BURGH, John I

More can be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 422-3.

Nothing is known of Burgh’s origins but it is possible that they were relatively humble. In a deed of 1424 he is described as ‘John Burgh alias John Stokton of Market Harborough, Leicestershire’, and it may be that, early in his legal career, he had adopted the name ‘Burgh’ to claim a kinship with Sir William Burgh† (d. aft. 1406) of Allexton in Leicestershire and Braunston in Rutland, j.c.p. in the reign of Richard II.3 CP40/655, cart. rot. 1d. Such speculation aside, his career was that of a successful local lawyer. He was well enough thought of in his last years to be employed by Queen Katherine. In the accounting year 1433-4 he was paid 6s. 8d. by the receiver of her honour of Leicester for his labour concerning an indictment of certain servants of Sir William Trussell† for an assault on the queen’s parkers.4 DL29/212/3252. His legal skills were also recognized late in his career by promotion to the quorum of the peace and he became regular at his attendance at the sessions. Records of payments to the county j.p.s from October 1429 show that he attended every session from that date either until his death (or shortly before).5 E101/590/34. These payments also show that he sat as a j.p. at a time when, according to the enrolments on the patent roll, he was not on the commission. It is therefore probable that, for Leics. as for other counties, a commission of the late 1420s has escaped enrolment.

Like so many other lawyers, Burgh’s professional success secured for him a wife who was both heiress and widow. His income, assessed at £26 p.a. shortly before he died, was probably largely derived from her estates, but he also made acquisitions of his own.6 E179/192/59. By a final concord levied in 1420 he acquired the reversion, expectant on the death of Margaret Dounton, of the Leicestershire manor of Withcote near the county border with Rutland.7 CP25(1)/126/73/30; CP40/655, cart. rot. 1d. Surprisingly, little evidence survives of his connexions among the gentry of the two counties in which he made his career, although he did act as an executor for Baldwin Bugge* and a feoffee for John Bellers*.8 Leics. Village Notes ed. Farnham, v. 298; JUST1/1537, rot. 27; Harl. 7178, f. 13d. His own executors were an obscure group headed by a clerk, Richard Hywey, who, at least according to a complaint made by our MP’s great-nephew and heir, Henry Burgh, illegally alienated the Burgh property in Manton.9 CP40/705, rots. 240, 346d; C1/34/75-8.