John Wolryche (c.1637–1685) was a lawyer and politician of landed gentry background who represented Much Wenlock in the House of Commons of England in two parliaments of Charles II.

[3] He was admitted as a pensioner, i.e. a fee-paying student, at Christ's College, Cambridge, aged 16, on 19 May 1653 – a fair guide to his birth date.

[1] On 26 November 1680 the Pension of Gray's Inn admitted him to the Grand Company of Ancients,[8] its body of most learned and experienced members.

Sir Thomas Wolryche had owned about 6,000 acres, centred on his seat of Dudmaston, at Quatt, to the south of Bridgnorth.

Wolryche first stood for Parliament on 21 February 1679 at Bridgnorth, where he had been recorder, or chief legal official, a post which might have been expected to give him an advantage.

Sir William Whitmore, 2nd Baronet had represented Bridgnorth in the House of Commons ever since 1661 and was to do so until his death in 1699:[12] he regarded the borough seats as at his disposal.

His brother, Sir Thomas Whitmore, had taken the second seat in a by-election in 1663, after a fierce contest, in which 182 new freemen were made in the six weeks before the poll.

The Whitmores were both broadly acceptable to the court and Thomas especially was reviled by Shaftesbury,[14] who was working for the exclusion of Charles II's Catholic brother, James, Duke of York from succession to the throne.

The short-lived Habeas Corpus Parliament of spring 1679 took the country further into political crisis and the king sought a way out of the impasse by calling for fresh elections in the summer.

Sir Robert Peyton was a republican and member of the Green Ribbon Club, which had expelled him when he tried to reach a personal reconciliation with the Duke of York.

[18] Rash remarks he had made in the presence of Elizabeth Cellier then led to arrest for high treason, release, accusations of involvement in the "Meal Tub Plot", and subsequent appearance at the bar of the House of Commons.

The failure of the opposition to secure an exclusion bill was followed by the Rye House Plot, in which radical Whigs allegedly conspired to ambush the king and his brother.

After the discovery of the plot in June 1683, Wolryche was one of the deputy lieutenants ordered to search for arms in Shropshire, despite his oppositional record.