BICKLEY, John, of Huntingdon.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

m. 1da.1

Offices Held

Bailiff, Huntingdon Mich. 1425-7, 1428-9.2

Biography

Bickley first appears in May 1413, when he agreed to stand surety for Robert Peck II (his colleague in the Parliament of 1415) as farmer of the castle and honour of Huntingdon, a service which he repeated in the following year when Peck ran into trouble over the terms of the lease. Although he himself sat only twice in the Commons, Bickley attended at least seven of the parliamentary elections held in Huntingdon between 1414 (Nov.) and 1427. Most of his activities as a witness and trustee were naturally confined to the borough and its environs. In January 1426, for example, he was a party to a conveyance of land made by John Colles*, in whose convoluted affairs he evidently played an important part. Six years later, Colles obtained a release from him of a garden in the parish of St. John, Huntingdon, presumably in accordance with the terms of a preexisting trust. But occasionally Bickley had dealings elsewhere, as in 1421, the date of his involvement in the property transactions of William Walkern of Wallington in Hertfordshire.3

Not much is known of Bickley’s domestic circumstances, save that he left at least one daughter, Isabel, who by 1456, long after his death, was married to Thomas Fraunceys, a Cambridgeshire gentleman.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

Variants: Bekeley, Bykele.

  • 1. Add. Ch. 33564.
  • 2. Add. Chs. 33533, 33536, 33538.
  • 3. CFR, xiv. 18, 79; CCR, 1419-22, p. 251; Add. Chs. 33533-4, 33539.
  • 4. Add. Ch. 33564.