JUSTICE, John

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 506.

It is curious to find Justice, only recently returned from Henry V’s last Parliament, styled a mere husbandman in a suit for assault brought against him by the clerk John Reynold in the autumn of 1422, but no evidence of the existence of a namesake has been found. CP40/647, rot. 131. It is not clear whether he exercised any particular profession, but there may be a suggestion that he possessed some form of legal training, and perhaps at one stage carried out a minor function in the royal administration, as suggested by his description as ‘of Westminster’ in a bond made to him by the Salisbury draper John Gage in 1438. E159/214, recogniciones Mich. rot. 1.

In 1451, Justice’s property (which by then probably included the tenement in Minster Street – called ‘Castle Street’ – in Salisbury, that would later come into the hands of John Chaffyn†), was said to provide him with an annual income of £5, although this was probably an underestimate. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury city recs., Domesday Bk. 3, G23/1/215, f. 2; E179/196/118. He evidently survived into the later 1450s: in July 1451 he is found empanelled on a jury at Salisbury, KB9/133/15d. in early 1456 he and Robert Roude* were being sued for a debt of £5 by one Richard Weston, CP40/780, rot. 258d. and it may also have been he who in 1457 was owed 20s. by the former treasurer of the King’s household, John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton. E403/810, m. 9.