Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Basset, William (d.1185?)

by John Horace Round

BASSET, WILLIAM (d. 1185?), judge, was a younger son of Richard Basset [see Basset, Richard, d. 1154?], and grandson of Ralph Basset, who died about 1127. He acted as sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, 1163–1170 (Rot. Pip. Hen. II), till displaced, by the inquest of sheriffs, in 1170 (Pip. 19 Hen. II), and as sheriff of Lincolnshire 1177–84. He held pleas as a justice itinerant from 1168 to 1182 (Foss says wrongly till 1180), and sat in the Curia Regis, when not otherwise employed, from Michaelmas 1168 to 31 May 1185 (Foss says, wrongly, till 1184), after which he appears no longer. He settled at Sapcote, Leicestershire, and was father of Simon Basset, who appears as a justice itinerant in 1197–8.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 382; Foss's Judges of England, 1848, i. 189, 340; Eyton's Court and Itinerary of Henry II.]

J. H. R.