John Hody

Sir John Hody (died 1441) was an English judge and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench

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, who died on 16 May 1461 was a devoted partisan of the Lancastrian cause, and was attainted in the first year of Edward IV. for his adherence to Henry VI.

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 on account of the fact that his name appeared 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 by then a Serjeant, or if not then, he had certainly attained that rank before July 1439.

He was elected to parliament as representative of the borough of Shaftesbury in 1421 and again in 1422, 1423, 1425 and 1427. In 1431 he was chosen a knight of the shire (MP) for Dorset and in 1433, 1435 and 1437 a knight of the shire for the county of Somerset. 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 House of Commons announcing the election of a new speaker in the place of John Tyrell, who was incapacitated by infirmity.

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