Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Basset, Alan
BASSET, ALAN (d. 1232–3), baron, was a younger son of Thomas Basset of Hedendon, Oxfordshire [see Basset, Thomas]. In favour alike with Richard I and with John, he received from the former the lordships of Woking and Mapledurwell, and from the latter those of Wycombe and Berewick. With his brothers Gilbert and Thomas he accompanied John to Northampton, when the king of Scots did his homage (22 Nov. 1200), which he tested (Rog. Hov. i. 142), and continued throughout John's reign in close attendance on the court, accompanying the king to Ireland in 1210 (Rot. de Præst.) and to Runnymede (15 June 1215), his name, with that of his brother Thomas, appearing in Magna Carta among those of the king's counsellors. At the accession of Henry III he was one of the witnesses to his re-issue of the charter (11 Nov. 1216), and on the royalist reaction his loyalty was rewarded by his being occasionally employed in the Curia Regis and sent to France on a political mission in 1219–20. He also acted as sheriff of Rutland from 1217 to 1229. Dying in 1232–3 (Fin. 17 H. III, m. 10) he left three sons: Gilbert, his heir [q. v.]; Fulk, afterwards bishop of London [q. v.]; and Philip, afterwards justiciary of England [q. v.]
[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 383; Foss's Judges of England (1848), ii. 216.]