MODY, Edmund (by 1507-52), of Dover, Kent.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1545

Family and Education

b. by 1507. m. Margery, at least 1s.2

Offices Held

Capt. Black Bulwark, Dover Sept. 1534; jurat, Dover 1543, bailiff 1543-d.3

Biography

Edmund Mody was appointed captain of the newly constructed Black Bulwark at Dover in 1534, six years after his first appearance as a foot soldier in the service of the crown. In July 1537 he was granted the reversion to the bailiffship of Dover and in 1543 he succeeded to this crown office on the death of Thomas Vaughan. In the same year he was admitted to the freedom of Dover and obtained property in the town’s Snargate and Werston wards. In 1546 he was granted an annuity of £20.4

Mody’s fellow-Member in the Parliament of 1545, John Warren, also had connexions with Dover castle. Mody set off for the first session on 14 Nov. 1545, nine days early and five days before Warren, receiving 26s.8d. on his departure. The session ended on 24 Dec. and Mody and Warren shared wages of £7 16s. for 39 days at the rate of 2s. a day each and a further £1 11s. to cover their expenses—4s. to the clerk of the crown, 4s. to the serjeant, 8s. for penning the proviso excluding the Cinque Ports from the provisions of the Subsidy Act (37 Hen. VIII, c.25), 10s. ‘to the King’s attorney for preferring the same’ and 5s. to the clerk of the Parliaments. Mody was paid 40s. after the second session which lasted from 14 Jan. to 31 Jan. 1547. In the following month he attended the coronation of Edward VI as one of Dover’s representatives and in 1550 he made his only appearance at the Brotherhood of the Cinque Ports.5

Mody died on 28 May 1552, four days after making his will in which he asked to be buried in St. Mary’s, Dover, ‘in a chancel where the aldermen do sit’, and left small bequests to the lieutenant and other officers of Dover castle. The residue of all his goods, his leases and his share of a ship called the Christopher he left to his wife on whose death the leases were to pass to his son Christopher. He named his wife and son executors and the lieutenant, John Monninges, overseer. He was succeeded as bailiff of Dover by his deputy Thomas Portway.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. Add. 29618, f. 392v; Egerton 2093, f. 218.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Canterbury prob. reg. C25, f. 1.
  • 3. Add. 29618, f. 343; LP Hen. VIII, xii.
  • 4. LP Hen. VIII, v, xiii-xviii, xx, xxi; APC, iii. 182-3; Egerton 2093, f. 208v; S. P. H. Staham, Dover Chs. 349-51.
  • 5. Add. 29618, ff. 392v, 393; Dover accts. 1547-58, ff. 24v, 25; Cinque Ports White and Black Bks. (Kent Arch. Soc. recs. br. xix), 242.
  • 6. Egerton 2094, f. 51; Canterbury prob. reg. C25, f. 1.