Commr. to suppress the insurgents of 1381, Beds. Mar., Dec. 1382; to hold a special assize, Herts. Feb. 1385 (ownership of land in Rickmansworth claimed by St. Albans abbey);
J.p. Beds. 20 Dec. 1382 – July 1389, 28 June 1390 – Feb. 1411, Hunts. 8 Feb. 1405–7.
Tax collector, Beds. Mar. 1404, Sept. 1405.
Although studied in great detail by later members of the family, the Hervy genealogy still seems extremely confused over the subject of this biography. The most reliable pedigree, at least so far as his ancestry is concerned, is given by Lord Arthur Hervey in Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. ii. 412-15; but like many other scholars (see, for example, VCH Beds. iii. 106) he assumes, wrongly, that John Hervy’s father and namesake was returned to the Parliament of 1386. His account of the MP’s children is also misleading, and here S. Hervey, Dictionary of Herveys, nos. 278, 282, 332-3, offers a fairly accurate corrective. Our John Hervy is, moreover, sometimes: confused with the royal clerk of the same name who, in 1415, carried messages to Henry V from the Council of Constance (Letters Margaret of Anjou (Cam. Soc. lxxxvi), 7), but the two can usually be distinguished from each other.
HERVY, John (c.1353-c.1411)