ABSTRACT
John Ford was born in 1586. The date of his birth and the fact that he was the eldest son of a fairly wealthy landowner are all we know of his youth until 1601, when he apparently entered Oxford. 1 His stay there, if he was there at all, was very brief, as in 1602 he was enrolled as a member of the Middle Temple, drawn there, probably, by an uncle who was a member of high standing. How long he was there, and whether or not he actually completed his studies for a law degree is unknown. We do know that in 1610 he was expelled from the Middle Temple for failure to pay his buttery bill, and that in 1617 he joined in a protest against the requirement to wear caps in the dining room of the Temple. The fact that he was there on these two dates does not imply a continuous residence, but the conjecture is that he was a fairly regular member of the Temple and that he probably did obtain his law degree.
