VERSY, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 717.

Versy’s wide-ranging trading activities caused him on occasion to bring suits in the court of common pleas against his debtors. In Michaelmas term 1422, for example, he sued both a namesake of his from Newport, Isle of Wight, for failing to render account as his receiver, and a shipman from Ryde for a debt of four marks; and later in his career he started legal actions against a London leatherseller and his business partner from Kinsale in Ireland to recover the sum of £20.3 CP40/647, rots. 94, 124; 759, rot. 220d. But he himself was pursued by creditors: Paolo Morelli, a Florentine merchant who traded in Southampton, alleged in Easter term 1426 that Versy owed him seven marks, and several years later, in the 1450s, John Exton* of Chichester sued him for £4, and a mariner from the Isle of Purbeck alleged that Versy owed him £25 13s. 4d.4 CP40/661, rot. 34; 757, rot. 239; 786, rot. 46. Not all his trade was legitimate: when Chester Herald of Arms (John Chester alias Wryxworth*) conducted inquiries at Portsmouth in October 1448 to find out what had happened to a cargo of wine from a French balinger unlawfully taken at sea, the jury revealed that five tuns of the wine had found its way into Versy’s possession.5 C145/313/8.

Although Versy was chosen as bailiff at least six times, his third recorded term began mid way through the official year. As bailiff, Henry Bruyn*, the duke of York’s lieutenant on the Isle of Wight, made Portsmouth’s return to the Parliament of November 1449,6 C219/15/7. but Versy replaced him in the following spring. The last of Versy’s known terms ended in 1454, but he lived on several years longer. According to a rent-roll drawn up in 1469 he was then still in possession of a tenement in Portsmouth for which 12d. rent was payable to the borough.7 Portsmouth Recs. ed. East, 501.