GREEN, John V

Green is first mentioned, with the alias Bocher and described as ‘formerly of Melcombe Regis, yeoman’, soon after he became embroiled in the serious dispute between William Stafford* and Sir James Butler, son and heir of the earl of Ormond. Through his marriage to Stafford’s niece Avice, Butler had taken possession of large tracts of the Stafford family estates in Dorset, and her uncle’s resentment at the intruder erupted into open violence on 29 Aug. 1444, when the followers of the two men clashed at Lower Kingcombe and Toller Porcorum in the west of the county. Stafford himself was accused by Edith, widow of John Yerdeley, of killing her husband in the fray, and although she appealed 38 men altogether, Green was one of just four who stood charged alongside their leader, having allegedly struck Yerdeley in the throat with a dagger, dealing him a mortal blow of which he would have died had he not died of any of the other wounds inflicted by his fellows. When the case went to a jury in the summer of 1445 the sheriff, Robert Cappes, who was one of Butler’s henchmen, returned to the King’s bench as jurors the names of men dwelling outside Dorset, so Stafford claimed 1,000 marks in damages for the grave retard of the action and the breach of statute.1 E13/144, rots. 2, 11, 19, 20. In the following May he and his supporters, including Green and the others appealed of Yerdeley’s death, together with a number of their alleged accessories, were awarded full royal pardons of all felonies, murders, riots, routs and insurrections.2 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 438-9.

Having emerged relatively unscathed from this violent affair, Green appeared at the elections to the Parliament of February 1449 as one of four mainpernors for the burgesses returned by his home-town of Melcombe Regis. Of greater significance was his agreement to do likewise for the knights of the shire elected in November 1450, John Filoll* and William Browning I*,3 C219/15/6, 16/1. especially as the latter, who at the time of the fracas six years earlier had been a supporter of Sir James Butler (now earl of Wiltshire), had in the meantime distanced himself from that camp. In any case, as receiver of the duke of York’s estates in Dorset, Browning was a figure of consequence in the county, to whom Green may have become attached following William Stafford’s death at the hands of Cade’s rebels that summer. Green himself was to secure election to the Parliament summoned ten years later, after the Yorkist victory at Northampton, to meet on 7 Oct. 1460, with Browning’s son William II* accompanying him to the Commons as a representative of the duke’s borough of Weymouth, adjacent to his own constituency.

Green was described on the parliamentary return as ‘senior’, and the existence of a younger namesake in Dorset makes it difficult to be certain about the details of his later career, especially as both of them resided and traded at Melcombe. It is clear, however, that it was our MP, styled ‘alias Boucher’, who early in 1464 and in association with two other merchants from Dorset was being sued for a debt of £7 16s. by Richard Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury, for this suit had been in progress since before 1456.4 CP40/780, rot. 131; 811, rot. 282d. The two John Greens together witnessed a deed at Melcombe in July 1466, the younger man then being given the task of delivering seisin of property in Dorchester,5 Dorchester Recs. ed. Mayo, 294. although which of them was recorded shipping cloth from the Dorset ports in 1467 and standing surety for the knights of the shire (once more including Filoll) and the burgesses for Melcombe elected to the Parliament summoned to assemble on 3 June that year, remains undetermined.6 E122/119/9; C219/17/1. The MP of 1460 may have died before his namesake was himself returned as a representative for Melcombe in 1478.7 CP40/844, rot. 491; C67/53, m. 2.