Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cary, John (d.1395?)
CARY, JOHN (d. 1395?), judge, son of Sir John Cary, knight, bailiff of the forest of Selwood in Wiltshire, knight of the shire for Devon in 1362 and 1368, who died in 1371, by Jane, daughter of Sir Guy de Brien, knight, was put into commission as warden of the ports for Devonshire in 1373, and was made commissioner of array three years later. He was commanded by the king in 1383 to take the rank of serjeant-at-law, but refused. Three years later (5 Nov. 1386) he was created chief baron of the exchequer. In 1387–8 he underwent impeachment for having answered, in a sense favourable to the king, the interrogatories addressed to the judges at Nottingham in the preceding August, relative to the action of the parliament in dismissing Michael de la Pole, and vesting the supreme power in a council of nobles [see Bealknap, Sir Robert]. He was condemned to death, but the sentence having been commuted for one of banishment, he was transported to Waterford and confined within a circuit of two miles round the city, but was otherwise permitted to live at his own will, being allowed a pension of 20l. per annum for maintenance. He died about 1395 or 1396. His estates at Torrington and Cockington, which had been confiscated, were restored to his son, probably in 1402. By his wife, Margaret, daughter of Robert Holway of Holway in Devonshire, he had two sons, Robert (now represented by Robert Shedden Sulyarde Cary of Torr Abbey, Torquay) and John, sometime bishop of Exeter. The family has given origin to three peerages, of which one, held by Viscount Falkland, baron Hunsdon (b. 1803), is still extant.
[Cal. Inq. P.M. iii. 196, 308; Abbrev. Rot. Orig. ii. 281, 317, 323; Devon's Issues of the Exch. (Hen. III–Hen. VI), p. 236; Willis's Not. Parl. ii. 251; Foss's Lives of Judges; Rymer's Fœd. (ed. Clarke), iii. pt. ii. 976, 1046; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 53; Hist. Angl. Script. Decem. Col. 2727; Cobbett's State Trials, i. 119–20; Rot. Parl. iii. 484.]