BEST, John (d.1560), of Westminster, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

?s. of John Best, yeoman, of Westminster. m. Thomasin (d.1575), wid. of one Clare, s.p.

Offices Held

Churchwarden, St. Martin-in-the-Fields 1550-2; commr. sewers, Mdx. 1554.

Biography

Save for the information given above, and what can be extracted from his will, nothing has been ascertained about Best, who represented Westminster as a local man in Queen Mary’s last Parliament and Queen Elizabeth’s first. He died 8 Jan. 1560, and was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on 13 Jan. He left bequests to his wife and asked her to look after ‘little Nanne ... the little girl which was Mistress Read’s’. The overseer of the will was Richard Hodges, Best’s fellow-Member for Westminster in 1559.

Westminster Abbey reg. 3, ff. 44v, 240v; PCC 9 Mellershe; CPR, 1553-4, p. 151; 1554-5, pp. 108, 280; LP Hen. VIII, xxi(1), pp. 151-2; LCC Surv. London, xviii. 5; St. Martin-in-the-Fields: Churchwardens Accts. ed. Kitto, 134, 137, 150, 158, 179; Reg. St. Martin (Harl. Soc. Regs. xxv), 109; C142/127/22; C219/20/79, 21/98, 22/48, 49, 23/84, 85, 24/103, 104; Stowe 571, f. 6.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes