BURLEY, William II

William Burley was one of the most important men in Shrewsbury for a period of some 40 years, serving a remarkable six terms as bailiff. His father, presumably a kinsman of an important local lawyer, John Burley† of Broncroft, appears to have hailed from Malehurst, a few miles to the south-west of Shrewsbury, but he acquired significant holdings in the town through marriage.2 This marriage had taken place by Mich. 1392: Salop Archs., deeds 6000/3891. James is an obscure figure, although in 1384 Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, troubled to secure him a pardon for manslaughter: CCR, 1381-5, p. 444. This property was employed in the settlement made on William’s own marriage, contracted after his father’s death. In August 1413 his mother surrendered tenements in Baxter’s Row (now High Street), Castle Gate, ‘Knokynneslane’ (now Hill’s Lane) and Castle Foregate, with land near the church of St. Alkmund, so that they might be entailed upon her son and Isabel Tour; her other property was similarly entailed, although saving her life interest.3 Salop Archs., deeds 6000/3923, 3924. This represented as good a match as William could have hoped for, and one worth settling in jointure the whole of his maternal inheritance: if, as seems likely, Isabel was her parents’ only child, she stood heiress-presumptive not only to her father’s property but also to the much more extensive holdings of her maternal grandfather, Thomas Pride. Although Pride had already settled part of his property upon two chantries in the church of St. Alkmund, enough remained to promise our MP a prosperous future should his wife fall heir.4 For Pride’s property: The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 141. In the meantime, however, William’s career was slow to begin, because either he was yet young or he had not, while his mother survived, property enough to give him an independent stake in borough society. It is probably not coincidental that his public career began soon after the probable date of his mother’s death. She was almost certainly dead by 12 June 1420 when Edward Acton, widower of her sister, Agnes, gave to our MP and two others (presumably to Acton’s use) all the lands in which he had a life interest of Agnes’s grant.5 Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/3832. Acton’s interest is puzzling, since, in 1398, Agnes surrendered her moiety of her paternal inheritance to our MP’s parents: ibid. 6000/3823. None the less, Acton clearly held some of her lands. As late as 1446 our MP and his wife received quitclaims in respect of the messuage in Baxter’s Row in which Acton had lived: ibid. 6000/3955; Add. 30321, ff. 9, 22.

On 21 Nov. 1420, described as ‘of Malehurst’, Burley attested the election of his more important namesake to represent the county, and, a little under a year later, he was elected to the minor borough office of assessor. But it was not until a few years later that his career began in real earnest: in September 1426, immediately after another term as assessor, he was elected as one of the town’s bailiffs, and towards the end of his term he was returned to represent the borough in Parliament and again attested the county indenture.6 C219/12/4, 13/5. His property and standing in the town were considerably augmented on the death of his father-in-law, William Tour. By his will, dated 19 Jan. 1433, Tour bequeathed to his daughter and our MP, whom he named as his executors, three specified messuages, including the one in which he lived, and other property, formerly of Thomas Pride, came to the couple by descent.7 Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/3995. A series of leases he made between 1435 and 1442 shows that he was the tenant of former Pride and Tour property in High Street and ‘Ratones Lane’ (now School Lane) and in the suburb of Colneham: ibid. 6000/3673, 3898, 3929. He also acquired through his wife tenements in ‘Le Bakerstrete’ and ‘Le Bakerrewe’ with ‘Le Bruehous’ in High Pavement, later together farmed out for as much as 86s. 8d. p.a.: ibid. 6000/164, 3974; Add. 30321, f. 22v; CP25(1)/195/22/47. This combination of inheritances gave Burley a very respectable landed income: in the subsidy returns of 1450-1 he was assessed at £10 p.a.8 E101/681/39. His enhanced status is made clear in an intense period of office-holding: between 1434 and 1441 he was twice elected as bailiff and twice as coroner, and in 1435 he was named to the council of 12, established by the borough composition of 1433, to assist the bailiffs. He also represented his borough in two further Parliaments. For his attendance in the 1437 Parliament he was paid 66s. 8d. as what was described, in the bailiffs’ account, part payment of his wages, together with a further 13s. 4d. for his expenses in London. Since the assembly lasted 65 days and he was entitled to payment for eight days of travelling time, these two sums amounted to little more than 1s. per diem. His fellow MP, Thomas Thornes*, received 81s. The two men were elected together to the next Parliament, that of 1439, and were again remunerated at half the established daily rate of 2s. per diem. There is, however, an interesting discrepancy in payment: both MPs received 50s. for 50 days of travel and attendance in respect of the first session, but for the second Thornes was paid at 1s. a day for 53 days and Burley for only 48 days. Perhaps the latter was not paid for travelling to that session because he had not returned home in the meantime. However this may be, he was not elected again, perhaps deterred by inadequate wages.9 Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/373, 851; Walker, 375-6.

