JAKES, John

It is not clear whether Jakes, a man with several contemporary namesakes,2 e.g. CFR, xvii. 11; Feudal Aids, iii. 572. was a native of Great Yarmouth, for his known associations with the borough post-date his time in Parliament. Seven months after leaving the Commons, he became a j.p. for the town, an office he held continuously for almost a dozen years, and he was the plaintiff in a suit for debt in the borough court in the late 1430s.3 Norf. RO, Gt. Yarmouth recs., ct. roll, 1439-40, Y/C 4/148, m. 3d. He was probably a lawyer, since he was on the quorum as a j.p., and it is therefore likely that he was the John Jakes who served on two East Anglian commissions of gaol delivery in the first half of the 1430s. There is no evidence that he was the John Jakes of Glemsford, Suffolk, ‘gentleman’, active as a feoffee and surety in the 1420s and 1430s, although it is worth noting that even minor lawyers enjoyed gentry status.4 CFR, xvi. 114; CCR, 1422-9, p. 190; 1435-41, p. 51; CP40/639, rots. 101d, 310. It is also impossible to prove that he was the John Jakes whom Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, appointed his attorney-general in London on 1 Mar. 1418: Petworth House, Suss. mss, 7211 (MAC/3). In later decades, a namesake of the MP (perhaps his son) resided in Great Yarmouth where he made his will in 1511.5 Suff. RO (Ipswich), W1/7/7. This short will does not mention the MP.