WESTHOPE, John

Few details of Westhope’s career have been discovered, but he may have been a man of greater substance than his trade (that of a baker) suggests.4 CP40/723, rot. 455. He is first heard of in 1430 when he appeared in the court of common pleas to charge a local tucker with having attacked his wife, whose life was deemed to be in jeopardy on account of the assault.5 CP40/677, rot. 15. Otherwise, Westhope was evidently held in some regard by his neighbours: his two returns to the Commons aside, in 1432 he was appointed an executor by the wealthy clothier Ralph Hunt*, and two years later was elected one of the cofferers of his city. Shortly after leaving office he was among the witnesses to the conveyance by John Pay of Bradford to the former mayor, William Philipps*, of a burgage in Bath,6 Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/4/102. and about the same time he was part of the delegation that communicated the citizens’ choice of MPs for the Parliament of 1435 to the shire court.7 Ibid. BC151/2/75; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 454; C219/14/5. One of those elected that year was Walter Rich*, whom Westhope later assisted in his conveyance to the mayor and commonalty of a plot of land outside the west gate, which Rich had acquired from the hospital of St. John the Baptist.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 208; Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/3/26-29. Westhope is not heard of after his second return to Parliament, and died before February 1446, when his widow and executrix released to the London draper William Parchmener all actions arising from his will.9 CCR, 1441-7, p. 362.