BISHOP, John II

Bishop’s antecedents are unknown and the return recording his election to Parliament provides the earliest definite reference to him. His later appointment as a tax collector confirms his place of residence.1 CFR, xvi. 66. There were two goldbeaters and citizens of London, John Bishop senior and junior, who had links with Bucks. in the early decades of the 15th century, but their interests in the county lay at Milton Keynes and its environs rather than at Wycombe: CCR, 1409-13, pp. 191, 497; CP25(1)/22/116/25; 118/8; CPR, 1422-9, pp. 15, 19; 1429-36, p. 481; 1452-61, p. 133. The Parliament in which Bishop sat was the first of Henry VI’s reign to grant a lay subsidy, although the tax that he was commissioned to collect in September 1431 was granted in the succeeding assembly. It was in his capacity as a collector of this subsidy (a fifteenth and tenth and a third part of a fifteenth and tenth) that he rode to Westminster in the autumn of 1431, to attend a view of his account at the Exchequer. While there, he faced legal action on the part of Robert atte Felde of Burnham, Buckinghamshire, who alleged that he had unjustly used the office of collector to take two horses from him. Upon hearing atte Felde’s plea, Bishop obtained licence to treat with his opponent out of court until the following Hilary term, and it appears that they settled the matter outside the Exchequer.2 PROME, x. 447-8; E13/139, rot. 16d.

There is nothing else known about the MP, although there were Bishops living in or near Wycombe in later years. In 1454, a court held at Bassetsbury, the duchy of Lancaster manor embracing most of the borough, took a presentment against Henry Bishop and two others for taking fish from the King’s waters at Wycombe, without licence and at night. Henry was probably a relative of the MP, as perhaps was the John Bishop of Hughenden (just to the north of Wycombe) who died in 1509. In his will, this John set aside money for repairs to the parish church and its Lady chapel at Wycombe.3 St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs. XV/15/1, m. 2; PCC 19 Bennett (PROB11/16, f. 147).