BEST, John (d.1560), of Westminster, Mdx.

Save for the information given above, and what can be extracted from his will, nothing has been ascertained about Best, who represented Westminster as a local man in Queen Mary’s last Parliament and Queen Elizabeth’s first. He died 8 Jan. 1560, and was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on 13 Jan. He left bequests to his wife and asked her to look after ‘little Nanne ... the little girl which was Mistress Read’s’. The overseer of the will was Richard Hodges, Best’s fellow-Member for Westminster in 1559.1Westminster Abbey reg. 3, ff. 44v, 240v; PCC 9 Mellershe; CPR, 1553-4, p. 151; 1554-5, pp. 108, 280; LP Hen. VIII, xxi(1), pp. 151-2; LCC Surv. London, xviii. 5; St. Martin-in-the-Fields: Churchwardens Accts. ed. Kitto, 134, 137, 150, 158, 179; Reg. St. Martin (Harl. Soc. Regs. xxv), 109; C142/127/22; C219/20/79, 21/98, 22/48, 49, 23/84, 85, 24/103, 104; Stowe 571, f. 6.