Deerhurst was a lawyer like his father, the founder of their family’s fortunes. Active in local government, John Deerhurst formed useful links with Edward III’s grandson, Edward, duke of Aumâle, and other important figures. When, for example, the Crown granted the keeping of the English estates of the alien abbey of Fécamp to Aumâle and Brother Hugh Veretot in January 1399, he stood surety on their behalf. He also acted as a mainpernor for Sir Hugh Waterton and his wife in the following November, when the couple obtained custody of the Gloucestershire manor of Michelhampton and other lands formerly held by the abbey of Caen in England.
It is therefore unlikely that John lived to see his heir marry Anne Baynham, since the couple were not to become man and wife until after the death of her father Robert Baynham in 1436. Through this match, the Deerhurst family came into possession of the manor of Ruardean and lands at Bicknor, although it would appear that Anne was not Robert’s heir.
Such an accumulation of property made Deerhurst a man of considerable standing in the town, which he represented in at least four Parliaments and where he was bailiff in 1435-6. Later that decade, he served on his first commission of gaol delivery in the town, and he, along with Thomas Bisley and another local lawyer, John Edwards*, arbitrated in a dispute between their fellow burgess, Robert Bentham II*, and Llanthony priory in mid 1439.
In July that year, the authorities despatched one of the quarters of the defeated rebel leader Jack Cade to Gloucester, no doubt to serve as a warning to any who would oppose the Crown, including those townsmen who had attacked the property of the hated Reynold Boulers, abbot of Gloucester, an adherent of the unpopular government and court, in 1449. In the autumn of 1450, however, a commission of oyer and terminer, sitting at Gloucester on 19 Oct., uncovered evidence of further unrest. According to one of the indictments it took, just seven days earlier, Thomas Glover of Gloucester had entered into a conspiracy with a local chaplain, Stephen Bitte alias Vaughan, and Thomas Mascold, a yeoman from Cirencester, to rebel against the King, and they and their many unknown adherents had received Deerhurst’s support and advice. Subsequently arrested and taken to London, Glover was brought under custody to the court of King’s bench in Trinity term 1451. Pleading not guilty, he managed to obtain a royal pardon before his next appearance in that court, which then dismissed him sine die. Deerhurst himself remained at liberty until 25 June that year, when he gave himself up to the Marshalsea prison in Southwark. Brought before King’s bench, he claimed that the indictment against him was insufficient in law because it lacked specific information about the alleged conspiracy. By then, however, he had obtained a pardon of his own, which bore the date of the previous 22 May and in which he was styled ‘gentleman alias esquire’. He produced his letters of pardon, along with further letters, bearing the date of 28 May 1451 and showing that he had found sufficient surety in Chancery for his future good behaviour, and the court likewise permitted him to depart a free man.
Whatever had actually happened at Gloucester in the autumn of 1450, Deerhurst was never to hold public office again. Following his brush with the authorities, he largely disappears from view, although in the mid 1450s he quarrelled with William Mille (son of Thomas Mille*) and John Cassy*, each of whom began separate suits for trespass against him in King’s bench. The date of his death is unknown, although the records show that his successor was his son John. John Deerhurst, who sued his father’s feoffees in the Chancery (either in the later 1470s or in Richard III’s reign), died in 1484. His heir was his infant son, another Thomas Deerhurst.