John Wilde (jurist)

John Wilde (also known as John Wylde) (1590–1669) was an English lawyer and politician. As a serjeant-at-law he was referred to as Serjeant Wilde before he was appointed judge. He was a judge, chief baron of the exchequer, and member of the Council of State of the Commonwealth period.

He was the son and heir of George Wylde of Worcester, The Harriots Droitwich and Kempsey, Worcestershire,serjeant-at-law, who also represented Droitwich in parliament, by his wife Frances, daughter of Sir Edmund Huddleston of Sawston, Cambridgeshire. He matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, on 18 January 1605, aged 14, and graduated B.A. on 20 October 1607 and M.A. on 4 July 1610.

He became a student, of the Inner Temple about November 1602, and was called to the bar in 1612, was elected a bencher in 1628, and created a serjeant-at-law in 1636. He was appointed under-steward of Kidderminster by the new charter for that borough on 4 August 1636. He served for Droitwich in the parliaments of 1620–2, 1624, 1625, 1626, 1628–9, and March to May 1640. In the parliament of 1626 he took part in the debate against George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, when he argued from Bracton that common fame was a sufficient ground for accusation.

On 21 October 1640 Wilde was returned as one of the knights of the shire for Worcester to the Long Parliament. He was chairman of the committee appointed to prepare the impeachment against the thirteen bishops concerned in making the new canons, which on 3 August 1641 he presented to the House of Lords. In December he presided over a committee of inquiry as to a plot to bring in the army to overawe the parliament, and on 6 January 1642 he was chairman of the committee of the house appointed to sit in the Guildhall, London, to consider the safety of the kingdom and city, and the preservation of the privileges of parliament, which were threatened by the seizure of the members' papers and the king's demand for the arrest of the five members. The same month he reported a conference with the lords respecting the action of the attorney-general, Sir Edward Herbert, and conducted the impeachment of Herbert which was ordered by the Commons.

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