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John de Stratford (d. 1348) was a Archbishop of Canterbury and Treasurer and Chancellor of England.

John was born at Stratford-on-Avon and educated at Merton College, Oxford, afterwards entering the service of Edward II.

He served as archdeacon of Lincoln, canon of York and dean of the court of arches before June 20, 1323, when he became bishop of Winchester,^[1] an appointment which was made during his visit to Pope John XXII at Avignon and which was very much disliked by Edward II. In 1327 the bishop joined Queen Isabella's partisans; he drew up the six articles against Edward II, and was one of those who visited the captive king at Kenilworth to urge him to abdicate in favour of his son. On November 26 1326 he was appointed Lord Treasurer of England, a post he held until January 28, 1327.^[2]

Under Edward III he became a member of the royal council, but his high political importance dates from the autumn of 1330, the time when Roger Mortimer lost his power. In November of that year Stratford became chancellor, and for the next ten years he was actively engaged in public business, being the king's most prominent adviser and being politically, says Stubbs, the "head of the Lancastrian or constitutional party."

On November 3, 1333 he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury^[3] and he resigned the chancellorship in the following year; however, he held this office again from 1335 to 1337 and for about two months in 1340.^[4] In November of 1340 Edward III, humiliated, impecunious and angry, returned suddenly to England from Flanders and vented his wrath upon the archbishop's brother, the chancellor, Robert de Stratford. Fearing arrest John de Stratford fled to Canterbury, and entered upon a violent war of words with the king, and by his firm conduct led to the establishment of the principle that peers were only to be tried in full parliament before their own order (en pleyn parlement et devant les piers). But good relations were soon restored between the two, and the archbishop acted as president of the council during Edward's absence from England in 1345 and 1346, although he never regained his former position of influence.^[5] His concluding years were mainly spent in the discharge of his spiritual duties, and he died at Mayfield in Sussex on August 23, 1348.^[3]

Robert de Stratford and Ralph de Stratford, bishop of London from 1340 until his death at Stepney on April 7, 1354, were members of the same family. All three prelates were benefactors to Stratford-on-Avon.

• List of bishops of Winchester
• List of Archbishops of Canterbury
• List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers
• List of Lord High Treasurers

• Powell, J. Enoch and Keith Wallis The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540 London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1968
• Powicke, F. Maurice and E. B. Fryde Handbook of British Chronology 2nd. ed. London:Royal Historical Society 1961

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.