HART, John

Hart was a member of a family which was well established in Bletchingley by the end of the fourteenth century. The earliest reference to him was as a tenant of the Stafford estates at nearby Pendell in 1399, when he and William Hart, his putative father, were among the jurors at the inquest into the lands held by William, earl of Stafford, who had died four years previously.2 U. Lambert, Blechingley, 202. Hart’s association with the Staffords was a strong one, and by 1428 he had been appointed as farmer of the comital demesnes at Bletchingley for Earl Humphrey, for which he rendered accounts covering the years 1428-30. Another account, for 1429-31, lists him as bailiff of Bletchingley, a post which required him to pay the annual farm of £7 to the earl. By the close of this account he was said to have arrears of £4 13s. 9½d.3 Stafford fam. mss, D641/1/2/232. It was while Hart held the bailiwick that he was returned to Parliament for the borough. His service to the Staffords was clearly the key factor in his election, but so too was his prominence in the locality.

The little that is recorded of Hart after his appearance in Parliament testifies to his involvement in local affairs: in 1434, for instance, he was a witness, along with his putative brother Richard and Thomas Eylove*, to a conveyance of property in Bletchingley made by Richard Tyler*. The extent of his own property interests in the area is unclear, although in 1451 he and Richard were said to be former holders of two crofts in Highfields, part of the lordship of Pendell, in a rental compiled for William Uvedale II*.4 Lambert, 205, 290. He may have died some years previously, perhaps before 1445, when a new bailiff was administering the Stafford lands at Bletchingley.5 Stafford fam. mss, D641/1/2/233.