RODY, John

There can be no doubt that John Rody is to be identified with the ‘Roddy’ who undertook to keep his first Christmas at Lincoln’s Inn in 1424. This is clear from his work as an attorney in the central courts and at the Warwickshire assizes, as also from his disappearance from the list of members of the Inn at about the time other evidence suggests he died.2 L. Inn Adm. i. 5. As ‘Rody’ he is named on the lists of the inn’s members for 6 Hen. VI and 13-15 Hen. VI, but not on that for 21 Hen. VI: Lincoln’s Inn, London, Black Bk. 1, ff. 13, 24, 51. Our MP was active as an attorney in the ct. of c.p. before his adm. to L. Inn: CP40/639, att. rot. 5d. In August 1435 he confirmed his father’s sale of a messuage and land in Baddesley Clinton, a few miles to the north-west of Warwick, to their kinsman, John Brome II*. In return, Brome gave him a life grant of an annual rent of 30s. payable from William’s death.3 Ferrers mss, DR/219-20, 222-3. He was alive as late as Trinity term 1441, when he was fined 50s. for failing to produce a felon for whom he had stood surety, but his wife was a widow by July 1443.4 KB27/721, fines rot. 1d; Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xviii), 2616.