BLAKE, John II (b.c.1388), of Quemerford in Calne, Wilts.

An obscure member of one of the oldest and most substantial burgess families in Calne,1HMC Var. iv. 110-12; A.E.W. Marsh, Hist. Calne, 186. John was aged seven at the death of his father, a well-to-do lawyer who had represented the borough in the Parliaments of 1381, 1384 (Nov.) and 1385.2HMC Var. iv. 117-18; C136/83/6. The father had paid 6s. 8d. towards the poll tax of 1379, the largest sum contributed by anyone in either the town or the hundred of Calne. By 1412 he had inherited some of the family property at Blacklands, a mile south east of Calne, said to be worth 40 marks a year.3Feudal Aids, vi. 541.