Sir John Hende, Lord Mayor of London

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hende-3

John Hende was A citizen of London, as a draper. Sheriff of London in 1381 and Lord mayor of London in 1391 and 1404. He died 1 August 1418 and was buried at Bradwell by Coggeshall. He had a PCC will which survives. His IPM also survives and can be seen online.[1]

He was one of the wealthiest men in England in his time as shown by his great lendings to the cash strapped kings of his period.[2]

He was obviously a friend of Geoffrey Chaucer, who went surety for Hende in a court case where Hende was against the court itself. Hende's family was, says a book about Chaucer, "like Chaucer's own, of property, wealth, trade and gentry, with close relationships to the court and learned professions". He appears to have had "Lancastrian" leanings in English politics, meaning he was of the party of John of Gaunt, and came into trouble with Richard II at one point.[3]

John Hende had no less than two sons both named John, at least one of whom was a Sherriff of Essex. The eldest one had a daughter Joan, who married Walter Writtle Esq.

It is because Joan had no heir, that we know from the claims then made that John Hende (this profile) had the following other relatives:

• A sister Amicia, who had married William Andrews Esq. and their daughter married John Bassett Esq. of Great Chisull.
• A daughter Alice, who had married Robert de Laynham and had a daughter with him named Millicent, who had in turn married John Smith of the Cressing Temple family.

Ashdown Hill says that John's father was also named John and that his mother was possibly named Elizabeth. He names his two wives as:

• Katherine (maiden name unknown), widow of Thomas Baynarde of Suffolk.
• Elizabeth Norbury, daughter of Sir John Norbury I of Norbury, Cheshire, Treasurer of England.

Ashdown Hill writes that...

]"thanks to her father’s business connections, in about 1408, Elizabeth, who was then probably about fifteen years of age, was married to the much older but very wealthy widower, John Hende II, draper and past mayor (1391-92 and 1404-05). John was probably aged about fifty-eight at the time of the marriage, and seems to have had no surviving sons by his previous wife, Katharine Baynarde, whom he had married in about 1380. Elizabeth, however, bore John two sons, one in 1409 and one in 1412. Both were christened ‘John’ after their father, and they were later known as ‘John the elder’ and ‘'John the younger’ respectively

Bradwell Hall in 17 Richard II. was possessed by Sir John Hende or Hinde, " a very rich man," Alderman of London, Sheriff 1381, and Lord Mayor 1391 and 1404. His benefactions to Coggeshall Abbey procured that house to celebrate his obit with all the solemnity and gratitude due to a founder Sir John died 1st August, 1418, leaving two sons, both named John. The elder, then aged nine, died in 1461, leaving an only daughter, Joan, who was heiress to both brothers. The descendants of Joan (by her marriage to Walter Writtel, of Bobbingworth) failing, the Hende estates reverted to John Bassett, who had married the daughter of Sir John Hende's sister Amicia. Gregory Bassett, John's son, at his death in 1528, left a daughter Dorothy, aged one year, the inheritor of large estates. The wardship of this infant heiress being obtained by Thomas Bonham, of Kent, he secured her marriage "very young " to his son Robert ; after whose death, Dorothy married, as her second husband, Anthony Maxey, of Great Saling Hall.

Source: "Essex Review"

John Hende, Lord Mayor of London. He died in 1418, and his widow, Elizabeth, married Ralph Boteler (Butler), KG.

References

• 'Lady Eleanor Talbot's Other Husband: Sir Thomas Butler, Heir of Sudeley, and his Family' (The Ricardian, Volume XIV, 2004, pp. 62-81): by John Ashdown-Hill PDF
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Boteler,_1st_Baron_Sudeley
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hende-3