♂John Rody

John Rody (died before 11 October 1360), written John le Rodye in the one record that names him, was a fourteenth-century Englishman, the father of William Rody of Warwick, who acquired a house at Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire. He was the 19th great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son William Rody.

John is known only through his son. On 11 October 1360 Philip, son and heir of the late Sir Roger de Chetewynde, granted a house at Baddesley Clinton to “William le Rodye of Warr’ son and heir of the late John le Rodye”, so by then John had died and William had succeeded him as his heir. The records give neither his birth nor the name of his wife.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son William Rody, William’s son Thomas Rody and Thomas’s daughter and heiress Joane Rody, who married John Brome of Warwick, and on to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line comes down to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

The 1360 grant

The grant of 11 October 1360 survives among the papers of the Ferrers family of Baddesley Clinton at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon (DR 3/99), endorsed “Carta Philippi Chetewynd facta Willelmo Rody”. It is the only record that names John, and it names him as already dead.

A generation too many in the printed accounts

Henry Norris’s history of Baddesley Clinton (1897, p. 21), and James William Hawes, Edmond Hawes of Yarmouth (1914, p. 91), following him, begin the family with John le Rody, whose “son and heir was William Rodye of Warwick, who had two sons John and William”, and they place the man who received the 1360 grant a generation below John. The deed itself calls that man John’s own son and heir, and the deed is followed here. Norris’s two sons, John and William, are most likely the sons William and John of the 1369 settlement of the Baddesley Clinton house, set one generation too early.

A Warwick tenement in 1349

A deed of 1349 (Warwickshire County Record Office, CR 237/410/14) mentions a tenement in Crostreet, Warwick, “formerly of John Rodye”, together with arable land in the field of la Lee, the same La Lee by Warwick over which William Rody dealt with Bordesley Abbey about 1353. It may refer to this John, but nothing in it proves that it does.