John Clench (c. 1535 - 1607) was an English judge, a Serjeant-at-Law, Baron of the Exchequer and Justice of the Queen's Bench, of the late Tudor period.J.H. Baker, 'Clench, John (c. 1535–1607), judge', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press 2004). He established his family in south-east Suffolk, in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, where for many years he was the Town Recorder.
Life The path to distinction Clench was the son of John Clench of Wethersfield, Essex and Joan, daughter of John Amias of the same county, and grandson of John Clench of Leeds, Yorkshire.'Visitation of Suffolk, 1612: Clenche, of Thiseldon Hall in Burgh', in W.C. Metcalfe (ed.), The Visitations of Suffolk of 1561, 1577 and 1612 (Private, Exeter 1882), pp. 124-25 (Internet Archive).'Clench pedigree from the Revett MSS', in J.J. Muskett, Suffolk Manorial Families, Being the County Visitations and Other Pedigrees (Private, Exeter 1908), II, p. 101 (Google). He was admitted a student at Lincoln's Inn on 11 February 1555/56,The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, I: Admissions 1420-1799 (Lincoln's Inn, 1896), p. 62 (Internet Archive). and was chamber-fellow with Thomas Weekes, 'a learned gospeller', in 1558-59.S.M. Jack (ed.), Rulers, Religion and Rhetoric in Early Modern England: A Festschrift for Geoffrey Elton from his Australasian Friends, Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (Parergon, Sydney 1998), p. 49.
Walter Copinger relates that, when young, Clench was steward of the manors of Henry Crane (died 1586, of Chilton, near Sudbury, Suffolk). For his good services, Crane gave him the lease of an estate at Crowfield, Suffolk, for £100 less than its annual value, upon condition that he did not assign it elsewhere. Accordingly Clench resided at Crowfield.'Hundred of Bosmere and Claydon: Crowfield or Crofelda', in A. Page, A Topographical and Genealogical History of the County of Suffolk: A Supplement to the Suffolk Traveller (Joshua Page, Ipswich 1814/Frederick Pawsey, Ipswich 1817), at p. 596 (Internet Archive).'Creeting', in W.A. Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk, Vol. II: The Hundreds of Blything, Bosmere and Claydon (Taylor, Garnett, & Evans, & Co., Ltd., Manchester 1908), pp. 289-90 (Internet Archive). His eldest son Thomas was born around 1557,J.P. Ferris, 'Clench, Thomas (c.1557-1624), of Holbrooke, Suff. and Lincoln's Inn, London', in A. Thrush and J.P. Ferris (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629 (from Cambridge University Press, 2010), History of Parliament Online. so he was by that time married to Katheryn, daughter of Thomas Almott of Creeting All Saints (one of the manors in the Creetings parishes of St Mary and St Peter), a little north from Ipswich beside the river Gipping. Almott had acquired that manor after 1560 from the Jermy family, and it passed into the Clench family by this union. In 1565 Clench raised a fine on the manor against John Almott. There were to be thirteen children.
John Clench, Reader at Furnival's Inn in 1566, was continued to 1568 to supply the invalid election of his successor: his readings concerning testamentary matters survive in manuscript.M.C. Mirow, 'Monks and married women: the use of the yearbooks in defining testamentary capacity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readings on wills', Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis/Legal History Review 65 (January 1997), pp. 19-39, at pp. 19 and 28-29. Called to the bar in 1568,The Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, I: 1422-1586 (Lincoln's Inn 1897), p. 339 and p. 369 (Internet Archive). he became bencher in 1570 following the expulsion of several members for failure to conform to religious statutes, whereupon he had "auncientyeW. Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, Third (enlarged) Edition (Christopher Wilkinson, Thomas Dring and Charles Harper, London 1680), p. 195 (Google): "...according to their years and the continuance of the house that they be of, which they call auncienty..." of all men, and the best studdye".The Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, I: 1422-1586, pp. 370-72 (Internet Archive). He was elected Reader at Lincoln's Inn in Lent 1574, Keeper of the Black Book in 1576-1577, and Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn in 1578-1579.The Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, I: 1422-1586, p. 388, p. 400 and pp. 411-14 (Internet Archive). In 1573/74 he was appointed Recorder of Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk,N. Bacon, ed. W.H. Richardson, The Annalls of Ipswche. The Lawes, Customes and Governmt of the Same, 1654 (S.H. Cowell, Ipswich 1884), p. 287 and note (c) and p. 301, and pp. 301-97, passim (Internet Archive). as a freeman to solicit the town's causes in London, the first known holder of that office.G.R. Clarke, The History and Description of the Town and Borough of Ipswich (S. Piper, Ipswich 1830), p. 41 (Google). He was appointed Serjeant-at-Law in Michaelmas term 1580, was appointed third baron of the exchequer in the following year (27 November), being assigned to the northern circuit, and on 29 May 1584 was translated to the court of Queen's Bench.E. Foss, The Judges of England, V: 1485-1603 (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, London 1857), pp. 474-75 (Internet Archive). Many of his judgements there can be read in the Reports of Sir George Croke.H. Grimston and T. Leach (eds), Reports of Sir George Croke, Knight, of Select Cases (etc.), Fourth Edition, 3 vols (E. and R. Brooke, and T. Whieldon, London 1790), passim (Google).
