BISHOP, John III (d.1477), of Taunton, Som.

While the names of Bishop’s parents are known from his later provision for the salvation of their souls, the family’s origins have not been discovered. It appears that John may have gained entry to the community of the borough of Taunton by his marriage to a local widow, Alice, the former wife of John Bowe, and probably the daughter and heiress of Thomas Osborne. The extent of the property that she brought to her new husband is uncertain, but it apparently included lands in Taunton and its hinterland at Sawney (in Trull), Pyleigh (in Lydeard St. Lawrence), Dipford and Sherford. CCR, 1441-7, p. 286; E326/5039, 5041, 5042, 5056. In 1438 Bishop greatly increased these holdings by the purchase of 15 houses and over 140 acres of associated land in Taunton and its region for the princely sum of 300 marks, and at various points thereafter he took the opportunity to add further property to his growing estate. Som. Feet of Fines, 91-92; E326/654; Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Forde deeds 5, 7, 9, 17, 18, 22, 27, 44, 109, 112. Yet, the couple’s title to the Osborne lands proved far from secure. In December 1436 a dispute between the Bishops and Thomas Osborne’s feoffees, headed by Adam Somaster* and William Cogan, was put to the arbitration of John Hody* and John Fortescue*, E326/5043. and some 12 years later, in 1448, the Bishops were summoned into Chancery to respond to the claims of Ralph Thursteyn that his father had been coerced into handing over the title deeds of his property to Bowe by threats. C1/16/559; C253/28/97. Only in 1451 did Thomas Osborne’s son Roger formally confirm Bishop’s title to the estates that had formerly belonged to his father. E326/5053, 5054, 5057. Similarly, in 1418 John and Alice Bowe had leased a burgage in Taunton’s Fore Street from Joan Hanham, the widow of Sir Thomas Brooke† of Holditch, for an annual rent of 20s., and this was probably the property known as ‘Castelyate’ which was in the hands of Bishop and his wife after their marriage. Nevertheless, following the death of Sir Thomas Brooke*, Lord Cobham, in 1439 their title was called into question, and three years elapsed before, in November 1442, Cobham’s widow, on her deathbed, released all pending actions to Bishop. Som. Archs., Misc. Som. docs., DD\S\SBY/6/3; C44/28/3; E328/146/i.(9).

It is not clear that Bishop devoted himself to any particular trade or profession: if anything, he may have regarded himself as a landed gentleman, and in the second half of his life regularly styled himself ‘esquire’. Even so, it does seem that he was at times engaged in the cloth-trade: it was in payment for various packs of woollen cloth that in 1463 his neighbour Laurence Clymmowe granted him a residual lease in a tenement in Taunton. C1/67/300.

By 1445 Bishop had established a connexion with Cardinal Beaufort, Taunton’s lord as the bishop of Winchester, and was appointed custodian of the episcopal park at Pounsford. Bishop’s transition, like that of many other members of Beaufort’s household and administration, into the service of the cardinal’s successor, Bishop Waynflete, appears to have been a smooth one, and before long he became one of the new bishop’s trusted retainers. CCR, 1454-61, p. 368. Although in 1448-9 Bishop held the elected post of one of the bishop’s portreeves of Taunton, there can be little doubt that his successive returns to the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455 for the episcopal borough owed as much to his proximity to Waynflete as to his standing in the community: on both occasions his parliamentary colleagues were members of the bishop’s inner circle. The second protectorate of the duke of York, established during the Parliament of 1455, came to an end not many months after the dissolution, allowing the court party dominated by Queen Margaret to regain the political initiative. In October 1456 Waynflete was given custody of the great seal, and he was to remain in post as chancellor for almost three years, while the divisions among the nobility grew ever deeper. By the autumn of 1459 all attempts at reconciliation had failed, and the court’s principal opponents, the duke of York and his Neville kinsmen, the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, were driven into exile. To complete their destruction, a fresh Parliament was summoned to Coventry, and although the Taunton returns are lost, it is highly likely that Bishop occupied one of the borough’s seats. Yet, the court party’s triumph proved short-lived. The aftermath of the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton in the summer of 1460 saw the political eclipse of Waynflete, who had to surrender the great seal to Warwick’s young brother, the bishop of Exeter. Waynflete nevertheless sought to use what political influence remained to him, and in Bishop and John Wolffe* saw two of his retainers returned for Taunton to the Parliament which met in October.

