page_title: Coterel gang
section_title: Later events
hierarchical_section_title: Coterel gang / Later events
caption_attribution_description: English: Lichfield cathedral, west front
context_page_description: The Coterel gang was a 14th-century armed group that flourished in the North Midlands of England. It was led by James Coterel—after whom the gang is named—supported by his brothers Nicholas and John. It was one of several such groups that roamed across the English countryside in the late 1320s and early 1330s, a period of political upheaval with an associated increase in lawlessness in the provinces. Coterel and his immediate supporters were members of the gentry, and according to the tenets of the day were expected to assist the crown in the maintenance of law and order, rather than encourage its collapse.
  Basing themselves in the peaks of Derbyshire and the heavily wooded areas of north Nottinghamshire the Coterels frequently cooperated with other groups, including the Folvilles. Membership of the Coterel gang increased as its exploits became more widely known; most of the new members were recruited locally, but others came from as far away as Shropshire. Despite repeated attempts by the crown to suppress the Coterels, their criminal activities increased; by 1330 they had committed murder, extortion, kidnap, and ran protection rackets across the Peak District.
context_section_description: The Coterels and their men received few, if any, legal penalties, and James Coterel was eventually pardoned of all "extortions, oppressions, receivings of felons, usurpations, and ransoms" in 1351, probably at the instigation of Queen Philippa, whose patronage he seems to have enjoyed even during his days of criminality. The few members of the gang who were eventually brought before the King's Bench in 1333 were acquitted, and the three Coterel brothers seem to have continued receiving the patronage of Lichfield Cathedral, while Barnard retained both his employment at Oxford University and his church living until his death in 1341. 
  Many members of the band appear to have undertaken royal service in Scotland and in the Hundred Years' War in France in the latter years of the decade, which led directly to the end of the gang's activities. This included de Legh in 1330, and both James' and Nicholas Coterel's names are on the 1338 summons to join the royal army in Flanders. The crown, for its part, withdrew its commissions from the region claiming that the king's peace had been restored; in reality, it had been distracted by the renewal of war with Scotland the previous year, and, writes E. L. G. Stones, "the impetus of the general attack on disorder, which had seemed so strong in March 1332, rapidly declined". Bellamy notes how usual this was: "expenditure of royal energy meant temporary success"; but, with the King preoccupied with projects abroad, the status quo ante soon returned. For their part, those who fought for the King were pardoned by him on their return for the offences they had previously committed. There were rewards too: in May 1332, James Coterel was granted the wardship of Elizabeth Meverel. Coterel's ally Chetulton was sentenced to hang, but produced a pardon obtained for him by Ralph, Lord Neville; when it looked as though a second murder could be laid at his door, he was able to produce a second pardon. By July, Chetulton was back in royal favour, and commissioned to capture robbers in Nottingham. In 1334, Sir William Aune was appointed surveyor of the King's Welsh castles, and that same year, William de Uston—the only member of the gang to have been convicted, and, indeed, sentenced to death—was commissioned to investigate some murders in Leicester that were believed to have been carried out by Sir Richard Willoughby's servants. One of the last occurrences of James Coterel's name in official records indicates that he too regained the King's trust, as in November 1336, "he was on the right side of law", having been commissioned to arrest a "miscreant Leicestershire parson". They were, says Bellamy, reformed characters, and the Coterel brothers would never again ride armata potentia—armed and in power.
caption: West front of Lichfield Cathedral; the Dean and Chapter hired the Coterel gang from the beginning, protected them during their crime wave, and then supported them in later years.
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