STRETE, John I

Strete’s parentage is obscure, but it is possible that he came not merely of peasant but indeed of villein stock, for in the spring of 1427 the Devon esquire William Jewe sought to claim his son William as a bondsman of his manor of Cotleigh. The resultant inquiry heard that William had been begotten and born out of wedlock, although Strete had subsequently married the boy’s mother, Joan Kays, in the parish church of Colyton, observing all the proper ceremonies.3 CP40/665, rot. 122.

Strete made his career in the law, and from the later years of Henry IV’s reign his essentially local practice found him serving as an attorney, surety or feoffee for clients as diverse as Thomas Elys, the contumacious vicar of Poughill, the priors of Cowick and Tywardreath, fellow lawyers like William Wynard, greater gentry such as the widow of Sir William Beaumont, and also lesser landowners.4 CCR, 1405-9, p. 516; CFR, xiv. 39; CP40/615, rot. 101; CP25(1)/46/83/122; C1/17/316. Most importantly of all, by 1412 Strete had entered the service of the Courtenay earls of Devon as bailiff of the hundred of Colyton, an office which he would hold successively under Earls Edward, Hugh and Thomas. As Earl Thomas was a minor for more than a decade after his succession to the earldom in 1422, it is unlikely that his influence played any part in securing Strete’s election as one of the Members for Barnstaple in 1427. The burgesses were at this time wont to return to the Commons a combination of local men and regionally active lawyers, and it was thus probably Strete’s profession that led to his election. Strete may by this date already have established the ties within the borough that some years later, in October 1443, saw him named among the Barnstaple burgesses attesting the authenticity of an inquisition fixing the boundary between the parishes of Barnstaple and Pilton.5 C147/150. This was to be his last documented activity, and he probably died not long afterwards. His son is not known to have followed him into the Commons, but it is possible that Henry Strete†, a royal household servant to both Henry VII and Henry VIII, who secured a Plymouth seat in 1510, was a descendant of his.6 The Commons 1509-58, iii. 398-9.