RUSSELL, John I.

John may have been related to William Russell, who in 1383 helped to found the guild of St. George in Warwick, of which Thomas, earl of Warwick, was a patron,1CPR, 1381-5, p. 263. and to Robert Russell I of Dudley and Sir John Russell of Strensham, both of whom had begun their careers as retainers of the same magnate. Evidently he, too, was of Earl Thomas’s affinity, and at the time of his two elections to Parliament for the earl’s borough of Warwick he was discharging offices in the Welsh march to which he had been appointed for life by his lord. Furthermore, in 1396-7 he is known to have had a lease on certain Beauchamp lands at ‘Cubbeworth’.2CPR, 1385-9, p. 350; CIMisc. vi. 303; Egerton Roll 8769.

The MP may have been the John Russell who with his wife, Maud, became a member of the Trinity guild of Coventry. John Russell ‘of Warwick’, who sold property there in 1419, was perhaps his son.3Reg. Holy Trinity Guild Coventry (Dugdale Soc. xiii), 17; Warws. Feet of Fines (ibid. xviii), no. 2512.