Following Edward IV’s accession, Waynflete remained at a distance from the levers of power, and while Bishop remained in his service, and in 1465 was rewarded with appointments for life as keeper of Poundsford park and as porter of the bishop’s castle at Taunton (which he had held since 1461), it is not clear whether he secured any further returns to the Commons. His offices aside, many of the rewards that he received from his master took the form of leases of property in Taunton and its region. His growing property in the town included several houses in East Street, two shops in the market place, and a number of vacant plots. Reg. Common Seal, no. 347; V.G. Davis, ‘Bp. Waynflete of Winchester’ (Trin. Coll. Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 196-7; E326/5064, 5065, 5067, 5068, 5076; Magdalen Coll., Forde deeds 5, 7, 9, 17, 18, 27, 51. Bishop’s wealth increased his standing in the community, and he was periodically called upon by his neighbours and kinsfolk to witness their wills or property transactions, or serve them as a feoffee. Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 208; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 876; ii. 321; Som. Archs., Sanford of Nynehead mss, DD\SF/1578. Nevertheless, he did not enjoy universal popularity among the men of Taunton. The squabbles over his own holdings aside, in the spring of 1453 he had faced accusations of having misappropriated a set of deeds and muniments relating to the former properties of one Walter Legh, now pertaining to Taunton’s parish church. On 17 Apr. (while the Parliament of which he was a Member was in recess) he had come before the archdeacon’s official and made formal compurgation. E135/21/46.

Bishop’s patron, William Waynflete, played a central part in the administration established by the earl of Warwick in the autumn of 1470 in the name of Henry VI, but on Edward IV’s return rapidly secured a royal pardon. While it is interesting to speculate whether Bishop also had come to political prominence once more (perhaps by representing Taunton in the Readeption Parliament), there is no evidence to lend substance to such a supposition. He too sought a pardon, which in his case was granted only in January 1472. C67/48, m. 18. His position as porter of Taunton castle continued to give him a degree of prominence in the local community, and in September of that year he was among the Taunton men who set their seals to the parliamentary election indenture. Parliament had been summoned primarily to provide taxation in support of Edward IV’s projected invasion of France, but in the event the administration took recourse to more imaginative means of raising the necessary sums, and imposed a forced levy euphemistically described as a ‘benevolence’. Among those who agreed to contribute was Bishop, who proffered £4 11s. 3d. (the amount given by individual citizens of London and equivalent to the income of a man on a daily wage of 6d. for a period of six months). E34/1B; Lay Taxes ed. Jurkowski et al., 115.

It appears that Bishop’s marriage had remained childless, for during his final years he was preoccupied with the conversion of his property into an endowment for a chantry at the altar of St. Nicholas in the Taunton parish church of St. Mary Magdalene. This chantry, dedicated to Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles Peter, Paul, James, Andrew and Thomas, as well as Saints Giles, Botolph, Mary Magdalen, Katherine and Margaret, was to provide prayers for the souls of the benefactor’s patrons, Bishops Beaufort and Waynflete, and kin, including his parents, his wife and her first husband, his brother and members of the Warre and Osborne families. Bishop had first settled the property that was to make up the endowment on his feoffees in 1459, but the arrangements for the foundation were not completed until October 1476, less than six months before his death. E326/5058-62, 5070, 5072, 5073; E328/180; Magdalen Coll., Forde deeds 1, 3, 13, 26. This occurred at some point before 20 Apr. 1477 when a writ of diem clausit extremum in his name was issued to the escheator of Somerset and Dorset. CFR, xxi. no. 403. The execution of Bishop’s will was entrusted to his old associate Richard Colborne, by then himself in his 60s, who was occupied in disentangling the testator’s convoluted affairs for some years. Bishop’s unsettled property eventually passed to his brother, Thomas Bishop of Crewkerne, and through the latter’s daughter, Maud, to the Gould family of Seaborough and Dorchester. C1/67/297-300; E326/4997.