is known about Maurice’s property interests, whether at Worcester or elsewhere. In 1454 he was party to land transactions at Stoulton, a few miles south-east of the city, although apparently only as a trustee.7 C146/3323; CAD, vi. C4862

Among those for whom Maurice was certainly a trustee was a fellow citizen, John Bykerstath*. It was as such that Bykerstath’s widow Margery sued him in the Chancery. In a bill of not later than 1456, she alleged that he and other trustees were refusing to allow her the profits of the office of the town clerk of Worcester, in contravention of the intent of her late husband, the former clerk. According to her, Bykerstath’s predecessor, John Colyer, had sold her late husband the remainder of his life interest in the office, a term which had yet to expire because Colyer was still alive.8 C1/17/126.

It is likely that Payn and Bykerstath had served alongside each other in the administration of Worcester, since the former held the first of his known terms as a bailiff of the city in the mid 1440s. While bailiff in 1458-9, Payn and his then co-bailiff, Thomas Longe, joined with the priors of Great and Little Malvern and others to complain about the activities of Makelin Walwyn*. By means of a certificate of 8 Mar. 1459, they and their associates informed the Crown that Walwyn had reneged on an agreement made three years earlier to sell the manor of Massington, Herefordshire, to Richard Beauchamp†, who had lost over £40 as a result.9 Add. Ch. 72943. It is not known what drove the complainants to support Beauchamp, although at least one of their number, the Gloucestershire esquire Thomas Pauncefoot*, had a particular reason for disliking Walwyn, whom he had accused of raiding his property at Ledbury in the previous decade.10 KB27/734, rots. 73d, 81.

Payn survived until at least the later 1470s, for he witnessed the election of Worcester’s burgesses to the Parliament of 1478. Another of the attestors was his son John, then one of the bailiffs of Worcester. John also features in a petition which Hugh Baker of Radnor submitted to the council of the young Edward, prince of Wales, in the 1470s or early 1480s. According to the petition, John Payn and William Jolye, a son of the late Hugh Jolye*, were wrongfully withholding certain unspecified lands in Worcestershire which should have descended to Baker as the heir of his uncle, Hugh Wryrth of Worcester. Baker claimed that Wryrth had conveyed these properties to Maurice Payn and Hugh Jolye to hold to his use, and that Maurice had also taken possession of the deeds and evidences relating to the same, again in trust. In conclusion, he requested that John and William should appear before the prince and his council to explain why they were occupying the lands in question, but the outcome of his petition, which bears no endorsement, is unknown.11 SC8/344/E1311. Shortly after the accession of Henry VII, the Crown granted John Payn the farm of the subsidy and alnage of cloths in the counties of Worcestershire and Herefordshire and the cities of Worcester and Hereford.12 CFR, xxii. no. 38.