Estate at Holbrook In 1585 (soon after his appointment as Justice in 1584) he purchased the manor of Great Bealings, near Woodbridge, from Edmund Bedingfield. There he was neighbour to the Seckfords of Seckford Hall manor.'Great Bealings Manor', in W.A. Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk, Vol. III: The Hundreds of Carlford and Colneis, Cosford and Hartismere (Taylor, Garnett, Enams, & Co., Ltd., Manchester 1909), pp. 3-5 (Internet Archive). His former benefactor Henry Crane of Chilton (who predeceased his father Robert Crane) appointed Clench sole supervisor of his will in 1586, leaving him a gelding.Will of Henry Crane of Chilton (P.C.C. 1586). Abstract in 'Crane' in J.J. Howard and W.H. Hart (eds), The Visitation of Suffolke made by William Hervey, 2 volumes (Samuel Tymms, Lowestoft 1866-1868), I, pp. 137-64, at p. 145 (Google). Clench developed his estate at Holbrook, Suffolk (below Ipswich beside the river Orwell), during the later 1580s. Having purchased lands "late Kinderslewes" at Holbrook, which lay intermingled with lands belonging to the town of Ipswich, in 1587 he offered them to the town in exchange for others, but on consideration the town did not like them. Instead, the town sold its own Holbrook lands (part of Edmund Daundy's charitable gift of 1515)Canning, Account of the Gifts and Legacies, pp. 163-64 (Google). to Clench for £600 in September 1588 by bargain, sale and feoffment, and in May 1589 the fine, concord and conveyance were issued by the bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty of the town under the common seal, and the Clench deeds were ordered to be kept with the deeds of Tooley's Foundation (a principal benefaction of the town's) in the Borough Chest.Bacon, The Annalls of Ipswche, pp. 347-59, passim (Internet Archive).
In 1589 he purchased the manor of Holbrook from Sir Robert Southwell and his wife Elizabeth, and in that year and in 1591 fines were levied between Southwell and Thomas Clench, son and heir of the judge, to whom the Holbrook estate in due course descended.'Holbrook', in W. Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk, VI: The Hundreds of Samford, Stow and Thedwestry (Taylor, Garnett, Evans, & Co., Ltd., Manchester 1910), pp. 64-67 (Internet Archive). Thenceforth the judge resided at Holbrook. It is stated that Holbrook Park, described as a detached pleasure ground for Woolverstone Hall nearby, originated in the late 16th century as an independent park or garden surrounding John Clench's residence at Holbrook.Observations of Tom Williamson and Edward Martin, cited by S. Podd, 'Helmingham Hall - a complex development', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History XLII Part 1 (2009), pp. 38-58 at p. 56 note 77 (Society's pdf).
Later career He was, with Francis Gawdy, Francis Wyndham and William Peryam, one of the four justices appointed to hear causes in Chancery in the six months which intervened between the death of the Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton (20 November 1591), and the appointment of his successor, Sir John Puckering.H.W. Woolrych, A Series of the Lords Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, Masters of the Rolls (etc.) (J. and W.T. Clarke, London 1826), p. 23 (Google), citing Oldmixon's History, p. 600.Foss, The Judges of England, V, pp. 397-98 (Google). He remained, however, attached to the northern circuit, apparently until his retirement. In August 1588 he and Francis Rodes, as justices of assize at Carlisle, set down orders for the maintenance of peace in disputes arising from the estates of the late Lord Dacre.'Orders set down by Baron J. Clench, etc.', in M.A.E. Green (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth and James I, 1580-1625. Addenda (Longman and Co., London 1872), pp. 252-53 (Google). A letter from the same judges dated 1588/89 instructs the deputy lieutenants of Lancashire to investigate and suppress the surplus alehouses of Manchester.'No. 53. 1588 [1589.] Alehouse-keepers, bakers, &c.', in J. Harland (ed.), The Lancashire Lieutenancy Under the Tudors and Stuarts, Chetham Society, Volume L (1859), II, pp. 224-26 and notes (Google).
Clench took part in the hearings against Margaret Clitherow in 1586, and sought to help her to avoid her sufferings.P. Lake and M. Questier, The Trials of Margaret Clitherow (Continuum International Publishing, London and New York 2011), pp. 83-125, passim. In 1596 he took the Lincoln assizes with Chief Justice Anderson, the bulk of the criminal business consisting, as it would seem, of cases of ecclesiastical recusancy. The unknown writer of a letter preserved in John Strype's Annals observed: "The demeanour of him (Anderson, a zealous high churchman) and the other judge, as they sit by turns upon the gaol (with reverence I speak it) in these matters is flat opposite; and they which are maliciously affected, when Mr. Justice Clinch sitteth upon the gaol, do labour to adjourn their complaints (though they be before upon the file) to the next assize; and the gentlemen in the several shires are endangered by this means to be cast into a faction."J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, Vol. IV (1824 edition, digital version by Cambridge University Press 2010), pp. 368-69 (Google).
Clench is said to have been an especial favourite with Elizabeth I. When, in their circuit of 1592, Justice Walmsley released certain indicted men on bail against the queen's direct command, the monarch was careful to express her displeasure towards Walmsley alone.M.A.E. Green (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, 1591-1594 (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London 1867), p. 188 (Google). Nevertheless, Clench was not knighted, nor in such ways honoured. In 1598 he was named (as assignor to the wardens of the Tooley Foundation) in the will of Ipswich benefactor William Smarte to be among the agents of his gifts and legacies.'An account of Mr. Smart's charity', in R. Canning, An Account of the Gifts and Legacies that have been Given and Bequeathed to Charitable Uses in the Town of Ipswich (W. Craighton, Ipswich 1747), pp. 31-51, at pp. 34-35 (Google). In 1600, while retaining the emoluments of his juridical office, he was released from daily attendance at court on account of age and infirmities,'Grant to John Clinch', in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth and James I, 1580-1625. Addenda, p. 405 (Google). and three years later he was pensioned.
Death, monument and epitaph