STOKES, John II

It is possible that this John Stokes was the same person as John Stokes I*, who had represented Wallingford in two of the earlier Parliaments of the 1440s, but although that John, a prominent figure in Oxfordshire, is known to have had connexions in high places who might have influenced his return to the two Parliaments of 1449, no direct link between him and the Sussex boroughs of East Grinstead and Midhurst has been found.

As East Grinstead belonged to the duchy of Lancaster and returned a number of royal servants in this period, it may be speculated that the MP was the John Stokes or Stoke who was an esquire in the royal Household. That John had been retained to serve on the King’s expedition to France in 1430, with his own contingent of three archers.1 E101/52/5; E403/693, m. 19; 695, m. 6. It may have been the same man who appeared in the Exchequer in 1441 and July 1446 to receive assignments on behalf of Sir Roger Fiennes*, the treasurer of the Household and chief steward of the southern parts of the duchy.2 E403/740, m. 11; 741, m. 7; 762, m. 11. If so, the connexion is of undoubted significance, for Sir Roger was an important landowner in Sussex.