BYKERSTATH, John

It is unclear if Bykerstath was a native of Worcester, or if he had a connexion with the Bykerstaths of Kidderminster, where Richard Bykerstath, his wife Agnes and son John obtained a lease of a tenement in 1409.4 E210/930. Whatever his antecedents, Bykerstath was probably a lawyer since he was recognized as a ‘gentleman’ and served in the office of clerk of the peace, which he held when elected to Parliament.

In May 1439 Bykerstath and John Vuet stood surety for John Bromyerd, to whom the Crown had committed the farm of the subsidy and alnage of cloths for sale in Herefordshire and Hereford.5 CFR, xvii. 64. Although referred to as ‘of Worcester’ in Bromyerd’s grant, Bykerstath also had a connexion with Herefordshire since he became under sheriff of that county in 1438, in succession to the same John Vuet.6 KB9/229/4/24; E13/141, rot. 41d.

Bykerstath did not live beyond the mid 1450s. Following his death, his widow Margery began a suit in Chancery against three inhabitants of Worcester, Richard Bykerstath, Maurice Payn* and Hugh Jolye*. Her bill, submitted no later than 1456, reveals that the former MP had bought the office of town clerk of Worcester from a fellow citizen, John Colyer. According to her, Colyer held the office for life but agreed to sell the remainder of that term to her late husband and his trustees, the said Richard, Maurice and Hugh. Margery now claimed that the three were in breach of trust because they were ignoring Bykerstath’s wish that she should receive the profits of the clerkship in the event of his predeceasing Colyer, who indeed was still alive. Her bill is the only surviving record of her suit, the outcome of which is unrecorded.7 C1/17/126. This bill, which refers to Payn by his alias, Sherman, proves that there was a town clerk at Worcester considerably earlier than 1476, the date of the earliest reference to that office found by A.D. Dyer, City of Worcester in 16th Cent. 200.

Evidently one of Bykerstath’s relatives, Richard Bykerstath had been commissioned to collect a tax at Worcester in late 1429, served at least one term as a bailiff there in the first half of the 1440s and attested the return of the MP to the Parliament of 1442. Later in his career he was one of the coroners in Worcester, for within months of Edward IV’s accession the government removed him from that office, on the grounds he was too old and sick to perform it. Whatever his age and state of health in 1461, Richard was still alive in 1467 when he attested the return of the knights for Worcestershire to the Parliament of that year.8 CFR, xv. 295-6; C219/15/2; 17/1; E368/215, rot. 8d; 216, rot. 2d; T.R. Nash, Worcs. ii. app. p. cxi; CCR, 1461-8, p. 42.