PECK, John

Despite sitting for Huntingdon in Parliament, Peck appears never to have held office in that borough. Probably related to Robert Peck*, there is no definite evidence for him prior to his first election to the Commons.1 It is also impossible to prove that he was the man to whom Thomas Clement and his wife conveyed a messuage situated at Yaxley, Hunts. in 1402: CP25(1)/94/33/2. Likewise, there is no way of knowing whether he was the ‘John Peek’ who held lands at Woodhurst, also in Hunts. A yeoman of the pantry, Peek was rewarded with an annuity of 20 marks for life by Hen. IV. This grant became chargeable on the issues of Cambs. and Hunts. in 1412, by which date he was the King’s bailiff of Glatton, Holme and Wyttlesmere in the latter county. It was reconfirmed at Hen. VI’s accession: Feudal Aids, vi. 464; CPR, 1399-1401, pp. 39, 62, 221, 408; 1408-13, p. 359; 1413-16, p. 15. There was also a John Peek who held a close at Hemingford Grey, a few miles to the east of Huntingdon, in the early 1450s: KB27/762, rot. 3. Between his two known Parliaments, Peck had dealings in London, where he became indebted to a couple of its citizens, William Holte and John Joye. He entered into a bond with them in March 1428, but in what circumstances is not known. A decade later, by which stage Joye was dead, Holte won a suit for debt against Peck in the court of common pleas in connexion with the same security, regaining the £80 he claimed, along with costs and damages.2 CP40/700, rot. 430d. The plea roll refers to Peck as both ‘lately of Huntingdon, burgess’ and a ‘gentleman’. His gentry status might suggest that he was the John Peck of Huntingdonshire expected in 1434 to swear the oath to keep the peace,3 CPR, 1429-36, p. 376. since this was administered to the more prominent residents of each shire.