c. 1630–1680), the first overseas governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, likely spent his early years in the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I.
He was an English born French Roman Catholic in this Protestant court and this implies that his father was part of the Queen's staff.
Bayly was sent to France at age 12 or 13 and some time later was returning to London, was brought on board a ship headed for America and spent 14 years as a bond-servant.
Bayly spent 1670 and 1671, until they sailed home, exploring and trading, mostly from the HBC location at Rupert River which had been established in 1668 by an expedition of Médard des Groseilliers.
Although he neglected book-keeping detail, his activities in James Bay were important to the Company's first ten years of its existence.