Burley’s property holdings brought him into a series of minor disputes. In the early 1430s he was outlawed for debt at the suit of Robert Malory, the prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England. It is not clear how this debt arose, but a clue is provided by a bond he entered into in the borough court on 22 Sept. 1433: in company with a lawyer of the town, Richard Bentley*, he acknowledged a debt of £11 to the prior and Walter Barley, the priory’s preceptor of Halston in Shropshire, and this was the prelude to the reversal of the outlawry two months later. A likely explanation is that the two townsmen were farmers of the priory’s property in the county. Later, Burley fell into dispute with the vicar of Meole Brace (just outside the town), who sued an assize of novel disseisin against him and his wife. Nothing is known of the point at issue, only that the borough authorities were interested enough in the matter to call on the advice of our MP’s namesake, a prominent lawyer who was the town’s steward. Early in November 1437, when the assize was heard, they spent 14s. 6d. on the steward’s meals.10 CP40/686, rot. 102; CPR, 1429-36, p. 311; assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 55; bailiffs’ accts. 3365/370. Burley was also drawn into litigation through his connexion with another of the leading borough families, the Myttons. At an unknown date his only legitimate child, Agnes, was married to Thomas, younger son of Reynold Mytton (d.1424). The groom, after serving as bailiff in 1440-1, died relatively young, and our MP found himself defending an action of debt in £100 as one of his administrators.11 CP40/748, rot. 151. For the condition-less bond on which this action was based: Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/3864. Burley’s daughter was a widow by 22 June 1443 when she joined her parents in leasing land in ‘Doggelane’ to a local butcher: ibid. 6000/3752.

There can be no doubt that Agnes Mytton was Burley’s heir-presumptive by his wife Isabel – she is named as such in a deed of 1443 – and this renders rather confusing a reference in the town’s gild merchant roll of 1 Oct. 1450. It records that our MP’s son, John, a yeoman of the Crown, was then admitted as a free burgess and pardoned his entry fine at the instance of the King. Since Isabel was then living, there are only two possible explanations: John was either illegitimate or our MP’s son by a wife prior to Isabel. Given that William married Isabel as early as 1413, the former is the most probable. Confusion is heightened by two cancelled entries in the assembly book: they record that John was admitted to the freedom in September 1457 at the instance of the queen’s letters, and that he was ‘the son of William, son of William Burley of Malehurst’. Since the assembly book is a compilation, albeit a contemporary one, it is probable that these entries are simply errors, and yet it is curious that they contain information not on the gild merchant roll. However this may be, it is clear that our MP had a close kinsman serving in the royal household in the 1450s.12 Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/3752; Shrewsbury recs., gild merchant rolls, 3365/59d; assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 96v; PPC, vi. 224.

One can only speculate as to how this informed Burley’s attitude to the crisis that overtook his native borough in 1452, when its powerful neighbour, Richard, duke of York, called upon the townsmen to join his rising against the court regime of Edmund, duke of Somerset. Some leading townsmen answered his call, the chief among whom was Roger Eyton*. Eyton’s involvement gave our MP a connexion with the rebels to balance John Burley’s place about the King, for, a few years earlier, Roger had married his widowed daughter. And, although there is nothing to show that our MP followed his new son-in-law into rebellion, he may have been involved in some of Eyton’s other illegal activities. According to a bill laid before a Shropshire jury sitting before royal commissioners at Ludlow on 12 Aug. 1452, on the previous 20 Dec. he and Eyton had broken into the house in Shrewsbury of Sir John Talbot, son and heir-apparent of the Talbot earl, and taken various goods, including as much as 200 lbs. of lead. The jury, however, had Burley’s name erased from the bill, and there is no other evidence of his relationship with the Yorkist Eyton.13 Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, i. 97-98; KB9/103/1/13. Eyton had married Agnes by 1448: CP40/748, rot. 151.

Burley’s activities began to diminish from the mid 1450s when he must have been into his mid sixties. His last term as bailiff in 1454 left him facing actions of debt. John Merston, as former treasurer of the royal chamber, claimed £20 against him in the court of common pleas as former bailiff, and he was also left owing money to the Crown. In February 1458 he was one of several bailiffs of the town granted the concession of concluding Exchequer process against them by attorney rather than in person.14 CP40/782, rot. 98d; E159/234, brevia Hil. rot. 27. On 23 Oct. 1460 Burley served as a juror at the town’s curia magna, and he was alive as late as January 1465 when he had an action pending in the borough court. He must, however, have died very soon after. He had been one of the 12 aldermen appointed under the terms of the new constitution granted to the borough in 1445, and he was the fifth of this body to die. Since the fourth died in 1462, it is unlikely that he lived beyond the mid 1460s. His place among the aldermen was taken by his daughter’s son, Thomas Mytton†, who also succeeded to his lands.15 Ct. rolls. 3365/898, 911; assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 68v; Add. 30321, f. 11.