BIRD, John

There is more information to add to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 233-4. Bird occasionally brought suits in the central courts, appearing there in person to forward his pleas. For instance, in the King’s bench in 1425 he accused Edmund Dauntsey of Laverstock, esquire, of a trespass, and in 1433 he alleged that a local husbandman had broken his closes at Medbourne in Liddington and stolen timber and crops worth £20. KB27/655, rot. 12; CP40/688, rot. 18d. Sometimes, too, he was asked to be an arbitrator to settle ‘diverse debates, quarrels, actions and demands’. One such award finalized at Easter 1438, he made sure was enrolled in the court of common pleas in English, to be better understood by the antagonists. In it he referred to the steward and treasurer of the late Queen Joan, indicating that his part as a peacemaker had emerged from his own office in the administration of her estates. CP40/709, cart. rot. d. Bird was also engaged by the abbot of Glastonbury as bailiff of the abbey’s liberties in Wiltshire for at least 12 years.

After his death Bird’s widow Isabel obtained royal pardons in 1446 and 1452, being described in the first as ‘formerly of Bristol’. C67/39, m. 23; 40, m. 29. The location of her property in that town has not been discovered. In the tax assessments of 1451 she is recorded holding land in Wiltshire worth £33 p.a. E179/196/118. It might be presumed that her late husband’s income had been considerably higher, if this represented a widow’s portion, although as he left no surviving issue it may be that Isabel had kept his whole estate.