HODY, John

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 384-6.

Like previous Parliaments, that of 1437 (which in the event was to be Hody’s last as an elected Member) saw him heavily involved in the business of the Crown as well as that of the Commons. On 18 Mar. 1437, the day before he headed the deputation sent by the Commons to inform the King of the replacement of (Sir) John Tyrell* as Speaker by William Burley I*, he was ordered by the treasurer, Lord Cromwell, to attend upon a matter pending between the King and John Vanne of Sherborne before Chief Justice Juyn, and on 14 May he and a fellow lawyer, Robert Rodes*, were each paid ten marks in reward for their efforts in the recently-dissolved Parliament. More similar rewards were to follow after Hody had taken the coif. PROME, xi. 216; E403/725, m. 19; 727, m. 3; 734, m. 8.

Like many successful lawyers, Hody had extensive professional connexions among the gentry and nobility, many of whom shared the assessment of the London Brewers’ Company who in 1437-8 described him as ‘a parfyte man yn the lawe’. Baker, i. 881. By 1435 he was in receipt of an annuity of 40s. from Sir William Ferrers of Chartley, E163/7/31/1. but one such tie which in the event proved particularly long-lasting was that with the Butler earls of Ormond. Whereas Sir John served James Butler (later earl of Wiltshire), as a feoffee, his second son William would later maintain this connexion into the 1490s. Genealogist, n.s. xxii. 26.