WODEHOUSE, Robert

There is a slight irregularity in the entry of the names of Wodehouse and his fellow Newcastle-under-Lyme MP in 1426, Henry Lilie*, in the Staffordshire return. Their names, known only from an endorsement of the electoral writ, have been added in a blank left after that endorsement had been originally drafted. In that first draft the names of their sureties were noted, but not those of the MPs themselves, a further indication that, by this date, such sureties were fictitious. C219/13/4. As for Wodehouse himself, nothing is certainly known, although he was probably of a minor gentry family established at Wombourne near Wolverhampton. Significantly, the contemporary head of that family, John Wodehouse, was treasurer of war to Humphrey, earl of Stafford, in 1443. It may, therefore, be that our MP was returned as a servant of the earl, who in 1426 had but recently come of age. C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 110 n. 18; S. Shaw, Staffs. ii. 215.