ILSHAWE, William, of Warws.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Sept. 1397

Family and Education

s. of John Ilshawe. m. Margaret.

Offices Held

Under sheriff, Warws. c. Dec. 1396-Nov. 1397.

Receiver of monies of Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal, Leics., Northants., Rutland, Warws., Worcs. by Jan. 1404-c. June 1405.1

Escheator, Warws. and Leics. 10 Dec. 1404-1 June 1405.

Commr. of inquiry, Warws. May 1405 (wastes).

Biography

In 1385 Ilshawe joined his father in the purchase of a messuage in Tamworth, Warwickshire, and it may have been there that he took up residence. He and his wife later became members of the Trinity Guild at Coventry.2

From 1391 to 1406 Ilshawe occasionally acted as a surety for recipients of royal grants. At the time of his only known return to Parliament for Warwick, in the autumn of 1397, he was acting under sheriff of Warwickshire as deputy to Robert Goushill. There is reason to suspect that his election was promoted by Goushill’s friend, the influential Sir William Bagot* of Baginton, for John Catesby* later alleged that Ilshawe was ‘maintained’ by Bagot and had arrayed a panel of jurors at Baginton that same autumn which had favoured his, Catesby’s, opponents in a lawsuit. Bagot represented the shire in this same Parliament, there making his mark as one of Richard II’s most prominent supporters, whose presence enabled the King to have his revenge on the Lords Appellant of 1387-8. One of those judged in the Parliament was the lord of the borough of Warwick, Earl Thomas of Warwick, who at the time of the elections had been the King’s prisoner, and it would, therefore, have been a comparatively easy matter for Bagot to promote the return to the Commons of one of his own followers.3

Perhaps Ilshawe owed his later appointment as local receiver for Thomas Mowbray, the Earl Marshal, to Sir William Bagot, too, for the latter had been closely connected with Mowbray’s father. It was while in office that Ilshawe was made royal escheator in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, only to have his appointment abruptly terminated in June 1405 at the time of the earl’s rebellion and execution. He is last recorded in March 1406, as standing surety in Chancery for William Bispham* of Leicester, the duchy of Lancaster feodary in the locality.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Add. Ch. 16556.
  • 2. Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xviii), no. 2296; Reg. Holy Trinity Guild Coventry (ibid. xiii), 92.
  • 3. CFR, xi. 22, 164; Med. Legal Recs. ed. Hunnisett and Post, 320.
  • 4. CCR, 1405-9, p. 105.