WOOD, Robert II

First heard of as a witness to a conveyance of property at Oxford in March 1426,7 Med. Archs. Christ Church (Oxf. Historical Soc. xcii), 211. Wood was perhaps a relative of the John atte Wode who had served as one of the town’s bailiffs in 1417-19.8 Wood’s Surv. Antiqs. Oxf. iii. 260. He usually features in the records as a ‘brewer’, although brewing was not his only commercial activity. His properties included a ‘dye-howse’ and, by the end of his life, he was a ‘merchant’ as well.9 Top. Oxon. c. 400, f. 10; CP40/799, rot. 299. It is not possible to prove that he was also the Robert Wood of Oxford, ‘glover alias yeoman’, who received a royal pardon in Aug. 1446, probably after committing some felony: C67/39, m. 27; KB27/743, rex rot. 18d. In the summer of 1434, Wood and other brewers swore to observe a decree that the chancellor of Oxford university, who exercised the assize of bread and ale in the town, issued for the regulation of their trade.10 Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. xciii), 8-10. On subsequent occasions, however, he stood accused of breaching the assize, and an inquest of March 1450 found that Wood, Thomas Wythigg* and other brewers were producing beer which was both weak and unfit for human consumption (corpori humano insalubrem), to the detriment of the university and the town. The inquest also found that they had reacted to a previous attempt to bring them to book, by refusing to do business with the university’s halls.11 Ibid. 63-64, 179-80. Whatever the quality of his beer, Wood was undoubtedly a successful and wealthy man of business, with the means to acquire the papal indult of plenary indulgence granted to him and his wife in March 1442.12 CPL, ix. 305.

Early in his career, if not beyond, Wood lived in the parish of St. Thomas the Martyr in North Osney, and he acquired a 99-year lease of land and a garden there from the abbot of Rewley in February 1431.13 Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/40. He was nevertheless more closely associated with Osney abbey, the largest landowner in Oxford. His otherwise unknown father was buried in its church,14 Top. Oxon. c. 400, f. 10. and he himself was one of its tenants. Among the properties he held of the abbot of Osney was the tenement of ‘Bokebynders’, also situated the parish of St. Thomas the Martyr. In September 1436, the abbey leased it out to him, his wife, their son William and daughters Juliana and Alice in survivorship, again for a term of 99 years.15 Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. 392-3. Elsewhere in Oxford, Wood acquired a shop off the Cornmarket and various messuages and tenements in St. Ebbe’s, All Saints’ and other parishes.16 Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxviii), 91; Top. Oxon. c. 400, ff. 7, 10; Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/11; Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xci), 242, 244, 247, 256, 265, 270, 298. He held several of these properties of Osney abbey; but for others he paid rents to St. John’s hospital and University College.17 Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxix), 264; Acct. Rolls Univ. Coll. Oxf. i (Oxf. Historical Soc. n.s. xxxix), 565 and n, 575, 582, 623, 639, 647. In November 1457 the prioress of Littlemore granted a lease of a meadow ‘behind Osney’ to him, his wife and son Thomas for 13s. 4d. p.a. The lease was to them in survivorship, but Thomas would grant away what remained of his interest in it in the late 1480s.18 Oxon. RO, PAR189/10/1D/43, 44.

For many years, Wood had plenty of time to attend to his property and other business interests since he did not hold any position in the municipal hierarchy before the early 1440s. Perhaps this was due to an initial reluctance to accept the burdens of office, for after serving a term as bailiff he obtained letters patent excusing him from any office or jury service in the future.19 CPR, 1441-6, p. 242. Dated 21 Feb. 1444, his exemption was for life but, in practice, it proved relatively short-lived because in 1448 he was one of several Oxford burgesses summoned to act as jurors in a suit brought before the King’s justices at Westminster.20 Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, ii. 387. In any case, he was unable to avoid other responsibilities in the meantime. In early 1447, he appraised goods on behalf of the chancellor of Oxford university,21 Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i. 216-17. and on several occasions in the late 1440s and early 1450s he acted as an arbitrator and umpire in disputes coming before the chancellor’s court.22 Ibid. 178, 195, 234. By the autumn of 1448, Wood held the position of alderman, in which capacity he put his name to the ordinances the town passed in October that year to regulate the election of its officials.23 Munimenta Civitatis Oxonie, 211. The following decade saw confirmation of his prominent position in the town, since during it he served no fewer than six consecutive terms as mayor of Oxford. One of his main achievements as mayor was an agreement reached with the university in February 1459 over the respective jurisdictional rights of it and the corporation regarding pleas heard at Oxford.24 Epistolae Academicae Oxon. ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xxxvi), 343. Wood’s first Parliament partly coincided with his first term as mayor. Its summoning marked the recovery of the royal court from the political crises of the early 1450s, and the Commons included a significant number of Household men. His second, that of 1460, proved a stark contrast since it met while the Yorkists controlled the government and it recognized Richard, duke of York, as heir to the throne.

Wood appears to have died not long after leaving the Commons for the last time, probably in the late spring of 1461. In his will, originally drawn up in August 1448, but revised or amended on 10 Aug. 1460 and again on 28 May 1461,25 Top. Oxon. c. 400, f. 10. he chose to be buried beside his father in the abbey church at Osney. In return for the monks’ prayers, he assigned 20d. to every priest of the abbey and 10d. to each of its novices. He also directed that a priest should sing for the souls of himself, Cecily Herberfeld (widow of a former burgess, William Herberfeld*) and all his benefactors in the Oxford parish church of St. Martin for a period of three years. Three members of Wood’s immediate family, his wife Joan, son Thomas and daughter Juliana, feature in the will, but his two other children, William and Alice, are not mentioned, presumably because they had predeceased him.26 The MP’s relationship, if any, with Edward Wood, mayor of Oxford in 1488-9, is not known. Wood provided for Joan by awarding her his brewhouse and several houses in the parishes of St. Ebbe and St. Thomas, all of which she was to hold for life. After her death, his son was to succeed to the St. Ebbe properties and his daughter to the brewhouse and a house in St. Thomas’s, although Juliana was to take immediate possession of the brewhouse if Joan remarried. To provide for his son while Joan was still alive, Wood directed that Thomas should have his dye house immediately after his death. He also left him £10 in money, a standing cup of silver and a baselard decorated with silver. Wood appointed four executors, his wife, son, daughter and Master John Corkker, and he asked Master William Rede, vicar of St. Mary Magdalen and a former preacher of the university, to act as his overseer. Finally, he left the oversight of a shop and £10 to his servant, Edward Wodward†, probably the man who would sit for Oxford in the Parliament of 1491, and £5 to Robert, ‘prior of Oxford’, perhaps Robert Downham, prior of St. Frideswide’s.27 Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1560; VCH Oxon. ii. 100. The surviving copy of the will bears no date of probate but Wood is not heard of after 1461.