STOUGHTON, John, of Guildford, Surr.

The Stoughtons exercised considerable influence in Guildford at the beginning of the 15th century. It was not uncommon for three or four of their number to be present at the county court for the election of shire knights, and John Stoughton senior attested the returns to no less than eight Parliaments between 1413 (May) and 1422.3C219/10/4, 11/2, 5, 7, 12/2-4, 13/1. There can be little doubt that the numerous references to a John Stoughton among the litigants at the Guildford assizes and as a witness to local deeds during this period concern the father rather than the son, our MP, about whose career nothing definite is known.4See, for example, JUST 1/1512 rot. 67, 71, 1528 rot. 35v; Guildford Mun. Room, BR/OC7/1 ff. 146, 151, 53/120, 105/1/126; LM339/31. Both men may well have died in the early 1420s, for neither appears to have been active after 1422.