Phelip came from a Suffolk family of no very great local importance,
Nothing is known about Phelip’s first marriage, although his wife may have come from the wealthy Botetourt family. Being a younger son, he could not expect to inherit much land from his parents and, as a consequence, after his first wife’s death he sought a lucrative match. This came his way in about 1409, when he won the hand of Maud Cokesey, the widow of an affluent Worcestershire landowner, who brought him her dower interests not only in that county but also in Buckinghamshire and Cheshire. Ownership of these estates enabled Phelip to become a j.p. in Worcestershire in 1410. The appointment was made while Parliament was in session, and it is quite likely that Phelip was then a Member of the Commons (although the loss of the Worcestershire returns makes this uncertain), for he had been named by Bishop Peverel of Worcester to act there as his proxy, and in January 1410, during the first session, he took out a royal pardon for all trespasses and felonies committed before the previous April. Without doubt the prince of Wales would have welcomed his support in the House at a time when he and his allies, the Beauforts, were strengthening their control over the government. In November 1411 Phelip was serving as a captain in the English army sent by the prince to France under the command of Thomas, earl of Arundel, and after this force had triumphantly succeeded in helping the Burgundians recapture the bridge at St. Cloud, he was specially commended by the French chroniclers. Among Phelip’s private transactions in these years was the acquisition (in January 1413) of a papal licence for a portable altar, and the purchase of the reversion of the manor of West Greenwich (Kent). Those assisting him in the latter business included four lawyers: John Wood I, Thomas Belne and John Throckmorton from Worcestershire, and Thomas Derham from Norfolk, all of whose careers were to benefit from their association with him.
The accession to the throne of Phelip’s patron, Prince Henry, in March 1413 was the signal for his sudden rise to prominence: and that he was one of the new King’s personal comrades is confirmed by his monumental brass which records how ‘Henricus Quintus dilexerat hunc ut amicus’. Both he and his brother were knighted on the eve of the coronation, and were promptly made ‘King’s knights’; indeed, Sir John became one of the select group of nine knights of the Chamber. He was elected to Henry’s first Parliament in May, and in the course of the next few months favours were showered upon him. The most important of these was the grant in July of the keeping of the estates of the alien priory of Grovebury in Leighton Buzzard (Bedfordshire) for life rent-free, for these estates were situated in eight counties and were valued as highly as 400 marks a year. Furthermore, Phelip was permitted to travel to France to treat with the abbess of the mother house of Fontévrault for the outright purchase of the same, although this may not have proved necessary, for a year later all alien priory estates were confiscated by the Crown, and the generous royal grant to Phelip was then extended to apply to his issue. Another concession was a licence for Edmund, earl of March, to award him, again for life, certain lands and rents in Bromsgrove and Norton, Worcestershire. Moreover, in November 1413 he and his wife, Maud, and any children they might have, had been granted the remainder (on the death of his uncle Erpingham) of the valuable manors of Wadley and Wicklesham, in Berkshire. Maud died shortly before September 1414, whereupon Phelip was permitted to retain possession of two of her manors in Cheshire, worth £40 p.a., during the minority of his stepson, Hugh Cokesey.
It was then that Phelip married Alice, the only daughter of the King’s chief butler, Thomas Chaucer, one of the wealthiest commoners in the country and shortly to be elected Speaker for the fourth time. Alice was still no more than a child, but Chaucer’s feoffees immediately settled on her and her husband the castle and manor of Donnington (Berkshire), along with other substantial holdings in the neighbourhood, while Sir John in his turn arranged that his new wife should have as her jointure the rich Grovebury estate. Together, they subsequently purchased Hatford in Berkshire; and in October 1414 the King generously granted them the reversion of the lease of Minchinhampton (Gloucestershire) after the death of Katherine, wife of (Sir) Roger Leche, pending which event they were to receive from the Exchequer as much as £100 a year, this being the farm due from the property.
Phelip’s high social standing at this time is clear from the ease with which he obtained papal indults for all manner of privileges. Henry V considered him a suitable choice for a diplomatic mission, and in December 1414 appointed him to the embassy headed by Bishops Langley and Courtenay to treat for peace with France on the basis of the King’s marriage to a French princess, while always insisting on the restitution of Henry’s right to the French Crown. Such a proviso could only result in renewed hostilities, and after Phelip’s return to England in March 1415 he immediately set about raising a force of 30 men-at-arms and 90 archers to serve in Henry’s army for the invasion of Normandy. At Southampton on 22 July, shortly before embarkation, he was made one of the distinguished group of feoffees of the duchy of Lancaster estates for the fulfilment of the King’s will should he chance to die abroad. Then, following the discovery of the plot against Henry’s life, on 6 Aug. Phelip and his wife were granted the manors of Nedging and Kettlebaston (Suffolk), worth 40 marks a year, as forfeited by one of the conspirators, Henry, Lord Scrope.
According to the inscription on Phelip’s brass he fought courageously and well at the siege of Harfleur; but it was there that he fell victim to the flux, and he died on 2 Oct. His body was brought back to England for burial in the middle of the choir in Kidderminster church, next to his second wife.