Family and Education

m. bef. Dec. 1400, Isabel, wid. of Robert Fry of New Romney.1

Offices Held

Acting bailiff, New Romney Sept. 1396; jurat 25 Mar. 1396-8, 1400-1, 1404-6, 1407-8, 1409-10, 1414-15.2

Cinque Ports’ bailiff at Yarmouth Sept.-Nov. 1408.3

Biography

John was probably related to a namesake who had lived in New Romney in the 1360s to 1380s, and to Hugh Roger, the MP of 1373. He himself paid maltolts in Bocherye ward from 1394 to 1413.4 When a jurat in 1400 he accompanied John Ellis I* to Dover to promote business for Rye, and also to inform the lieutenant warden of the names of Romney’s Members elected for the proposed Parliament at York. In December that year he had to render an account to his stepson, Stephen Fry (whose guardianship he had received on his marriage), in respect of his paternal inheritance, and found that he owed the young man £5. In 1403 his kinsman, Henry Roger, was among those of Romney who captured at sea a cargo of wine belonging to certain Danish merchants. This was seized by royal officials, and John Roger, as the alleged recipient of a number of casks, was arrested at London on the orders of the chancellor, Bishop Beaufort, and compelled to give the Danes satisfaction. Subsequently, however, he petitioned Beaufort for a formal grant of the wine because he had involuntarily paid for it already. In 1406 or 1407 he went up to London to procure the writs necessary for enforcement of the Cinque Ports’ customary exemption from taxation.5

Roger died in office as a jurat some time between March 1414 and 1415.6

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: A. P.M. Wright

Notes

• 1. Romney assmt. bk. 2, f. 17.
• 2. Kent AO, NR/JBr/4 nos. 3, 6, 5 no. 12, 8 no. 9; C47/64/10/304; assmt. bk. 2, ff. 46, 61, 63, 66, 70, 82.
• 3. Assmt. bk. 2, f. 68.
• 4. Ibid. ff. 35-74.
• 5. Ibid. ff. 17, 51, 65; CCR, 1402-5, p. 37; SC8/254/12660.
• 6. Assmt. bk. 2, f. 82.