BURTON, Thomas

This MP is not to be confused with the son and heir of Sir Thomas Burton*. The knight’s son, who lived at Tolethorpe in Rutland, served as sheriff of that county in 1438-9 and played no part in the affairs of Leicester. Our MP was rather the son and heir, or at any event a close relative, of the alnager of Leicestershire in the early 1420s, William Burton, who had residences in both Leicester and Loughborough. Direct evidence of William’s relationship with our MP is provided by an undated deed by which he and his son Thomas were granted four and a half acres of arable land in the fields of Burton-on-the-Wolds, Prestwold and Loughborough, and indirect evidence by our MP’s own evident connexion with Loughborough. William was alive as late as 1439 – when, styled as ‘of Leicester, gentleman’, he was sued by Sir Thomas Erdington* for a debt of £10 – and, if he was our MP’s father, he was still alive in 1447 when Thomas bequeathed to his father, unidentified by Christian name, the sum of five marks.1 CFR, xiv. 341; Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, 338-9; CP40/712, rot. 291d; PCC 28 Luffenham (PROB11/3, f. 222v).

The earliest dated reference to our MP occurs in May 1436, when, also as ‘of Leicester, gentleman’, he acted as a mainpernor in Chancery in the grant of William Burton’s old office of Leicestershire alnager to Walter Castell, a Leicester scrivener. In the same year he was named in the court roll of the manor of Loughborough among those essoined for non-attendance.2 CFR, xvi. 251; Quorndon Recs. ed. Farnham, 88. Little else is known of his short career, but there must be something more to discover. Only an important connexion can explain his appointment as receiver of the honour of Leicester in the following year and his brief period as receiver of Kenilworth. The only direct indication as to his patron’s identity comes late in his career, when, in February 1447, he was one of those to whom James Butler, later earl of Wiltshire, granted his lands in Leicestershire and Derbyshire, but Butler cannot have been his patron in the 1430s. Indirect evidence, however, leaves little room for doubt as to whom he owed his appointments: John, Lord, and later Viscount, Beaumont, was not only lord of Loughborough but was also appointed to the stewardship of the honour of Leicester less than a month before Burton was named as its receiver.3 R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 562, 563, 566; HMC Hastings, i. 2.

For the rest of Thomas’s career we are dependent on a series of incidental references. In Trinity term 1438 he appeared in person in the court of common pleas to sue several actions of debt for a total of more than £40. One of these was against Castell for £10, perhaps in connexion with the mainprise he had earlier offered on his behalf; several of the others are likely to have been for moneys owed him as receiver.4 CP40/710, rots. 143d, 177d, 219d. On 19 July 1439 he again offered mainprise in Chancery, on this occasion for the Household men, Henry Filongley* and William Cotton*, when they were granted the keeping of the alien priory of Linton in Cambridgeshire. Two years later, on 10 Apr. 1441, he witnessed an important feoffment made by Sir Robert Moton* to Beaumont and others. In the following Trinity term he had several pleas of debt pending as joint-plaintiff with the influential Bartholomew Brokesby*, a close associate of both the viscount and Joan, Lady Abergavenny.5 CFR, xvii. 101; CCR, 1435-41, p. 478; CP40/722, rot. 276. On 21 Dec. 1441 he was elected to represent Leicester in Parliament, and, more significantly, he was one of several Beaumont men to be returned to the assembly called to meet at Bury St. Edmunds in February 1447.6 C219/15/2, 4. It was on the first day of this second Parliament that he was named as one of Butler’s feoffees.

Soon after this Parliament Burton is recorded as acting as one of the Leicestershire coroners. At Leicester on 20 July 1447 he recorded an approver’s appeal in respect of the felonious theft of 43 rams from his patron, Viscount Beaumont. It is not known when he was elected to the office, but it was probably only shortly before. On the following 2 Apr. he headed a Leicester jury which laid indictments for the illegal giving of livery, before royal commissioners of inquiry.7 KB27/779, rex rot. 5d; KB9/276/2; C145/313/13. He was still alive in November 1448 when he stood surety for William Wymondeswold* in the court of King’s bench, but he died soon afterwards. The appointment of Thomas Staunton* to his receivership on 30 Jan. 1449 implies that he was then dead. In Easter term 1452 his widow, as his executrix, was facing an action for a debt of about £8 sued by Queen Margaret, presumably as a consequence of his receivership.8 KB27/749, rot. 9; Somerville, 566; CP40/765, rot. 237. His wid. was alive at least as late as 1457: CP40/786, rot. 377d.

Burton had made his will on 27 Mar. 1447, soon after the end of his last Parliament. Although the copy enrolled in the probate register of the prerogative court of Canterbury is partly illegible, it is still a revealing document. He wished to be buried in the parish church in Loughborough, to the fabric of which he left as much as ten marks, and he made provision for a priest to sing for him and his two wives at the altar of St. Nicholas for 20 years. He left legacies to several churches in the vicinity of Loughborough: Lockington, Kegworth, Prestwold, Cossington, Barrow upon Soar in Leicestershire, and Sutton Bonnington, Normanton-upon-Soar and Stanford-upon-Soar in Nottinghamshire. The only reference to Leicester is a bequest of 6s. 8d. to every house of friars in the town. Unfortunately, the part of the will dealing with his family is now only partially legible: he mentions his sons William and Thomas, and he left ten marks to his ‘neme’s’ (ie. uncle’s) son, John Burton, 40s. to his uncle Thomas Burton, and five marks to his father.9 PCC 28 Luffenham.

Our MP’s son and namesake is almost certainly to be identified with the Loughborough merchant of the Calais staple. Such an identification is consistent with a deed of 12 Nov. 1458 by which Joan, widow of William Burton of Loughborough, granted to Thomas Burton of the same, merchant – presumably her grandson or step-grandson – all her lands in Loughborough, Burton-on-the-Wolds and Prestwold. This Thomas is further tied to our MP by their mutual bequests to the altar of St. Nicholas in the church of Loughborough. His was a career of notable success. When he drew up his will in 1494 he was wealthy enough to bequeath as much as 500 marks in money to his wife together with a further 330 marks to his daughters and his younger sons. His chantry foundation became the Loughborough free grammar school at the Reformation.10 J. Nichols, Leics. iii (2), 895; PCC 3 Horne (PROB11/11, f. 29).