LOUGHBOROUGH, John

John may have been a descendant of William Loughborough, who was paid 10s. for his counsel by Leicester’s chamberlains in 1378-9, and even perhaps of Hugh de Lucteburg, admitted to the town’s merchant guild as early as 1242-3.1 Leicester Bor. Recs. ed. Bateson, i. 63; ii. 169. He owed his place in local affairs to his marriage to the widow of Thomas Wakefield, formerly warden of the town’s guild of Corpus Christi. By trade he was a spicer, being, for example, so described when sued by John, Lord Beaumont, for a debt of £5 in 1434, but no more is known of his trading activities.2 Roll of Mayors Leicester ed. Hartopp, 24; CP40/692, rot. 258. He was, however, very active in the affairs of Leicester, and besides serving in office as bailiff, mayor and coroner he attested as many as ten of its parliamentary elections between 1419 and 1435.3 C219/12/3-6; 13/1, 3, 4; 14/1-5.

On 2 Oct. 1429 Loughborough was one of six prominent townsmen, including John Church I* and Thomas Waldegrave*, who returned an unsuccessful award in a dispute between the newly-elected mayor, Ralph Brasier alias Humberston* and Thomas Gaddesby.4 CP40/682, rot. 319. More interestingly, during his mayoralty he became caught up in a major riot in the town, a result of a dispute between another leading townsman, William Wymondeswold*, then one of the bailiffs, and the town’s collegiate church of St. Mary in the Newarke. According to a vivid petition presented to the King by the latter, on 7 May 1432 Wymondeswold led ‘a grete multitude of the Communes’ to the number of some 700 or 800 men in ‘a grete orrible and full perilous insurrecion’ against them. When Loughborough, as mayor, intervened to stop the violence, the rioters trampled him under foot, and the dean and chapter took refuge in their church where they remained ‘for fere of deth’. The matter was thereafter resolved by arbitration, and, since the arbiters were charged with reconciling the dean and chapter not simply with Wymondeswold but with the mayor, burgesses and community of the town, it seems that, even though Loughborough had acted to stop the riot, he and other leading townsmen shared Wymondeswold’s hostility to the dean and chapter.5 SC8/336/15875; C244/7/111.

Loughborough was one of the few men of the borough who appears in the Leicestershire tax returns of the following year, being assessed on a modest annual income of £5, the bulk of which probably derived from the property of his wife. Later references do, however, suggest that he held in his own right two messuages in Friar Lane and a tenement in the parish of St. Nicholas.6 E179/192/59; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 260, 432. He died between 28 Oct. 1436, when he took an indictment as coroner (the only reference to him holding this office), and 7 Oct. 1441, when his wife’s kinsman, Henry Caldwell of Stopenell in Derbyshire, quitclaimed to the mayor and community of Leicester all his right in her property there.7 KB27/711, rex rot. 1d; Leics. RO, Leicester bor. recs., deeds, BRII/8a/226 (one of the few medieval deeds surviving among the town’s records not calendared in Leicester Bor. Recs.). This implies not only that a remainder settled as long before as 1392 had finally fallen in, but that our MP died without issue by Amy.8 Leicester deeds, BRII/8a/226; KB27/711, rex rot. 1d.