Earlier today I came across the following website -
The History of Parliament. It looked a very interesting site and after I read through a few pages I went to the search box. On the off chance I added in Orlando, which is the name for my other one-name study - no hits there, but that was no surprise. I then inserted Worship.
The following is cut and pasted from that site.
The copyright of that informations remains with the History of Parliament site and is provided here as an addition to the one name study.
What is interesting is that Worplesdon is now a suburb of my home town of Guildford in Surrey, so a lovely and interesting coincidence.
Worship, John (d.1413), of Grovebury Beds. and Worplesdon Surrey
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
m. by
Mar. 1390, Joan Duylle, wid. of John Bele alias Fletcher
(fl. 1363) and Walter Galoys, s.p.
1
Offices Held
Yeoman
of the royal cuphouse by 23 May 1387;
2 usher
of the royal chamber by 22 Sept. 1395-aft. 23 Jan. 1399.
Keeper
of Guildford park, Surr. 17 July 1388-27 June 1391.
Commr.
of inquiry, Beds. Feb. 1393 (goods of a felon); kiddles June 1398; array Dec.
1399, Sept. 1403.
Sheriff,
Beds. and Bucks. 3 Nov. 1397-31 Oct. 1399.
J.p.
Beds. 12 Nov. 1397-Feb 1407.
Collector
of a tax, Beds. Mar. 1404.
Biography
Nothing
is known for certain about this MP’s family background, although he may well
have been related to Ralph Worship (b.1311), a resident of Worplesdon who, in
1351, gave evidence at a local inquest. One of the many rewards which John
subsequently received as a servant of the Crown was the farm of this very
manor, with which he possibly had quite early connexions. His career at Court
evidently began at the time of Richard II’s coronation in July 1377, although
we cannot tell what position he then held. Indeed, nothing more is heard of him
before September 1386, when he and three other of ‘the King’s servitors’ shared
the wardship of the estates, marriage and person of the young William Morewood,
whose lands were then said to be worth 40 marks a year. By the following May,
Worship had become a yeoman of the royal cuphouse, and as such received an
annuity of ten marks assigned upon the revenues of certain land in Flint.
Further preferment followed in July 1388 with the office of parker of
Guildford, a post initially granted to him by the previous occupant, Thomas
Tyle, the chief butler of England, and confirmed by King Richard a fortnight
later. This appointment again bears out the likelihood of some previous
association with Surrey, although Worship remained in office for less than
three years.
3
Worship
acquired his influence in Bedfordshire, which he represented in no less than
six Parliaments, through marriage to the twice-widowed Joan Duylle. She became
his wife in, or shortly before, March 1390, as it was then that he obtained
royal letters patent permitting him to cross to France for negotiations with
the abbess of Fontévrault, who numbered Joan among her tenants in England. Joan
and her first husband, John Bele, had leased the manor of Grovebury from the
abbess for the term of their joint lives, and Worship was anxious to secure a
similar title for himself. Either he or his proxy reached Fontévrault in the
summer of 1390, when a new lease was drawn up in his favour. He had, however,
to pay dearly for the abbess’s compliance, not only promising to assist the
local monastic cell of Grovebury (which was a dependency of Fontévrault) with
‘counsel and advice’, but also undertaking to surrender 800 francs to the
house’s agents in Paris. By then an esquire of the royal body, he found it
comparatively easy to get King Richard’s official sanction, and in the
following January his dealings with the abbess were recorded and confirmed in
Chancery on the patent roll. None the less, as the property of an alien priory,
the manor of Grovebury remained liable to confiscation by the Crown, and in
1403 Worship was summoned to appear before the royal council at Westminster to
show by what title he held it. Concern lest his tenure might again be disputed
probably lay behind his decision, in May 1411, to buy the manor outright, and
he again obtained permission to visit Fontévrault, this time to discuss a
purchase price with the abbess. There is, however, some doubt as to whether
these arrangements were completed, since at the time of the confiscation of all
the non-conventual alien religious houses in England, which occurred in 1414
after Worship’s death, the manor of Grovebury had already been granted to
Sir
John Phelip*.
4
Within
a matter of months of taking up residence in Bedfordshire, Worship became
involved in the county community. In February 1391 he joined with two of his
future parliamentary colleagues in witnessing a local deed; and in the
following July he was one of a group of landowners who stood surety for
Sir
Thomas Aylesbury*. He entered the House of Commons for the first time in
1393, a date which also marks the start of his activities in local government.
Even so, his principal interests were still at Court, and in his role as an
esquire of the royal body (if not already as usher of the chamber) he
accompanied Richard II on his first expedition to Ireland. Letters of
protection and permission to appoint attorneys in England were issued to him
together on 10 Aug. 1394; and it is interesting to note that he then entrusted his
affairs to two of his neighbours in Bedfordshire—the influential lawyer,
John
Hervy*, and a notable rentier named
Thomas Pever† (who later became one of his feoffees). Wages of 1s. a day were
paid to him for the duration of the expedition, namely from 7 Sept. 1394 to 21
Apr. 1395, throughout which he remained close about the King’s person.
