BURGH, Hugh

More can be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 417-19.

In addition to John, Lord Talbot, Burgh chose a fellow Talbot retainer, Laurence Merbury, as godfather to his son, John, born on 12 June 1414. Merbury was his predecessor as treasurer of Ireland and was to serve as chancellor during Burgh’s treasurership. CIPM, xxiv. 394; A.J. Pollard, ‘The Talbots’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1968), 218-19. The choice reveals the centrality of the Talbot service to our MP, and there are other instances of that service beyond those provided in the earlier biography. In 1414 he was holding office as steward of Lord Talbot’s brother, Thomas. More interestingly, on 25 Apr. 1418, he joined William Burley I* in entering in a bond in the large sum of 400 marks to Sir Adam Peshale†. The purpose of this bond is unknown, but it is significant that Peshale, in right of a deceased wife, held certain lands in Herefordshire and Shropshire, the legal remainder of which pertained to Lord Talbot’s wife, Maud Furnival, by grant of Henry IV. It may be that the bond related to Peshale’s premature surrender of these properties. Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/19396; Shrewsbury recs., assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 53.

None the less, despite the closeness of his relationship with the Talbots, Burgh had an existence outside that service. In the late 1420s, for example, he was steward of a Shropshire manor in the hands of Beatrice, dowager-countess of Arundel. Salop deeds, 6000/7119. He also had close connexions with the borough of Shrewsbury. On at least two occasions, on 22 Apr. 1420 and in 1426-7, he received wine from the borough authorities on making visits there, and on 17 Aug. 1426 he was named as a feoffee by Alice, widow of Reynold Mytton of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/359, 363; deeds, 6000/3861. More revealingly, in the summer of 1425 he was one of four men nominated to arbitrate a dispute between the townsmen and Shrewsbury abbey over the profits arising from local markets and fairs. The matter proved beyond them and it was John Juyn, chief baron of the Exchequer, and John Martin, j.c.p., who returned the award on 24 July: Salop Archs., Stobbs collection, 215/36. In the following year he was associated with the abbot of Shrewsbury in another context: with the prior of Wenlock and George Hawkstone*, they returned an award in a violent dispute between John Bruyn* and John Gatacre. E. Powell, Kingship, Law and Society, 101-2.