John Burley
John Burley was an English lawyer, soldier, and a knight of the shire for Shropshire six times from 1399. He was a justice of the peace for Shropshire and sheriff of the county from 10 December 1408 – 4 November 1409. A key member of the Arundel affinity, he helped muster forces to combat the Glyndŵr Rising and died a short time after accompanying Thomas Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel on Henry V's first expedition to France.
Origins and identity
John Burley's origins are obscure, not least because his name was not uncommon. Burley is a toponymic surname signifying a meadow or clearing by a fortified place and is found fairly widely across the Midlands and the North of England. He has been portrayed as a nephew of Simon de Burley, an influential courtier executed by the Merciless Parliament at the behest of the Lords Appellant. However, this makes little sense in view of John Burley's political position and apparent social origins. He seems to have been a son of a John Burley of Wistanstow in southern Shropshire and a nephew of John Burnell of Westbury, Shropshire. The lawyer John Burley is known from a quitclaim deed of 1397 to have had at that time three brothers: Nicholas, portioner of the church of Westbury, James and Edmund. There seems to have been pattern of having a lawyer and a cleric in each generation.His name is rendered variously in medieval documents, including Bureley, Boerlee and Borley. His coat of arms is given as: vert, 3 boars' heads couped close 2 and 1 argent.
Early career 1380–99
The Ludlow estates
The Burley and Burnell estates in South Shropshire were closely entwined with those of Sir Richard Ludlow, a much more powerful landowner who had inherited eleven manors in Shropshire. For about a decade, until Ludlow's death late in 1390, Burley worked closely with him as one of his feoffees. For example, Burley was one of a group of feoffees whom Ludlow was licensed to appoint on 20 January 1383 in relation to lands at Hodnet and elsewhere, the aim being to ensure they passed to John Ludlow, Richard's brother, should he die sine prole, as he actually did. As a feoffee Burley exercised many of Ludlow's responsibilities and powers on his behalf. The register of John Gilbert, the Bishop of Hereford, shows that Burley jointly exercised the advowson of the church at Wistanstow, presenting Edmund de Ludlowe as rector on 6 August 1385.Edmund de Ludlow was also a feoffee of Sir Richard and presumably a close relative. John Burley also acted with him for more humble clients. For example, as feoffees they assisted Philip Herthale with the inheritance of a mere garden in Ashford Carbonell. However, things clearly did not go smoothly with Edmund and on 30 July 1390 Sir Richard replaced him with a chaplain, John de Stretton. Edmund was aggrieved and took his case to the Arches Court, which found in his favour. Subsequently, he alleged that Burley and Sir Richard's retinue had nevertheless physically expelled him from his benefice. Sir Richard died before the suit came to court: Edmund possibly prevailed, as someone of his name was also incumbent at Wistanstow later in the decade.
Ludlow's inquisition post mortem at Shrewsbury in January 1391 showed that, despite his great wealth, technically he held no land at all in the county, as the king, Richard II, had licensed him to vest everything in Burley and other feoffees, a stratagem that allowed him to avoid payment of impositions like feudal relief as well as free disposal of the properties according to his own wishes. Ludlow had appointed three groups of feoffees to hold his properties in trust and Burley was a member of all three groups. On 8 February the king instructed his escheator in Shropshire to meddle no further with the Ludlow estates and remitted the feoffees' homages and fealties for 6s. 8d.
Lawyer to the nobility
Alongside his work for Ludlow, Burley extended his reach as a feoffee and lawyer upwards into the local nobility. The History of Parliament Online names the most influential nobles of Shropshire during the period as the earls of Arundel, Stafford and March, and the Lords Talbot, Furnival and Burnell. Burley is known to have worked for all but one of these.Possibly the first was Gilbert Talbot, 3rd Baron Talbot. Early in 1387 Burley joined Talbot's contingent to fight under Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel in a successful naval campaign against the French and their allies in the English Channel. Talbot died on 24 April that year and in June Burley was one of those fined for acting as feoffee and entering his estate at Wormelow without a licence from the king. Whether a real oversight or a legal fiction, this had the effect of registering the transfer to Gilbert's heir, Richard, the 4th Baron Talbot. At this point Burley was dealing with the lower reaches of the nobility, but during his stewardship of their estates the Talbots grew increasingly powerful by marriage and Burley reaped the rewards of skilled and loyal service. Richard Talbot's wife, Lady Ankaret, who was heiress to the Barony of Strange of Blackmere, settled a small estate on Burley, who paid two marks into the royal hanaper to ensure the gift was recorded on 17 February 1408. For this Burley added to his patrimony a house, 2½ virgates of land 8 acres of meadow and 6 of woodland. Shortly after this, on 4 May, John Burley, described as "of Bromcroft," probably drew up the paperwork for the transfer of Corfham Castle and its associated estates to Ankaret's son John Talbot, 6th Baron Furnivall. This involved two other feoffees, Geoffrey Lowther and Hugh Burgh, a retainer of Lord Furnivall who had become rich by marriage on lands that were the focus of a Corbet family dispute. After Ankaret's death on Ascension Day, 1413, Burley oversaw the transfer, and the estates were released rapidly by a royal mandate to the escheator on 15 July.