5
On
his return he was dispatched to Buckinghamshire to uphold Richard’s interest in
the wardship of the late
Sir
Edmund Missenden’s* next heir, an enterprise which involved him in such
heavy personal expenses that in the following September he was given custody of
the land in question rent-free as compensation. Having thus established a
personal connexion in Buckinghamshire, Worship decided to acquire an estate of
his own there, and soon afterwards he bought the manor of Dunton from the
coheirs of the late Henry Chalfont. Although the sale was effected without a
royal licence, Worship had no difficulty in obtaining the necessary letters of
pardon, which he received in June Over the next seven years various members of
Chalfont’s family confirmed him and his wife in possession of the manor, but
since neither of them appear to have left any children, it was again put on the
market when they died.
6
On
at least three occasions during this period Worship acted as a mainpernor for
friends living in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire; and although his
appointment in November 1397 a sheriff of the two counties cannot but be seen
as yet another move by King Richard to strengthen his hand in the localities,
Worship was certainly far more than a mere placeman. His position at Court was,
no doubt, in part the reason for his election to the two Parliaments of that
year, and it also helps to account for his inclusion on the Bedfordshire
commission of the peace (issued just nine days after he became sheriff): but he
had also by then become an established figure in the area, where he seems to
have commanded support in his own right as well as in that of his royal master.
Even so, his loyalty and commitment to the court party stand out as the
dominant features of his career; and he took his seat in the second Parliament
of 1397 as one of the most implacable enemies of the Lords Appellant of 1388,
who then themselves fell victim to their own weapon, the bill of appeal. In
view of his political sympathies, it is perhaps surprising to find Worship’s
name among those who, in the summer of 1398, decided to sue out royal letters
of pardon. He probably did this as a matter of routine, although he may have
been concerned to obtain protection because of official misdemeanours as
sheriff. At all events, the King continued to hold him in great esteem, and in
January 1399 he was granted the manor of Worplesdon to hold free of rent for
the rest of his life. The award was made on the surrender of his earlier
annuity of ten marks, but since the manor then bore an approximate valuation of
between £20 and £30 p.a., his financial position still improved dramatically.
7
Because
of his duties as sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Worship did not
take part in King Richard’s second Irish expedition, which set out in the
spring of 1399, leaving the country exposed to invasion by Henry of Bolingbroke
and his supporters. With his personal fortunes so closely linked to those of
the Court, Worship needed no prompting to take up arms against the usurper, and
he hurriedly raised a force of six knights, 46 esquires and 66 archers. For
most of July he and his men remained in attendance upon the duke of York, whom
Richard had left behind asCustos Anglie, but as all hopes of effective
resistance collapsed the entire force threw in its lot with the Lancastrian
cause, and accepted Bolingbroke’s seizure as a fait accompli. The newly
crowned Henry IV was too shrewd to countenance all but the most limited
political reprisals, and Worship suffered very little through the change of
regime. Although he lost his place at Court and was removed as sheriff, he did
retain the manor of Worplesdon; and, moreover, he kept his seat on the bench.
His value as an experienced administrator was certainly never questioned, for
within a few weeks of Henry’s coronation he served on a commission of array in
Bedfordshire. In 1400 Worship obtained a writ of supersedeas halting
proceedings begun against him in the Exchequer as a result of administrative
confusion over the surrender of certain documents. He retired from public life
in 1407, the date of his last return to Parliament, and died in, or just
before, July 1413, when Sir John Phelip had taken possession of Grovebury.
8
Ref Volumes: 1386-1421
Author:
C.R.
Notes
Variants:
Wership, Wurschipp.
1.VCH
Beds. iii. 403; CPR, 1388-92, p. 361; CCR, 1389-92, p. 363.
3.CIPM,
ix. 451-2; CPR, 1385-9, pp. 220, 306-7, 493-4; 1388-92, p. 448.
4.CPR,
1388-92, pp. 234, 361; 1408-13, p. 296; CCR, 1389-92, p. 363; VCH
Beds. iii. 403;PPC, i. 199.
5.E101/402/20
mm. 37d-38; CCR, 1389-92, pp. 488, 538; CPR, 1391-6, pp. 486-7.
6.CPR,
1391-6, pp. 619, 718; VCH Bucks. iii. 349.
7.C67/30
m. 6; CCR, 1391-6, p. 479; 1396-9, p. 229; CPR, 1396-9, p.
470; CFR, xi. 204;Feudal Aids, vi. 389, 518.
8.E364/35
rot. 4; CPR, 1399-1401, p. 42; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 290; CFR, xiv.
32-33.
Source of Information
HERE
