Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Northwood, John de
NORTHWOOD or NORTHWODE, JOHN de, Baron Northwood (1254–1319), son of Roger de Northwood [q. v.], was born on 24 June 1254 (Calend. Genealogicum, i. 359). He succeeded his father in November 1285. In 1291–2 he was employed on a commission of oyer and terminer in Kent (Cal. Pat. Rolls Edw. I, 1281–92, pp. 512–13); and in 1292 and 1293 he was sheriff of that county, as also in 1300, 1305, and 1306 (Hasted, i. lxxxii). On 1 June 1294 he was summoned to attend at Portsmouth on 1 Sept. for the French war, and in 1297 for service in Flanders; on 30 July 1297 he was an assessor of the fifth in Sussex, and in 1298 was summoned for the Scottish war. On 24 Dec. 1307 and on 17 March 1308 he was appointed a conservator of the peace for Kent; in December of the same year he was justice for gaol delivery in Kent, where during this and the two following years he was a commissioner for the survey of bridges (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward II. 127, 149, 168, 254). On 18 Dec. 1309 he was nominated a justice to receive complaints of prises, and on 20 May 1311 a supervisor of array for that county. About the last-mentioned date he is spoken of as lately employed to inquire concerning forestallments in Kent, and in March 1312 was one of the justices appointed to settle the complaints of the Flemings (Cal. Close Rolls Edw. II, 1307–13, pp. 313, 451, 454; Rot. Parl. i. 357 a). Northwood was summoned to serve in Scotland in 1309, 1311, 1314, 1315, and 1318. In August 1315 he had orders to stay in the north till 1 Nov., and then to join the king at York (Parl. Writs). He was first summoned to parliament on 18 March 1313, and specifically as a baron on 23 May of the same year. After this he was regularly summoned down to 22 May 1319. On 8 June 1318 he is styled one of the ‘majores barones.’ In June 1317 Northwood and his son John were two of those deputed to receive the two cardinals coming to treat for peace between England and Scotland (Cal. Close Rolls, Edw. II, 1313–1318, p. 484). Northwood died on 26 May 1319, and his wife a week later (Hasted, i. 3, ed. Drake). By his wife Joanna, sister of Bartholomew de Badlesmere, he had six sons. Two fine brasses in Minster Church, Sheppey, probably represent Northwood and his wife, though they have also been identified with his father or with his son John and their wives; these brasses are engraved in Stothard's ‘Sepulchral Effigies,’ and in ‘Archæologia Cantiana,’ vol. ix.
John de Northwood (d. 1317), eldest son of the above, married in 1306 Agnes (d. 1348), daughter of William de Grandison; by her he had six sons, of whom two, John and Otho, were successively archdeacons of Exeter and Totnes from 1329 to 1360, during the episcopate of their uncle John de Grandison [q. v.]; William, a third, was a knight hospitaller. Roger (1307–1361), the eldest, married in 1322 Julianna (d. 1329), daughter of Sir Geoffrey de Say, and after her death had four other wives. He was summoned to parliament on 3 April 1360, and died on 6 Nov. 1361. His son John by his first wife was summoned to parliament from 1363 to 1376, and died 27 Feb. 1379. He married Joan, daughter of Robert Here of Faversham, Kent, and left a son, Roger, born in 1356. This last Roger was never summoned to parliament, and at the death of his son John in 1416 without offspring, the title fell into abeyance.
[Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 70–1; Hasted's History of Kent, I. lxxxii, 507–8, ii. 456, 624–626; Cal. of Pat. Rolls, Edw. I, 1281–92, and of Close Rolls, Edw. II, 1307–18; Rolls of Parl.; Palgrave's Parl. Writs, iv. 1232–3; Archæologia, xxxi. 270; Archæologia Cantiana, especially ii. 9–42 for a fourteenth-century account of the family, and ix. 148–62 for an account of the brasses at Minster.]