STODART, Hugh

Stodart’s appointment as a tax collector in the county was an unusual one for a Leominster MP, but there is no reason to doubt that he was a resident of the borough. He shares the obscurity of the borough’s MPs, and his appearances in the records are few. In 1448 he sued a writ of trespass in the court of King’s bench against two local husbandmen, and in 1463 he himself was defendant in a trespass brought by another Leominster townsman, Henry Hakeluyt. In this later action he is described as a butcher.1 CFR, xvii. 219; KB27/750, rot. 43; 752, rot. 47d; 808, rot. 57d. The indenture for his election is lost, but he is identified as an MP by the endorsement of the electoral writ.2 C219/16/5. He was no doubt a close kinsman of William Stodart, who joined him in attesting the Leominster indentures of 1442 and 1447 and was constable of Leominster in 1453, and of Nicholas Stodart, who served in the retinue of Thomas de la Hay in the ill-fated French campaign of 1443.3 C219/15/2, 4; KB9/35/10; E101/54/5.