Sir John Southcote (1510/11–1585) was an English judge and politician.

Life

He was the second son of William Southcote and his wife Alice Tregonnell, and grandson of Nicholas Southcote of

Chudleigh Chudleigh () is an ancient wool town located within the Teignbridge District Council area of Devon, England between Newton Abbot and Exeter. The electoral ward with the same name had a population of 6,125 at the 2011 census. Geography Chud ...

, Devon. He was a member of the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's I ...

, where he was autumn reader in 1556, and again on his call to the degree of

serjeant-at-law A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (''servientes ad legem''), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are wri ...

, April 1559. In 1553 he sat in Parliament for , and then . Southcote was made justice of the Queen's Bench on 10 February 1563. He sat with Chief-justice Sir Robert Catlin on the trial (9 February 1572) of Robert Hickford, a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk, indicted for adhering to the queen's enemies; and as assessor to the peers on the trial of

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, ( Kenninghall, Norfolk, 10 March 1536Tower Hill, London, 2 June 1572) was an English nobleman and politician. Although from a family with strong Roman Catholic leanings, he was raised a Protestant. He was ...

. He took part in the conference of November–December 1577 on the legal method of dealing with

recusant Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

s. In May 1584 Southcote retired and was succeeded by

John Clench John Clench (c. 1535 - 1607) was an English judge, a Serjeant-at-Law, Baron of the Exchequer and Justice of the Queen's Bench, of the late Tudor period. He established his family in south-east Suffolk, in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, where fo ...

. He died on 18 April 1585.

Family

St Nicholas, Witham, Essex - Tomb chest - geograph

With his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Robins, alderman of London, Southcote had a son John and two daughters. His remains were interred in the church of

Witham Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Che ...

, Essex, near his seat. While Southcote conformed to the Elizabethan settlement of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

, his children were Catholic

s. His son John is known to have attended mass. His daughter Martha married

Francis Stonor Francis may refer to: People * Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome * Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places *Rural ...

(1551–1625), Member of Parliament for . His daughter Ann(e) married Francis Curson of

Waterperry Waterperry is a village beside the River Thame, about east of Oxford in Oxfordshire and close to the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin is partly Saxon and has notable medieval sta ...

: she sheltered

John Gerard John Gerard (also John Gerarde, c. 1545–1612) was an English herbalist with a large garden in Holborn, now part of London. His 1,484-page illustrated ''Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes'', first published in 1597, became a popular gar ...

in the periods 1589–1595 and 1597–1605. A descendant, George Southcote of Blyborough, Lincolnshire, became Sir George Southcote, 1st Baronet on 1 January 1662. The baronetcy became extinct in 1691. A great-great-grandson of the judge, Sir Edward Southcote of Witham Place, wrote a family memoir that was published in the 19th century. His descent was via John (died 1637), son of the judge, who married Magdalen Walgrave; their son Edward who married Elizabeth Seaborne; their son Sir John who married Elizabeth, daughter of

Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar Walter Aston, 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar (6 April 1609 – 23 April 1678) was the second and eldest surviving son of Walter Aston, 1st Lord Aston of Forfar, and Gertrude Sadleir, daughter of Sir Thomas Sadleir of Standon, Hertfordshire, and his s ...

. He himself married Juliana Tyrwhitt, daughter of

Sir Philip Tyrwhitt, 4th Baronet ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

Coat of arms

Notes

External links

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Southcote, John 1585 deaths English barristers Serjeants-at-law (England) People from Witham 16th-century English judges English MPs 1553 (Mary I) Year of birth uncertain

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...