Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catesby, John

1383691Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 09 — Catesby, John1887James Gairdner

CATESBY, Sir JOHN (d. 1486), justice of the common pleas, appears to have been the uncle of William Catesby [q. v.], the councillor of Richard III. The family had been for some time settled in Northamptonshire, and held also the manor of Lapworth in Warwickshire. His mother was a coheiress of William de Montfort. He was a member of the Inner Temple, then called the Inner Inn, and his name first appears in the year books in Michaelmas 1458. He received the coif in 1463, and was made king's serjeant on 18 April 1469. On 20 Nov. 1481 he was appointed justice of the common pleas, and next year he was knighted. His name appears in the commissions for the western circuit, as well as in those for Northamptonshire, during the reigns of Edward V and Richard III. His will shows that he was lord of the manor of Whiston in Northamptonshire. At the accession of Henry VII his reappointment as a judge was delayed for about a month after that of his brethren, probably in consequence of his nephew's attainder. That he was a worthy character we are justified in believing, from the fact that Bishop Waynflete in his will named him first among his executors. He died between 3 Nov. 1486 and Hilary term 1487, the place of his death, according to a notice in the year-books, being eight leagues from London. According to Foss he married Elizabeth, daughter of William Green of Hayes in Middlesex. He was buried, as he had himself directed, in the abbey of St. James at Northampton, and left behind him seven sons and two daughters, who are all mentioned in his will.

[Foss's Judges, v. 42; Dugdale's Warwickshire, 788; Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta, 389; Report ix. of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records, App. ii. Foss calls attention to a John Catesby who is referred to in a document of 1485 (Rymer, xii. 275), as having at some past date occupied a house called the ‘Grene Lates,’ adjoining Westminster Hall; but this could scarcely have been the judge, as he is not even designated knight, either there or in the Act of Attainder (Rolls of Parl. vi. 372), and in the latter he ought certainly to have been recognised, both as knight and justice.]

J. G.