MOODIE, Myles (1582-1647), of Ripon, Yorks.

Moodie, the son of a yeoman, belonged to an ‘ancient good family’ of Ripon, although he was the first of his line to become mayor or to represent the town in Parliament.10Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 24, f. 785; N. Yorks. RO, DC/RIC II 8/7/1-4 (Lists of Ripon Wakemen and Mayors, 1400-1613); Ripon Millenary ed. Harrison, ii. 54. Described as ‘a gentleman of great learning’, he was probably educated privately, there being no record of his attending a university or any of the inns of court.11T. Gent, History of Ripon (1733), 149. His main residence seems to have been Magdalens mansion house, which he leased – as had his father – from the hospital of St Mary Magdalene in Ripon.12E134/16&17CHAS1/HIL14. He entered Ripon corporation in 1622, a year before the death of his father-in-law Alderman William Fawcett, who had served as mayor in 1607.13Ripon Millenary ed. Harrison, ii. 37, 46. Moodie’s estate was relatively modest compared with that of most Yorkshire parliament-men – his most important asset being the lease of the lands belonging to St Mary Magdalene hospital, which he had inherited from his father.14E134/16&17CHAS1/HIL14. The hospital’s rents amounted to about £140 a year, of which Moodie took the lion’s share, the remainder going to the hospital’s master and its handful of pensioners.15E134/14CHAS1/EAST33; E134/17CHAS1/EAST6. In about 1622, his title to the lands was challenged and he became embroiled in a series of costly lawsuits.16E134/13CHAS1/MICH50; E134/13&14CHAS1/HIL2; E134/14CHAS1/EAST32; E134/14CHAS1/EAST33; E134/16&17CHAS1/HIL14; E134/17CHAS1/EAST6. He claimed in 1637 that he had lost £900 defending suits brought against him in the court of requests, the court of common pleas and in chancery and exchequer. According to one deponent, Moodie was

greatly impoverished by the said suits ... and by reason that the complainant did so scandalise the defendant’s title ... that diverse persons ... did refuse to make bargains with the said defendant or hazard moneys for a fine for grounds belonging to the said hospital by reason of the said suits. And it is generally thought that the defendant was almost utterly beggared and undone by reason of the said suits in law and the scandalising of his title.17E134/13CHAS1/MICH50.

Moodie was able to recoup some of his losses by acting as solicitor to his tenants, who were also required to defend their title to the disputed lands and who paid up to £50 a term for Moodie’s services.18E134/13&14CHAS1/HIL2. Indeed, some of the deponents claimed that Moodie had actually prolonged the conflict for his own advantage.19E134/13&14CHAS1/HIL2; E134/14CHAS1/EAST32. The dispute dragged on until at least 1642 and its precise outcome is not known, although it would appear that Moodie managed to retain most of the disputed lands in and about Ripon, although he may have lost those further afield at Studley and Ilton.20E134/13&14CHAS1/HIL2; E134/17CHAS1/EAST6; E125/22, f. 387v. At some point before 1642, Moodie is said to have rebuilt Ripon deanery, although this may be apocryphal.21Mems. of the Church of SS Peter and Wilfrid, Ripon ed. J.T. Fowler (Surt. Soc. lxxviii), 262.

Moodie remained in Ripon during the civil war, when, for much of the time, the town was in the hands of the royalists. He regularly attended corporation meetings, serving his third term as mayor in 1643-4.22N. Yorks. RO, DC/RIC II 1/1/2, p. 347. One of Ripon’s aldermen was removed in 1644 by order of the earl of Newcastle, the commander of the king’s northern army, which suggests that Moodie himself was regarded as conformable by the royalists.23N. Yorks. RO, DC/RIC II 1/1/2, p. 383. In November 1645, he and a local landowner, Sir Charles Egerton, were elected ‘recruiters’ for Ripon in place of William and Sir John Mallory, who had both been disabled for their royalism.24C219/43/3/122. Moodie was presumably returned on the corporation interest. But if he had indeed taken his seat in the House shortly after his election, as one newsbook reported, there is no evidence that he remained at Westminster for very long thereafter; he certainly attended Ripon corporation meetings regularly throughout 1646.25Perfect Occurrences no. 48 (14-21 Nov. 1645), sig. Bb4v (E.266.20); N. Yorks. RO, DC/RIC II 1/1/2, pp. 390-407.

On 17 February 1647, Moodie was granted leave by the House, being ‘indisposed in health’, and died less than a month later and was buried at St Margaret’s, Westminster on 12 March.26CJ v. 90a; Mems. St Margaret’s Church Westminster ed. Burke, 614. He made a nuncupative will in which he left all his estate to his only surviving son, Christopher.27PROB11/200, ff. 41v-42. During a chancery dispute in 1670, concerning, once again, title to the lands that Moodie had leased from St Mary Magdalene’s hospital, it was claimed that his will had been suppressed by Christopher, who having proved ‘very undutiful, untoward and debauched’, had been disinherited by his father.28C10/159/70. Moodie was the first and last of his family to sit in Parliament.