page_title: John Burley
section_title: Endemic violence
hierarchical_section_title: John Burley / Later career 1399–1415 / Endemic violence
context_page_description: John Burley was an English lawyer and a knight of the shire for Shropshire six times from 1399. He was a justice of the peace for Shropshire and sheriff of the county from 10 December 1408 – 4 November 1409. A key member of the Arundel affinity, he helped muster forces to combat the Glyndŵr Rising and died a short time after accompanying Thomas Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel on Henry V's first expedition to France.
context_section_description: While the Arundel affinity's dominance was generally imposed through adept use of the law and civil authority, there was an undertow of violence and intimidation and this became increasingly open and notorious after 1410, as Arundel's affinity clashed with supporters of most of the county's other magnates. Burley was very close to the perpetrators of violence: his son, his former ward and his future executors were involved in some of the most sensational outrages. These led to complaints about the prevalence of bad governance and murder in Shropshire at the Fire and Faggot Parliament, held in Leicester in 1414. Many cases came to court at the last ever regional session of the Court of King's Bench, held at Shrewsbury in Trinity term of 1414. Henry V was present in person, along with William Hankford, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, to make a show of taking seriously the complaints against his most powerful supporter in the region, and much of what is known of the violence is derived from allegations made at that court.
  It was alleged that in May 1411 Burley's younger son, John, lay in wait with ten other armed men at Onibury to ambush John Stanton, perhaps an inhabitant of Stanton Lacy, who was visiting Stokesay. After a long wait, Stanton appeared and John Burley unhorsed him with his sword and then set about him with the same weapon. There could be little doubt of the intention to kill, as he struck seven potentially fatal blows. In March 1412 Roger Corbet, Robert's younger brother, led an armed force of forty men to raid the rectory of St Peter's Church, Edgmond, where he had a quarrel with the incumbent, Nicholas Peshale. Peshale lost all his sheep, cattle, household goods and silverware. The church belonged to Shrewsbury Abbey, to which Corbet and other Arundel men were significant benefactors, so it is likely the attack had something to do with the abbey's internal politics: moreover, the Peshales were allied to the Earls of Stafford. When the royal tax collectors arrived the following year the Corbet brothers set their servants on them. One of them, Roger Leyney, got a writ against them, provoking Roger Corbet to pursue him as far as Dunstable with a body of five armed men. There Corbet confronted Leyney with the words "Who made the so hardy to putte any bille to the Kyng to undo me with all?" He then attacked the man with his sword, bata, naufra, et ses chambes coupa, luy endonant pluseurs autres horribles ployes a son final anientisement et grauntz maheime, eusi q'il estoit en point de mort: beating and wounding the man, hacking at his legs and causing horrible sufferings, maiming him seriously, to the point of death. The same term, maihem, is used in allegation that in August 1413 the younger John Burley and his gang carried out another armed ambush, attacking William Munslow, from the name possibly one of his father's tenants, at Ludlow, although on this occasion the victim seems to have escaped death. In 1413, as Lord Furnival seemed to be acquiring still more power by inheriting his mother's estates – a process assisted by Burley as feoffee – open hostilities broke out between his and Arundel's men. Early in May 1413 an armed force of 800 from Oswestry, where Burley was steward, had appeared at Pitchford and billeted itself without payment on Lord Burnell's tenants. It was alleged that Arundel's men had raided Much Wenlock with 2000 Cheshire men on 18 May 1413, a circumstance they attributed to their efforts at law enforcement directed towards the criminal Furnival. The elder Burley was very familiar with the mechanics of raising forces like these, which were essentially the same mercenaries used in border warfare and Welsh campaigns. One of those most prominently accused in relation to the events at Wenlock was his friend Richard Lacon. Despite his closeness to the perpetrators and his record of both legitimate force and criminal intimidation, Burley was left unscathed by the accusations. Arundel, along with Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, was at the very centre of Henry V's tight-knit group
caption: Henry V intervened early in his reign to uphold order in Shropshire.
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