EVERARD, John II

With regard to Everard’s association with the prominent lawyer Robert Hill of Spaxton, mentioned in the earlier biography,10 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 45. it should be noted that in 1397 Hill and his wife leased to Everard and his wife Alice a tenement called ‘Jonetystenement’ in Spaxton, to hold for their lives in survivorship at a rent of 10s. p.a., and that eight years later Everard agreed to serve the Hills as surveyor of their estates in Somerset for the rest of his life.11 E210/4287. On the latter occasion Everard was called ‘of Pyghlegh’, which may have been Pyleigh near Taunton, or Pylle, some seven miles east of Glastonbury. Even so, and despite his continuing links with the Hills, he moved away from Somerset and into Wiltshire, and by 1415 he was living in Salisbury. He was active in the collection of parliamentary subsidies in the city later in Henry V’s reign, and beyond its walls he also came to be employed as one of the sheriff’s officers in the county.12 First General Entry Bk. nos. 143, 157, 164.

Everard regularly contributed towards loans made to the Crown by the citizens of Salisbury from 1415 to 1444,13 Ibid. 146, 169, 213, 224A, 297, 360A, 371A, 391. and frequently attended civic assemblies as a member of the council of 24. Although on 2 Nov. 1432 he paid as much as £5 to be excused from the local offices of alderman and reeve and all other posts except that of King’s serjeant, he was nevertheless elected alderman three years later, and as a reeve in 1439.14 Ibid. nos. 309, 418. During his term as reeve he provided sureties for Thomas Mogge, a cooper who made fine to be excused office in September 1440.15 Ibid. no. 354. He himself paid £3 to be exonerated from serving as mayor on 2 Nov. 1444,16 Ibid. no. 394. Only £2 appears in the accts. for 1444-5: Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury city mss, acct. rolls, G23/1/44, no. 1. and is not mentioned in the Salisbury records thereafter.17 As stated in the earlier biography, he was not the same person as John Everard of Calne. The latter stood surety for Calne’s MPs in 1437, 1442 and 1449 (Feb.), but which of the two men attested the Wilts. elections to the same Parls. is less certain: C219/15/1, 2, 6.

If he was the man of this name who was bailiff of the liberty of Amesbury priory, he retired from office soon after Easter term 1445. In the Trinity term of the same year (Sir) John Lisle II* brought a suit in the common pleas against Everard’s widow and executors for the sum of £20. As Everard was described in court as former under sheriff of Wiltshire it looks as though he had served as such during Lisle’s shrievalty of 1438-9.18 CP40/738, rot. 277.