HOOD, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 410-11.

As in the case of Thomas Hood*, it is difficult to know whether the John Hood who appears in the records from about 1416 to the late 1450s is one man or two. Given the tendency of the borough of Leominster to return men near the beginning of their careers, it may be that only one is involved, and what follows is based on that assumption. In the subsidy returns of 1450-1, he was assessed, as resident in the hundred of Leominster, on an annual income of 40s., the minimum taxable income. Since the subsidy saw widespread evasion there is no doubt that this assessment underestimates his wealth. He was the only one of his family to be assessed, even though at least two other Hoods, William* and Walter*, were then active in Leominster affairs, and he was probably the head of the family.2 E179/117/64. Like other of its members, he was a mercer. He was described as such in 1426 when sued on a bond by Richard Winnesley*, bailiff of the abbot of Reading’s liberty of Leominster, and again in the following year when defendant in a trespass action brought by Richard de la Mare* and other local gentry. Nearly 20 years later writs of outlawry were issued against him, again as a mercer, and his kinsman, Thomas Hood, for debt.3 CP40/662, rot. 193d; 738, rot. 106d; KB27/666, rot. 62d. More significantly, on 1 Apr. 1456 he and another kinsman, William Hood, were among the Leominster men who illegally accepted the livery of (Sir) Walter Devereux I*, the leader of the Yorkist faction in the county. In Hilary 1459 he made a fine of 40s. to purge himself of this offence, and he has not been traced in the records thereafter.4 KB9/35/6; KB27/791, fines rot. 1.