LOVET, Edmund

Of those returned to represent Derby during the Lancastrian period, none had more tenuous connexions with the borough than Lovet. He lived in the north of the county at Woodhouse in the parish of Baslow, and, given what is known of his political affiliations, there can be little doubt that he was a tenant of the Talbots. It is in connexion with that great family that he first appears in the records. In Trinity term 1453 he was among over 80 men appealed in the court of King’s bench by one John Walwyn for murder. No details of the offence appear and the appeal was quickly dropped. It is, however, clear that the alleged murderers were Talbot servants for they were headed by such senior members of the Talbot retinue as Thomas Wortley of Wortley (Yorkshire), Thomas Everingham of Sheffield (Yorkshire) and Robert Barley*.2 KB27/769, rot. 85. Lovet’s election to represent Derby in Parliament was another aspect of his service to John Talbot, 2nd earl of Shrewsbury. Significantly, he appears as an attestor, with several other Talbot men, to the county election held on 3 July 1455, the only occasion he attested an election in either county or borough. Talbot’s servant Barley was returned, and Lovet himself was elected as one of the borough MPs 13 days later.3 C219/16/3. Clearly the earl was anxious to be represented in the Commons after the equivocal role he had played in the campaign leading to the first battle of St. Albans.4 A.J. Pollard, ‘The Talbots’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1968), 72-75.

For Lovet his appearance in Parliament probably represented the high point of his career, yet he long continued to be a man of modest account. In March 1455 he was named on a petty jury panel to try (Sir) William Vernon* at Chesterfield for felony; at a session of the peace on 10 Jan. 1458 he served on a jury which indicted Humphrey Bourgchier* for an entry into his master the earl of Shrewsbury’s manor of South Wingfield; and when commissioners of oyer and terminer visited the county in April 1468 he was named to the grand jury panel. On this latter occasion he himself was the subject of an indictment, as one of those to whom (Sir) Walter Blount* had illegally given livery at Barton Blount on 20 May 1461. Perhaps Lovet was anxious to attach himself to Blount’s rising star in the wake of Shrewsbury’s death at the battle of Northampton, but there is no other evidence to connect him with Blount.5 KB9/12/2/285; 13/22, 55; 288/22.

In 1467 a more serious charge was laid against Lovet: he was appealed of murder for the second time, on this occasion as one of many accessories to the killing of one Nicholas Fox of Newbold near Chesterfield on 31 Mar. 1466.6 KB27/825, rot. 15; CP40/828, rot. 46d; KB9/313/66. Suspicion of his involvement probably explains why he and one of those appealed as a principal were required to enter bonds in £40 each to the sheriff, Nicholas Fitzherbert*, who, in Trinity term 1468, sued them for debt. This, however, was the worse that befell him for the appeal was soon abandoned and he was not named in the indictment concerning the murder made before the Derbyshire j.p.s. The prime movers in this offence were his neighbours, the numerous members of the Eyre family, headed by Robert Eyre*, who like him was a servant of the Talbots. Later evidence provides further proof of his friendship with the Eyres. On 30 Dec. 1471 he was a witness to a feoffment made on the occasion of the marriage of Eyre’s son, and in 1476 he and Eyre were nominated as arbiters by their neighbour, William Croft of Brampton.7 Harl. Ch. 83 E 32; Notts. Archs., Foljambe of Osberton mss, DD FJ 1/44/11 (calendared in Derbys. Chs. ed Jeayes, no. 100).

Lovet’s appearance as an arbiter, albeit late in his career, implies that he was a man of some legal knowledge, and this is confirmed by last known appearance in the records. Despite his own earlier involvement in crime, by the summer of 1478 he was acting as one of the coroners of his native county.8 KB27/868, rot. 24. Perhaps this legal knowledge, together with his Talbot connexion, had helped to recommend him to the electors of Derby more than 20 years before.