BLACKBURN, John, of ?York.

Blackburn cannot be identified with certainty and thus one can only draw a vague inference as to why he might have been returned for Appleby. One may assume he was a man of some status, for he is described as ‘gentleman’ in the return, and it is possible that he was one of the Blackburns of York, a leading family in that city, perhaps even a younger son of Nicholas Blackburn*, a York MP in the Parliament of 1432. C219/15/7. Nicholas’s brother, John†, had been MP for York in 1417. If so, John’s election may have resulted from a connexion with the Percys. Nicholas Blackburn’s nephew and namesake (and perhaps John’s first cousin) was among those indicted, in June 1454, for supporting Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont’s attempt to murder members of the Neville family at Heworth Moor near York. KB9/148/1/16.