Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/407

Shareshull were argent, a chevron between three cross crosslets fitchée azure. The male line of Sir John de Shardelowe failed in 1433.

[Foss's Judges, iii. 500; Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. pp. 39, 45, 102, and Chron. Ser.; Blomefield's Norfolk, ii. 367–9, 372, viii. 268–9, x. 136, ed. 1805; Chron. Angliæ, p. 10 (Rolls Ser.); Rot. Parl. ii. 135; Cal. Inquis. post mortem, ii. 117 (Record publ.).]

 SHARESHULL, WILLIAM (fl. 1360), judge, is mentioned among the advocates in the ‘Year Book’ of Edward II, and also as receiving a commission of oyer and terminer on 22 Feb. 1327, and the two following years. In 1331, when he had risen to the rank of king's serjeant, he was appointed with others to assess a tallage in the counties of Oxford, Gloucester, and Berks (25 June). In the following year he was one of the council selected by the king to advise him, was ordered on 11 Oct. to attend the approaching parliament in Scotland for the confirmation of the treaty with Edward Balliol, and was made a knight of the Bath.

On 20 March 1333 he was made a judge of the king's bench, but was removed to the common pleas on 30 May following. In 1340 (30 Nov.). Edward III suddenly returned from the Low Countries, and removed the chancellor and treasurer and other prominent officials, among them Shareshull, on a charge of maladministration. He was reinstated, however, on 10 May 1342, and on 2 July 1344 he was made chief baron of the exchequer. On 10 Nov. 1345 he was moved back to the common pleas, with the title of second justice. He was also appointed one of the guardians of the principality of Wales during the minority of the king's son. On 26 Oct. 1350 he was advanced to the headship of the court of king's bench, and presided in it until 5 July 1357. While holding that office he declared the causes of the meeting of five parliaments, from 25 to 29 Edward III (1351–1355), and his functions seem to have more resembled those of a political and parliamentary official than those of a judge. In the last year of his chief-justiceship he was excommunicated by the pope for refusing to appear when summoned to answer for a sentence he had delivered against the bishop of Ely for harbouring a man who had slain a servant of Lady Wake.

According to Clarke's ‘Ipswich’ (p. 14), in 1344 some sailors, thinking Shareshull (he is there called Sharford) stayed too long at dinner, when he was holding assizes in that town, one of them mounted the bench and fined the judge for non-attendance. He took such offence at the joke that he induced the king to take away the assizes from the town and seize the liberties of the corporation into his own hands for about a year. Though retired from the bench, he occupied confidential positions as late as 1361. He lived beyond 1364, in which year he granted his manor of Alurynton in Shropshire to the Augustinian priory in Osney, in addition to lands at Sandford in Oxfordshire, which he had given seven years before. He was a benefactor also to the priories of Bruera, near Chester, and Dudley. He left a son of the same name, who died in 1 Henry IV (1399–1400).

[Foss's Judges of England, iii. 504; Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, 1327–38 passim; Rymer's Fœdera, ii. 991, iii. 126, 230, 457, 469; G. Le Baker, ed. Thompson, p. 72; Barnes's Edward III, pp. 212, 551.]

 SHARINGTON or SHERINGTON, WILLIAM (1495?–1553), vice-treasurer of the mint at Bristol, born about 1495, came of an old Norfolk family, and was the eldest son of Thomas Sherington (d. 1527?) and his wife Catherine, daughter of William Pirton of Little Bentley, Essex (, Norfolk, x. 201–3). He entered the service of Sir Francis Bryan [q.v.], and subsequently became page of the king's robes. In 1540 he bought the dissolved Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, for 783l., and on 3 May 1546 he became vice-treasurer of the mint at Bristol (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–1581, p. 3). He was made knight of the Bath at the coronation of Edward VI on 19 Feb. 1546–7. His position at the mint he used to perpetrate extensive frauds. In April 1547 the council forbad the coining of any more ‘testons’ or shillings, two-thirds of which were alloy. Sharington nevertheless bought up large quantities of church plate from the Somerset villagers, and during May, June, and July, coined it into testons. He also made over 4,000l. in three years by shearing and clipping coins, and to conceal his frauds he made false copies of the books of the mint and destroyed the originals. Fearing discovery, he entered into the plots of Thomas Seymour, baron Seymour of Sudeley [q.v.], who promised to protect him. Sharington in return lent Seymour money and put the mint at Bristol at his disposal; he also undertook to coin 10,000l. to be devoted to raising adherents for the admiral. With part of his ill-gotten fortune he purchased of the king Winterbourne, Aubrey, Charlton, and other manors, chiefly in Wiltshire, for 2,808l. But his frauds and Seymour's plots soon came to the knowledge of the government. On 6 Jan. 1548–9 Lacock Abbey was searched by the council's agents, and on 19 Jan. Sharington was arrested. He