WODY, John

First recorded in 1420, when he acquired ten acres of land in Horsham,5 CP25(1)/240/84/25. Wody was associated in this transaction with Walter Urry and William Stoute*, both of whom had earlier represented that Sussex town in Parliament. Urry played an important part in furthering his career, quite likely by training him for the legal profession, and in due course Wody married his mentor’s niece. He and Urry were linked together again in 1425, as recipients of the moveable goods of Thomas Coupere, a Horsham man for whom Wody later acted as a feoffee,6 E326/7136; CAD, i. B1541, 1591, 1618. and Wody’s introduction to the Commons of 1435 probably also came about through Urry’s support, for the experienced parliamentarian was then sitting as a knight of the shire. At that stage Wody had little connexion with the borough of Lewes, which returned him to Parliament.7 Ifeld, his place of residence, at least in later times, was the vill of this name situated seven miles to the north-east of Horsham, rather than the one within a shorter distance of Lewes: CP40/756, rot. 41d. This is clear from the fact that he was also called ‘of Crawley’. Wody pointed out that there were two places called Ifeld in Suss. to escape judicial proceedings (a suit for a debt of £21 brought by a London clothier), but naturally declined to reveal which one was his home: CP40/795, rot. 272. Nevertheless, in all probability he was no stranger to the town, where he later laid claim to some property, and in 1440 he purchased land nearby at Westmeston. The participation of his father-in-law, Thomas atte Stone, in this acquisition may indicate that the land had formed part of the settlement made on his marriage.8 CP25(1)/241/88/16; CP40/769, rot. 165d; KB27/784, rot. 46d. There is also the possibility that Wody’s election to Parliament had come about through involvement in the administration of the estates of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, the lord of both Horsham and Lewes. When, in 1444, Wody joined a group headed by Urry and Richard Wakehurst†, another prominent Sussex lawyer, to procure a royal licence to found ‘Boteler’s Chantry’ in the parish church of St. Mary at Horsham, the founders stipulated that the chaplain should pray not only for the late Henry Boteler I*, but also for the welfare of the duke and the soul of his late father.9 CPR, 1441-6, p. 278.

Of Wody’s growing competence in the law there can be no doubt, for he came to be employed in numerous important conveyances by many of the leading gentry of the region. In the autumn of 1444 Sir John Pelham enfeoffed him of his manors in east Sussex, marking the beginning of an association which was to last for 20 years,10 Add. Chs. 30393, 30418-19; CAD, i. C835. and at the same time Wody joined his wife’s uncle Urry as a trustee of the portion of the former Fitzalan estates which Edmund Lenthall had inherited through his mother, one of the sisters of Thomas Fitzalan, the late earl of Arundel (d.1415). These substantial properties included a third part of the castle and lordship of Lewes, which the surviving feoffees conveyed to nominees of the duke of Norfolk, another of the coheirs, in July 1447.11 CPR, 1444-6, pp. 350-1; Arundel Castle mss, W60; CCR, 1447-54, p. 312. By that date Urry had died, leaving as his heir an only daughter, the wife of Thomas Hoo II*, a rising and well-connected man-of-law. Thereafter, Wody was frequently recorded in association with Hoo and members of his circle, and not only with regard to the disposition of the former Urry estate.12 CAD, iii. B4043, 4052-3; vi. C4324, 4703. He attended the shire court at Chichester on 30 Jan. 1449 to attest Hoo’s second election to Parliament for Sussex,13 C219/15/6. and his involvement in the affairs of the Hoo family increased following the death in 1455 of his colleague’s half-brother Thomas Hoo I*, Lord Hoo and Hastings. The latter’s substantial debts complicated his testamentary arrangements, and required the younger Thomas to balance the interests of heirs and creditors. He enlisted Wody’s help in striking deals with Lord Hoo’s son-in-law Geoffrey Boleyn*, in obtaining confirmation from Sir John Pelham of their title as co-feoffees to the late Lord’s honour and rape of Hastings, and, in 1461, his assistance when financial necessity and political constraints forced the sale of these and the barony of Hastings itself to the new King’s friend.14 CAD, i. C240; ii. C2709; Add. Chs. 713, 23802; CCR, 1461-8, pp. 92-93; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 137-8. Thomas Hoo’s machinations and the conflicting claims of Lord Hoo’s widow and four daughters necessitated Wody’s appearance to testify in the court of Chancery in the 1460s.15 Add. Chs. 23822-3, 23825; C1/41/239-44; Procs. Chancery Eliz. ed. Caley and Bayley, ii. pp. li-liii. Furthermore, Hoo’s mother Elizabeth (d.1465), the widow of Sir Thomas Lewknor*, named him as an executor, and the task of administering her estate not only brought him to the law-courts, but also led to his employment as legal adviser to Richard Lewknor*, another of her sons, and confrontation with her stepson (Sir) Roger Lewknor*.16 PCC 8 Godyn (PROB11/5, f. 59v); Add. 39376, ff. 137, 172v; CIPM Hen VII, iii. 814; CP40/815, rot. 296d; 825, rot. 293d.

