BURTON, William

As observed in the earlier biography,1 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 445. The earlier biography is in error in identifying the MP as the William Burton included in 1434 among the Notts. gentry to be sworn to the peace: CPR, 1429-36, p. 409. That was his namesake, an esquire of Burton Joyce near Nottingham, for whom see e.g. CIPM, xxv. 333, 344, 592. most of what is known of Burton’s career concerns his service to one of the leading local gentry, Hugh Willoughby*, who lived at Wollaton near Nottingham. From about 1411 he acted for Willoughby as an attorney in grants of land, as a feoffee and as a witness to deeds. Their relationship appears to have been exceptionally close and to have been sustained over nearly 30 years.2 To the references cited in the earlier biography are to be added Nottingham Univ. Lib. Middleton mss, Mi D 46, 266, 749, 788, 1517, 3471, 4735, 4752; Db 2; Dc 3, no. 180; Dc 4, no. 20; KB27/637, rot. 15; CP40/653, rot. 309. In his will of 15 Sept. 1443, Willoughby made a bequest of ‘a peace of siluer covered with a scripture a bowte’, once the property of our MP. The will also mentions 12 silver spoons once belonging to Emmota Burton, and it may speculatively be suggested that she had been William’s wife before Joan, identified as his wife in the borough court roll of 1440.3 Middleton mss, Mi F 6. Burton was on less friendly terms with another of the prominent gentry resident in the near-neighbourhood of the county town. On 24 Nov. 1412 Sir Nicholas Strelley† of Strelley complained in the Exchequer of pleas that Burton and his fellow bailiff of the preceding financial year had failed to produce John Wilford* in court to answer him for debt.4 E13/128, f. 6d.

In addition to the landholdings detailed in the earlier biography, on 24 Aug. 1444 Burton joined his second wife in taking a lease, for the long term of 69 years, of a tenement on Long Row. In Trinity term 1453 the lessors, including the wealthy merchant, Thomas Thurland, sued his widow for making waste and claimed damages of £26.5 CP40/770, rot. 336.