COLE, John II (d.1476), of Wilton, Wilts.

The MP was perhaps a descendant of his namesake, John Cole† or Culle who had represented Wilton in at least seven Parliaments between 1372 and 1394, served for a number of years as a coroner in Wiltshire and died in the early years of the fifteenth century. By 1420 that John’s grandson and heir, Laurence, was in possession of his lands, including an estate of 170 acres at Fugglestone, just outside Wilton. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 626; CCR, 1419-22, p. 127. However, our MP’s exact relationship to this man, or to John Cole the baker, who was living in Wilton with his wife Agnes in 1408, has not been discovered. JUST1/1519, rot. 15d. The baker was still living in 1436, then bringing actions of debt in the court of common pleas against men of Salisbury and of Abingdon in Oxfordshire. CP40/700, rot. 18d.

Our John Cole, perhaps a weaver by trade, CP40/738, rot. 18d. first appears in the records of Wilton late in 1442, when he rode to London with a prest of ten marks, demanded from the borough by the Crown and payable at Christmas. The steward of Wilton paid him 12d. for doing so. It may be that he was already holding the post of King’s bailiff in the town. As such in the following year he received expenses of an equally miserly 10d. for spending five days at Salisbury occupied on the town’s business. Wilton stewards’ accts. G25/1/88. The office of King’s bailiff is poorly documented, as it was not one for which annual elections were held. It is quite likely that Cole held it without interruption for several years more. Certainly, he was bailiff in the year 1454-5. Nothing is known about his property-holdings in Wilton or elsewhere, save that he rented a curtilege in ‘Maccy Croft’ in Salisbury in 1455. Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 84. This did not lead to any notable involvement in the city’s administration, although he served as a juror at an inquisition post mortem held there on 2 Nov. 1456. A week later he performed a like duty at Wilton, C139/161/8, 163/5. and it was as a representative for the latter borough that he was elected to the Parliament of 1459. Like him, his companion, Robert Newman*, was not numbered among the leading men of Wilton. Perhaps the more prominent burgesses were reluctant to travel to Coventry as the country descended into civil war.

Cole was listed among the burgesses of Wilton in the late 1460s (from when such lists survive) until 1474. In 1476 his name was annotated ‘mort’. Wilton gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, ff. 588, 591-8. Accordingly, he has been distinguished from the John Cole who died on 20 Aug. 1478, leaving lands at Hampreston in east Dorset to his son John (b.c.1449): C140/69/21a.