John Hody

Sir John Hody was an English judge and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench

Origins

Hody was descended from a family of considerable antiquity, though of no great note, in Devon. Jordan de Hode held lands in Hode in the thirteenth century; Richard de Hody was the king's escheator of that county in 1353/4 and 1357/8; and the same office was filled by William Hody in 1400/1. The father of the chief justice was Thomas Hody, who was lord of the manor of Kington Magna, near Shaftesbury, in the adjoining county of Dorset, in 1419/20, and in the same year was king's escheator there. He married Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Cole, of Nitheway, near Torbay, in Devon, which thus became the birthplace of his children. Their elder son Alexander was a devoted partisan of the Lancastrian cause, and was attainted in the first year of Edward IV. for his adherence to Henry VI.

Career

John, the younger son, was educated as a lawyer, and is frequently mentioned in the Year Books from 1424/5. There is no record of his summons to take the degree of the coif; but from his name appearing in the legal part of the list of those who were called upon to contribute towards the equipment of the army against France in 1435/6, there is very little doubt that he was then a Serjeant; and if not then, he had certainly attained that rank before July 1439. He was returned to parliament as representative of the borough of Shaftesbury in 1419/20., and again in 1422/3, 1424/5, 1427/8 and 1436/7; and the estimation in which he stood on the latter occasion may be conceived by his being sent to the Lords with a message from the other house announcing the election of a speaker in the place of John Tyrell incapacitated by infirmity. In 1433/4 and 1439/40 he was chosen a knight of the shire for the county of Somerset; and on the death of Sir John Juyn in the latter year he was raised to the office of chief justice of the King's Bench, his patent being dated 13 April 1440. He held it not quite two years; his successor, Sir John Fortescue, being appointed on 25 January 1442. His judicial career was probably terminated by his death; for his will is dated 17 December 1441, though the precise time of its probate is not recorded.

Judicial reputation

Notwithstanding the short period during which he presided in the court, he is stated by Prince to have won golden opinions by his integrity and firmness in the administration of justice. Sir Edward Coke mentions him amongst the " famous and expert sages of the law" from whom Lyttelton had "great furtherance in composing his Institutes of the Laws of England."

Family and descendants

The judge had an estate at Stowell, in Somerset, as early as 1427/8; but he was for some time seated at Pillesden, in Dorset, which came to him, together with the manor of Whitfield in the parish of Wivilscombe, in Somerset, and other property in both counties, by his marriage with Elizabeth,daughter and heiress of John Jewe, son and heir of John Jewe, by Alice, daughter of John de Pillesden. After his death his widow married Robert Cappes, Esq., who was sheriff of Dorset and Somerset in 1445/6. She died in 1473, having had issue by her first husband five sons and several daughters.

John, the eldest son, was seated at Stowell and Nitheway, and his posterity continued there for many generations. William, the second son was chief baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Henry VII. From him sprang a branch which resided at Pillesden, and became extinct in the 18th century.

The will of the chief justice, by which it appears that his father survived him, directs his body to be buried in the church of Wolavington, in Somerset, near the body "Magistri Johannis Hody," his uncle. By the large amount of silver plate and other articles which he gives in legacies, some idea may be formed of the domestic economy of a chief justice of England in the middle of the fifteenth century.

"This article incorporates text from Foss's" Judges of England, "a publication now in the public domain."