One of the Talbot estates was held of the marcher lord Hugh Burnell, 2nd Lord Burnell, who had also granted land at Abbeton to Burley. Burnell was a marcher lord based in central Shropshire, where his family were the eponyms of Acton Burnell, with its fortified manor house, and where he was governor of Bridgnorth. Burnell's second wife, Joyce Botetourt, brought him considerable wealth, as she was the cousin and heiress of Hugh la Zouche, a wealthy Leicestershire landowner who died in July 1399. Burley acted as a feoffee to speed the transfer of the manor of Mannersfee in Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, which was held of the Bishop of Ely. The escheator was mandated to take the fealty of Burley and the other feoffees by the new régime of Henry IV on 21 May 1400. However, there were considerable legal difficulties with some parts of the manor and the matter seems not to have been fully resolved until June 1403. Presumably John Burley's services were much valued, as his son, Edmund, was presented to a portion of Holdgate parish by Hugh Burnell in 1411. The three clerics of the church were described as canons, as if it were a collegiate church attached to Holdgate Castle. Edmund Burley must have been appointed to the deaconry, as its advowson was held by the Burnells. The favour shown by Burnell to the Burleys suggests that they may have been relatives.
It was possibly through Burnell that Burley became involved with Edmund Stafford, 5th Earl of Stafford, as Stafford's sister Katherine was the mother of Burnell's first wife, Philippa de la Pole. He is known to have acted as seneschal or steward to Stafford's court, for which he received a salary of £6 13s. 4d. It is known that he was also a member of Stafford's Council, as a record is extant of the accountant receiving 1s. per day for travelling to summon him to a meeting in 1399.
By 1400 Burley was also serving the borough of Shrewsbury as a steward. This carried a fee of £2 or £3 per year, which was supplemented by occasional gifts of wine and clothing. It may be that this post was obtained through the FitzAlans, who held the Earldom of Arundel.
The Arundel connection
The FitzAlan earls of Arundel were the richest and most important landowners in Shropshire, and for more than a century they had also been great landowners in the South of England, where their power was concentrated in Sussex. Their profits were invested in further expansion. Although this was only to a lesser extent in Shropshire, they were the dominant force in the county's politics and parliamentary representation: between 1386 and 1397 eleven of the twenty MPs were clients or allies of Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel. Arundel formalised his relationship with many of his followers with small grants of land, rather than the annuities characteristic of bastard feudalism. His inquisition post mortem showed that Burley received from him a moiety of Brotton, worth 30s. annually: this seems to be additional land at Brockton, where Burley was lord of the manor. One of Earl Richard's concerns in Shropshire was with the civic and commercial development of Oswestry, the original power base of his dynasty. He made John Burley his steward of the town by 1393. This is made clear in a record of Arundel's court at Oswestry, dated 7 May 1393 and sealed by Burley, in which Thomas Salter and his wife Matilda are granted succession to Thomas's ancestral estates for the rather large feudal relief of £10, already paid in three instalments. In 1395 Burley became a feoffee for the important Arundel marcher lordships of Chirk and Chirkland. The other feoffees included Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of York and the earl's brother, as well as other Arundel lawyers like Thomas Young and David Holbache. As a servant of Arundel, Burley was now regularly appointed a justice of the peace: for example a commission of 18 June 1394 was followed by another on 1 May 1396.Overthrow of Richard II
Earl Richard was one of the Lords Appellant, the leaders of the baronial opposition to Richard II, and was executed in 1397. Burley's activities during these momentous events seems to have been entirely routine. In July 1397, immediately after Arundel's arrest, Burley was involved in some sort of deal with John Eyton that required a reciprocal agreement to pay each other a substantial £200 the next Michaelmas. Later in the year he is recorded taking recognizances as usual, including an undertaking from William Glover of Ludlow for £60. Business continued, with other smaller clients employing him, along with his usual colleagues. On 7 March 1398 he and Thomas Young were among the feoffees appointed by Isabel de Eylesford to deal with her manors of Brimfield, Herefordshire, and Buildwas, Shropshire: a licence to complete the business by reciprocally enfeoffing Isabel was not issued until April 1402, long after the looming power struggle had reached conclusion, and problems at Brimfield delayed completion until February 1403, by which time Isabel was remarried. Such legal complexities unfolded to an entirely different rhythm from politics. An almost adjacent entry in the Patent rolls for 4 February shows how delicately the king, evidently worried by spreading disaffection, was handling Shropshire people affected by Arundel's attainder. In this case, in an issue that might have been initiated by Burley, the king ensured that an Oswestry brewer would not be out of pocket, as he had invested heavily in premises granted by Arundel. Burley's own position with the régime seems to have been little affected and he was reappointed as a justice of the peace on 16 September 1398, after a lapse of little more than a year: more or less the same interval as previously.When the king's enemies struck, the defection of Shropshire was a critical juncture in the rapid collapse that followed. Burley quickly rallied to Thomas FitzAlan, the dispossessed claimant to the earldom, when he returned with Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. Adam of Usk's account of the rebels' march through Shropshire makes clear that they met with a welcome in the county and hints at how this shaped the future power structure of the county, with Thomas Arundel, now Archbishop of Canterbury giving ecclesiastical sanction to the new arrangements.
Following the successful coup by the coalition of Bolingbroke and the Arundels, Burley's long-term client Hugh Burnell was one of the barons who accepted the surrender of Richard II at the Tower of London. Prestbury, the new abbot, and his abbey were to become foci for Burley's generosity as he prospered under the new Lancastrian régime and the restored Arundel supremacy in Shropshire.