HARWOOD, John, of Bletchingley, Surr.

In the mid 1440s, according to a Chancery deposition concerning a dispute between Sir John Gra* and Nicholas Girlington*, one ‘Harwod’ was a servant of the latter. C1/13/93; CPR, 1446-52, p. 459. Since Girlington was returned for Westmorland to the Parliament of 1447, there is every reason to suppose that the Appleby MP is to be identified with his servant. It is probable that Girlington, no more qualified to sit for the county than his servant was for the borough, had some matter of his own to pursue in Parliament, but there is no evidence to show what it was. The Appleby MPs are known only from the endorsement of the writ of summons, which names Thomas Stedde and William Forde (both otherwise unknown) as Harwood’s sureties: C219/15/4. Beyond this two further conjectures can be made. First, the Appleby MP may, earlier in his career, have been connected with Gra: in 1421 John Harwood was a party to a fine by which some disputed Nottinghamshire property was settled on Gra and his wife, Margaret. CP25(1)/186/38/14; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 358-9. Second, like Girlington, he may have been a lawyer. In the late 1440s a ‘John Harwold’ makes several appearances as an attorney in the court of common pleas, on one occasion, in Hilary term 1445, representing the northern peer, William, Lord Harington. CP40/736, rot. 128.