WOOD, John I

The earlier biography requires some modification.7 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 891-4.

In May 1413 a John Wood was appointed clerk of the estreats at the Exchequer, a position he held until 1430,8 PRO List ‘Exchequer Officers’, 89. but it is not known whether this official was the MP or a namesake. With respect to another office, the previous biography is almost certainly wrong in stating that Wood became one of the King’s serjeants-at-law. First, the basis for this claim is the Crown’s finding of a corrody at Worcester priory for ‘the King’s serjeant’ of that name in July 1415,9 CCR, 1413-19, p. 280. but in this instance the phrase almost certainly describes a minor royal servant rather than a prominent lawyer. Secondly, no medieval John Wood features in a comprehensive modern list of all known King’s serjeants-at-law.10 Law Offs. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. vii). Finally, there is no proof that the man in question was the MP, even though the corrody was at Worcester, since those who received corrodies did not necessarily hold them in their own part of the country.

During his long career, Wood received at least two royal pardons. The first was granted to him in his capacity as the executor of his former associate, Henry Wybbe, on 3 July 1415.11 C67/37, m. 36. The second, bearing the date 10 Aug. 1452, is of particular interest, since it reveals that in fact he married four times in all. It was made out to him and his then wife, Margaret, the widow of a Herefordshire esquire.12 C67/40, m. 19. Margaret must have been Wood’s third wife, given that his second was still alive in 1443 and that his widow was named Lucy.

It was in association with his first wife, Alice, that Wood reached an agreement with the Dominicans at Worcester. In the early 1420s that house gave the couple licence to construct a door in the wall of the priory’s garden, so that they might have access to its church.13 E212/36. The nature of the grant suggests that the friars, whom he may have counted among his clients, were immediate neighbours of his in the city.

In August 1430 Wood was associated with Stephen Payn* of Horsham and John Throckmorton I* in receiving a release of land in Sussex. This transaction was probably made on behalf of Sir Hugh Cokesey* who held property in the locality and had long employed both Throckmorton and Wood in the administration of his estates.14 CAD, i. B1615, 1621; E326/1621. Through his connexion with Cokesey, Wood was able to acquire a lease for life of Sir Hugh’s share of the manor of Manningford Bruce, Wiltshire, at some stage between 1433 and the knight’s death in late 1445.15 Cat. Med. Muns. Berkeley Castle ed. Wells-Furby (Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc.), ii. 703. As for the MP’s own estates, these were considered sufficient to support the status of knighthood, an honour for which he was distrained, but did not accept, in 1439.

Following the death of Bishop Polton of Worcester in 1433, Wood was well qualified to become a guardian of the temporalities of that diocese, since the bishop had employed him as both steward and receiver. Polton had granted him a fee of £20 p.a. as steward of the episcopal estates on 1 Nov. 1426, presumably the date Wood had taken up the office, and at some stage in the period July 1427-8, Wood had attended a meeting of the guild of the Holy Cross at Warwickshire town of Stratford-on-Avon (of which the bishops of Worcester were feudal lords) in his capacity as Polton’s receiver. In addition, in 1431 Polton had appointed him and his son Thomas as joint bailiffs of his liberty of Oswaldslow hundred, an office they were to hold in survivorship.

By 1443 Wood had fallen out with John Archer of Statfold, Staffordshire, for on 1 July that year he agreed to submit their differences to arbitration. They had quarrelled over Wood’s ward and son-in-law, Thomas Gower, presumably because Archer had made a bid to secure Gower’s wardship for himself.16 Shakespeare Centre Archs., Archer mss, DR 37/2/Box 73/30; VCH Worcs. iii. 454.

In mid 1446 the Crown pardoned Wood all fines, amercements and other demands predating September 1441. It is not clear how these claims had arisen, although it is possible they related to his time as one of the guardians of the see of Worcester.17 E159/222, brevia Trin. rot. 7d.

Later in the same decade, Wood contracted a match for one of his offspring with a child of Thomas Middleton*, an esquire who held estates near Stratford-on-Avon in the right of his wife. The marriage features in an account of the Stratford guild of the Holy Cross. The account, for the year July 1448-9, neither records the exact date of the ceremony nor the names of the couple, so it is not known whether Wood’s child was a son or daughter. It does however show that the marriage took place at nearby Walton, where Middleton held a couple of manors and to where the guild’s brethren sent a gift of money to mark the occasion. The account also records that Wood afterwards rode from Walton to Stratford, where the brethren treated him to wine.18 Stratford-upon-Avon mss, BRT1/3/54. Given his cordial relations with the guild, it is likely that Wood was one of its members, as indeed were Middleton, and other gentry of the west Midlands.

In all likelihood, William Wood II*, who sat for Worcester in the Parliament of 1449, was one of the MP’s children. As his will of 1458 reveals, Wood fathered two younger sons named William by each of his first two wives, and it is worth noting that this putative son secured his seat at the only election for the city that the MP is known to have attested.19 PCC 13 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 98-100v).