John Eastbury, the Berkshire MP of 1365, 1366 and 1368, was employed as steward of the estates of Edward III’s daughter, Isabel, afterwards countess of Bedford, and as royal escheator in various counties between 1357 and his death in 1374. Besides his manor of Eastbury in Lambourn, he died in possession of a number of other properties in Berkshire and Wiltshire, some of which he had acquired by deception from an heiress known to be of unsound mind. Two of his manors, Blagrave and Hadley, also in Lambourn, he held jointly with his wife, Katherine, and in 1375 when she died these, instead of passing with Eastbury’s other holdings to his eldest son, John, apparently went instead to John, junior, the subject of this biography.
Otherwise, little is known about the younger John. He occasionally made appearances in the Exchequer or Chancery as a surety, doing so for the prior of the alien house of Andover in 1379, for Sir William Clopton in 1383, and, in association with his kinsman, John Arches, for a clerk impleaded by the bishop of Hereford in 1387. On 5 Dec. 1391, three days after the dissolution of his only known Parliament, he joined his fellow shire knight from Berkshire, Laurence Drew, in providing securities at the Exchequer on behalf of Sir William Sturmy, knight of the shire for Devon. He was also acquainted with the wealthy landowner Sir Gilbert Talbot, who, when on point of departure for Ireland with the royal forces in September 1394, named him as one of his attorneys to look after his affairs at home, and confirmed him in this role five months later. Surprisingly, Eastbury’s first appointment to royal commissions was delayed until 1403.
John Eastbury, our Member, is not mentioned in the will his brother, the elder John, made in August 1406; nor did he inherit his lands, which passed to the testator’s great-nephew, Ralph, son of John Arches.