John Wadham

rdf:langString John Wadham

rdf:langString Sir John Wadham (c.1344–1412) was a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1389 to 1398, during the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), selected by the King as an assertion of his right to rule by the advice of men appointed of his own choice, and one of the many Devonians of the period described by Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England, as seemingly "innated with a genius to study law". He was MP for Exeter in 1379, and after Richard II was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV (1399–1413), Wadham was 'discharged at his own request' from being an assize judge. He became a Member of Parliament for Devon in 1401 as a knight of the shire with Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, a son of Hugh de Courtenay, 2nd/10th Earl of Devon. John Wadham 'the judge' was one of John Prince's Worthies of Devon: "All I have met with him further, is this encomium," says the Devonshire biographer, "that being free of speech, he mingled it well with discretion; so that he never touched any man how mean so ever out of order, either for sport or spight; but with alacrity of spirit and soundness of understanding managed all his proceedings." Prince points out that in this period there were five serjeants-at-law—John Cary, John Hill, Robert Hill of Shilston (Justice of the Common Pleas 1408–1423), William Hankford and John Wadham, all natives of Devon.