Family and Education

b. 1487/90, 1st s. of John Bozom of Whissonsett by Eleanor, da. of Sir Edward Woodhouse of Kimberley, wid. of Edmund Hastings (d.1487). m. by 1520, Elizabeth Rouncerey of Brittany, at least 1s. 3da. suc. fa. 8 Feb. 1490.2

Offices Held

Biography

John Bozom’s ancestors had held the manor of Whissonsett since the reign of Edward I. None of them is known to have sat in Parliament, although several men of their name from other shires had done so, and Bozom’s sole appearance there is his only recorded intervention in public affairs. Two connexions probably explain his election in 1523. His mesne lord at Whissonsett was Robert Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter and later 1st Earl of Sussex, the principal landowner around the Essex borough of Maldon and a wielder of patronage there; Bozom’s dependence on Radcliffe, as ward, tenant and follower, may have included service in the campaign of 1513 and hence the opportunity to find his French wife. Bozom was also the stepson of Thomas Cressener, himself a client of Radcliffe and almost certainly one of the Members for Maldon in 1512. Bozom’s election was immediately followed by his admission to the freedom of the borough, to which he had owed suit of court since at least 1518, and it was presumably as a freeman that he received a parliamentary wage, being the only Member for Maldon known to have been paid at this period: even so, the 40s. and the dinner costing 2s.4d. given him fell far short of the £10 due to him at the statutory rate.3

Bozom engaged in a number of land transactions, both on his own account and as a feoffee for the 1st Earl of Sussex: Whissonsett he first conveyed to his wife but later resumed, probably after her death. He is not mentioned in the will of either the 1st or 2nd Earl of Sussex, but in 1544 he and his family received small bequests from his mother. He is not known to have made a will himself, and as he held no land in chief there is no inquisition. He died between 1557, when he appears as party to a deed, and 1567, when his son Robert appears as lord of the manor of Whissonsett.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: D. F. Coros

Notes

• 1. Essex RO, D/B3/1/2, f. 98v.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from death of mother’s first husband and death of father. Norf. Arch. xxii. 104; G. A. Carthew, Hundred of Launditch, i. 276-7, bet. pp. 278 and 9; Essex RO, D/B3/1/2, f. 98v.
• 3. Carthew, i. 248, 250-2; Blomefield, Norf. x. 81-83; Essex RO, D/B3/1/2, f. 162v, 3/64, 229.
• 4. Carthew, i. 252, 259-61; ii. 511; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. ed. Reaney and Fitch, 203; LP Hen. VIII, xviii; Blomefield, ix. 373, 401; Norf. Arch. xxii. 105-6; A. H. Smith, County and Ct. 202.