KENE, John, of Devon.

Kene is not mentioned in the surviving records of Tavistock. He is perhaps to be identified with the man of this name who exported cloth from Plymouth in the in the early years of Henry IV’s reign.E122/113/2. Either the same or another John Kene was recorded three times in 1412: first, in February, when he took out a royal pardon of outlawry for failing to appear in court to answer the suit of Thomasina, widow of William Cary, for a debt of £11; then, in May, when he himself was suing Richard Bilby, a Bridport merchant, in a similar action; and lastly in June when as ‘John Kene of Devon’ he was one of a number of offenders who, with the vicar of St. Feock’s, near Truro, were excommunicated by Bishop Stafford.CPR, 1408-13, p. 332; CCR, 1409-13, p. 324; Reg. Stafford ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 313. It may well have been the MP who, with Christine his wife, had been accused in 1394 of unlawful disseisin of property in ‘Holebrook’, Devon, but the place has not been identified: JUST 1/1502 m. 142.