SCOTT, John

The MP was a namesake of the man who through marriage to Elizabeth Musard (d.1391), the widow of William Braybrook, acquired before 1386 an interest in the Wiltshire manor of Little Bedwyn. Under the terms of an arrangement made in 1397, that John Scott received a pension for life of five marks p.a. from his late wife’s estate, but the date of his death is not known.4 Wilts. Feet of Fines, 86, 195; VCH Wilts. xvi. 56. Whether or not our MP was related to this namesake, he trained to be a lawyer, and became known as a ‘gentleman’. A resident of Salisbury, he regularly attended convocations of the citizens from 1412 onwards, acting as a member of the mayor’s council of 24, and only ceasing to do so in 1447, from which date another John Scott began to appear on the less important council of 48.5 First General Entry Bk. 106, 257-93. For the younger man, aft. 1447: 409, 421, 423-6, 428-31, 438-45, 450-5, 457; Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury city recs., ledger bk. 2, G23/1/2, ff. 4-42.

Scott’s profession took him to the central courts at Westminster. Early in 1410 he stood surety in Chancery for the release of certain men arrested by the sheriff of Wiltshire to answer suits for trespass, and in December 1419 he offered mainprise in the Exchequer for Walter Henxtryg, assigned a lease of land in Somerset pertaining to the alien priory of St. Sever.6 CCR, 1409-13, pp. 70, 93; CFR, xiv. 303. It was on his own account that Scott went in person to the King’s bench in 1426 to bring a plea of trespass against a number of Salisbury tradesmen, but as an attorney for litigants from his home county that he appeared in the court of common pleas subsequently. He handled briefs at the assizes held at Salisbury in July 1427.7 KB27/661, rot. 97; CP40/665, att. rot.; JUST1/1540, rot. 114. Yet it was not for the city but rather for the neighbouring deserted borough of Old Sarum that he was returned to the Parliament summoned to meet on 13 Oct. that year. While Parliament was in its second session, in the spring of 1428, Scott was active in the common pleas bringing suits in his capacity as administrator of the goods of the late John Harleston I* of Wilton, and suing a Salisbury weaver for abducting his servant Margery Brech. In Trinity term that year he stood bail for a mercer from the city, the defendant in a plea for debt brought by the London draper John Higham*.8 CP40/669, rots. 47, 202d; 670, rot. 326. In 1429 he acted as attorney for the widow and executors of Walter Shirley*, the veteran of 15 Parliaments for Salisbury, and assisted Thomas Randolf, another Salisbury man, to complete a conveyance of land in Dinton.9 CP40/672, att. rot.; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 446. Scott was of sufficient standing in Wiltshire as to be required in 1434 to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain malefactors.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 371. As ‘of Salisbury, gentleman’, he had been sued in the common pleas by Richard Claymond and John Sutton, each for a debt of £2, and on his failure to answer their charge he was outlawed. However, on 5 July that year he gave himself up at the Fleet prison, and obtained a pardon of outlawry (presumably after satisfying his creditors). Nevertheless, he was in trouble again seven years later, when he was sued for another debt, this time of £9.11 CPR, 1429-36, p. 369; CP40/721, rot. 35.

The full extent of Scott’s property is not known, but it would seem that his wife Joan brought him premises in Salisbury and land a dozen or so miles to the north, at Netheravon and Upavon. Her title was challenged by a mercer named William Knollys, who in 1435 accused the Scotts of breaking into his house in Salisbury, stealing goods worth £20 and assaulting his tenant; although the couple countered by alleging that Knollys had wrongfully taken crops growing on Joan’s land at Netheravon. Scott and his wife eventually backed down: in 1438 they formally conveyed five messuages and 30 acres of land to their adversary.12 CP40/698, rots. 193d, 387d; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 517. In comparison with the merchants of Salisbury and many of those who represented the city in Parliament, Scott was a man of modest means. He contributed no more than 1s. 8d. towards the completion of the ‘great ditch’ in the summer of 1441, and although his name was put forward as one of two stewards from among the city’s attorneys who were to supervise the works (along with representatives from the various other trades and occupations), it was subsequently crossed out and that of another attorney inserted in its place.13 First General Entry Bk. 362, 364. Although in 1442 Scott was said to owe a former mayor, William Pakyn*, the sum of ten marks,14 CP40/724, rot. 231d. he was chosen as an auditor of the chamberlains’ accounts for the mayoralties of William Swayn* and Richard Payn* (that is, for the years 1444-6). Given the existence of the namesake who was a member of the 48, and the fact that the former MP must by then have been long in years, it is unlikely that it was he who in October 1452 helped to assess the citizens’ contributions for a troop of mercenaries to go to France with the earl of Shrewsbury, and was awarded an annual fee of one mark for his good counsel to the civic authorities.15 First General Entry Bk. 455. It was the member of the 48 who was appointed in 1458 to a committee to examine the evidences in the city’s dispute with Bp. Beauchamp over its liberties: ledger bk. 2, G23/1/2, f. 37.