GOLDE, John, of Plymouth, Devon.

John’s precise relationship to Richard Golde, his fellow MP for Plympton both in 1385 and 1386, is not known, but it seems likely that they were brothers and perhaps sons of Roger Golde of Plymouth, a merchant who in 1371 was to have been brought before the King’s Council under suspicion of ‘great delinquencies’.1CPR,1370-4, p. 179. John was required to contribute as much as 23s. to the parliamentary subsidies collected in 1373. At that time he was living in Sutton Priour, one of the manors which was later assimilated into the town of Plymouth, and he and his family acquired several properties in the immediate vicinity.2Add. Ch. 64215; Plymouth Lib. Acc. 33/18; JUST 1/1519 m. 118d; RP, v. 19; Devon RO, Bedford ms D2/115. Their prosperity was probably founded on the import of wine from Gascony, in which trade John himself was engaged in the 1390s.3E/122/40/14. The John Golde who in 1418 sold land in Talaton and Feniton, Devon, to William Frye* (CP25(1)45/78/65), would seem to have been another man.