REDE, John I (by 1509-57), of Westminster, Mdx.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1509. m. (1) by 1531, Joan, wid. of John Trower of Westminster; (2) Alice Bentley, wid. of Richard Mody (d. Jan./Feb. 1550) of London.1

Offices Held

Keeper of the wardrobe, York Place 1530, Westminster 1533-d.2

Biography

Nothing has been discovered about John Rede’s life before 1530, when he is found acting as keeper of the wardrobe at York Place a few months after the house had come into the King’s hands by the attainder of Cardinal Wolsey; in 1533 he received a patent of appointment to the same office in the palace of Westminster and this he retained until his death.3

Having himself sat in Parliament for Westminster from 1547 to 1552, Rede was present at the Westminster election for the Parliament of March 1553 and the Middlesex and Westminster elections for the first, second and fourth Parliaments of Mary’s reign. In December 1548 he and a Hampshire gentleman received a grant of land in Hampshire and Westminster, some of which they sold two months later. In August 1553 he sent two of his servants to assert his right to a manor in Kentish Town against John Story, who had been one of his fellow-Members before being expelled. The manor was attached to a prebend at St. Paul’s and Story claimed it under a lease of the present holder, John Feckenham, Rede under a former grant by Richard Layton. Rede was removed from possession by a writ of restitution and forced to answer Story’s suits in Star Chamber and Chancery: he appears to have lost the case for he made no mention of the property in his will.4

By that will, dated 16 Sept. 1557, Rede left to his wife Alice his capital messuage, formerly the hospital of Our Lady of Rounceval, near Charing Cross, and to his nephew, Robert Rede, two tenements in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields. Robert’s three sons were to inherit four new tenements next to their father’s when they were 21, until which time the rent was to be spent on their education by Rede’s executors, his wife and William Gyes. The overseer of the will was Sir Richard Rede, whose relationship to John Rede is unknown. Rede died on 27 Sept. 1557 and was buried in St. Martin in the Fields. His widow was sued by Robert Rede for failure to pay the first instalment due to his sons, a suit which Alice Rede, ‘an aged woman’, declared vexatious, ‘whereby her days are like to be shortened’; she did die in September 1558, but not before she had been ordered to fulfil the terms of her late husband’s will and had lost another dispute over her inheritance.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Helen Miller

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Cat. Anct. Deeds, v. 514; PCC 51 Wrastley, 3 Coode.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, v, vi; PCC 51 Wrastley.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, v, vi.
  • 4. C1/1469/80; 219/20-22, 24; CPR, 1548-9, pp. 77-78, 169; St.Ch.4/4/40.
  • 5. PCC 51 Wrastley, 48 Noodes; St. Martin in the Fields, Churchwardens’ Accts., ed. Kitto, 161; Req.2/23/40, 61, 61/57.