Although back in 1446 Wody had been called upon to witness the formal transfer to Robert Poynings* of the manors bequeathed to him by his father Lord Poynings, in the disputes over the Poynings estates which violently shook the south-east in the years that followed he chose to side with Robert’s niece Eleanor, Lady Poynings and countess of Northumberland. In this serious matter, as in others, he took his lead from Thomas Hoo, who had been engaged as principal man of affairs and counsellor by Eleanor’s husband the earl. For a long period, ending in 1463, Wody acted for the countess as a feoffee of her Poynings inheritance.17 CCR, 1441-7, p. 435; C141/2/26; Collectanea Topographia et Geneaologica ed. Nichols, iii. 266-70. On occasion Wody’s probity was called into question. In a bill of uncertain date sent into Chancery by Godard Oxenbridge, it was alleged that from ‘malice and evil will’ Wody had brought feigned actions of trespass and debt against him in the court of the abbot of Battle abbey, kept him ‘in grete durasse and hard prison’ and through the affinity and conspiracy of the steward and bailiff embraced a jury of his own denomination, intending to find against him.18 C1/61/549. Nevertheless, Wody continued to regularly employed as a feoffee and executor until late in life. For instance, in 1473 he was acting as administrator of the estate of William Anderby* (d.1462), a member of Lincoln’s Inn who was himself an executor of Lucy Visconti (d.1424), the countess of Kent.19 CCR, 1468-76, no. 1205; CSP Milan, 431.

Wody’s friendly relations with Richard Wakehurst are implicit in his service as a trustee of Wakehurst’s manor of Bysshe Court in Surrey, and nomination as his executor. In the years after 1455 he must often have regretted agreeing to take on this task. The business of having to account at the Exchequer for revenues from land once in Wakehurst’s keeping was a minor concern;20 VCH Surr. iv. 293; PCC 3 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 24); E364/92, m. Cd. much more problematic was the extensive litigation over the dead lawyer’s estate. Initially, Wody supported Wakehurst’s widow, Elizabeth, by firmly resisting the attempts of his grand-daughters and coheirs (who had married the brothers Richard and Nicholas Culpepper), to deprive her of her dower and jointure.21 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 731-2. But following Elizabeth’s death in 1464 it is less certain whose interests he was serving. On 29 July 1466 he was indicted before the j.p.s at Maidstone for having contrived to defraud the heiresses and their husbands of their title to diverse manors, lands and tenements. Allegedly, 12 days earlier, in an armed raid on property at Newenden in Kent, he had feloniously taken six sealed boxes of deeds, valued in court at an incredible £3,000. A plea entered against him in the common pleas in Trinity term 1467 was more restrained, accusing him of stealing muniment boxes and goods worth just £10, although the Culpeppers still claimed damages of as much as £500. Wody denied culpability, saying that the heiresses’ mother had wrongfully removed the boxes from the keeping of their grandmother Elizabeth Wakehurst, and that he, as the latter’s servant, had merely recovered them. On giving himself up at the Marshalsea on 20 Nov. 1470 to answer the earlier charge, he told the judges in King’s bench that the matter contained in the indictment was insufficient in law to require him to make answer; they allowed him to depart sine die, and when the case was taken for discussion to the Exchequer chamber his attorney successfully pleaded that such a taking of charters did not amount to a felony.22 Year Bk. 10 Edw. IV (Selden Soc. xlvii), 124-7 (from KB27/838, m. 70d); Add. 39376, ff. 141-2. Yet this was by no means the end of the quarrel. In Hilary term following another suit was pending in the common pleas, this time accusing Wody of preventing the Culpeppers from taking their turn to present a chaplain to serve in Boteler’s Chantry in Horsham. The Culpeppers asserted that according to the terms of the foundation charter (which had been completed in 1452), each of the five founders or their heirs were to take turns in making presentations, and that accordingly they should have their turn in right of their wives’ inheritance from Wakehurst. This was denied by Wody’s co-defendant, Richard Lydlady (the chaplain he himself had presented to the chantry), who asserted that Wakehurst had granted his right of presentation to Wody and his son John. Nevertheless, a jury summoned in the following year testified that no such grant had been made to the Wodys, and damages were awarded against John senior and Lydlady. After the defendants refused to accept this verdict and alleged in 1476 that the jurors had made a false oath, in Hilary term 1477 a jury of 24 knights was summoned to determine if this had been the case. Meanwhile, the Culpeppers had taken their suit to the chancellor, on the basis that proceedings in the common pleas had been thwarted as Wody retained the original letters patent for the foundation and refused to produce them in court.23 Add. 39376, ff. 162-164d; C1/40/216.

In another suit in this long-lasting quarrel with the Culpeppers, Wody was the plaintiff, asserting that Wakehurst had given him permission to pasture livestock on his land at Tinsley Green in Worth, but that his opponents had stolen the beasts from him;24 CP40/832, rot. 491. while further conflict between them concerned the Surrey manor of Ockley, of which Wakehurst had enfeoffed both Wody and his son John.25 C1/38/34. It remains unclear which of the two Johns, called ‘of Ifeld, gentleman’, entered a bond in £25 to the Culpepper brothers in November 1478, after agreeing to relinquish to them a rent of 20s. from a messuage called ‘Lithys’ in the same county.26 CCR, 1476-85, no. 478. Records of the MP’s final transactions are difficult to disentangle from those relating to his son and to a third John Wody, who may have been his grandson,27 See, e.g. the suits of Thomas Vaughan* against John Wody ‘late of Crawley, senior’, John Wody ‘of Peasmarsh’ and John Wody ‘of Ifeld, junior’ – all described as gentlemen, in 1472: CP40/844, rot. 232d. and the precise date of his death is not known. It occurred between 1477 and Hilary term 1483, when John Wody ‘late of Ifeld, gentleman’ was acting as executor of John Wody ‘junior’, himself a former executor of John Wody ‘senior, late of Ifeld’.28 Add. Ch. 23825; CP40/883, rot. 279d.