Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/47

 under Edward II, and purchased the manors of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire and Risley in Derbyshire. The original name of the family was Bugge. They took the name of Willoughby from their lordship of that name in Nottinghamshire. In 1324 the younger Richard was substituted for his father as knight of the shire for that county, and was about the same time appointed chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland (Parl. Writs, i. 306, 312, 314; Cal. Rot. Pat. pp. 78, 94, 97). He is mentioned as one of the justices appointed for the trial of the persons who had spoiled Henry le Despenser's lands in 1322 (Parl. Writs, ii. 189). On the accession of Edward III he was removed from his office and appears in the year-book of the first year of that reign as an advocate. On 6 March 1328 he was made a justice of the common pleas, and on 2 Sept. 1329 became second justice. On 15 Dec. 1330 he was removed into the court of king's bench; and when Geoffrey le Scrope [q. v.], the chief justice, went abroad with the king, Willoughby occupied the chief seat during his absence, at different times from 1332, till Geoffrey le Scrope ultimately resigned in the middle of 1338. From this time he presided in the court until he was displaced on 24 July 1340.

In 1331 he was captured journeying towards Grantham by a certain Richard de Folville, and compelled to pay a ransom of ninety marks (, i. 460). In November 1340 he was arrested by order of the king, and imprisoned in Corfe Castle (French Chronicle of London, p. 84). He was tried on several charges at Westminster on 13 Jan. (ib. p. 87). But he was restored to office as one of the justices of the common pleas on 9 Oct. following, and continued to hold the office of judge till 1357, but probably retired in that year (, Origines Juridiciales, p. 45). He died in 1362. His extensive estates were situated in the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Lincoln, but he also had a house in London in ‘le Baly’ (Cal. Inq. post mortem, ii. 256). He married, first, Isabel, daughter of Sir Roger Mortein; secondly, Joanna; and thirdly, Isabella, and had several children. Later members of the family were Sir Hugh Willoughby [q. v.], Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby [q. v.], and Francis Willughby, the naturalist [q. v.]

[Foss's Judges of England, and authorities cited in text.]  WILLOUGHBY, ROBERT, first  (1452–1502), born in 1452, was son and heir of Sir John Willoughby, and great-great-grandson of Robert, fourth baron Willoughby de Eresby (d. 1396). His father was probably the John Willoughby who was sheriff of Somerset in 1455. The ancestral seat was at Clutton in that county, where Sir Robert afterwards acquired other estates. His mother was Anne, daughter and coheir of Sir Edmund Cheney or Cheyne of Broke, Wiltshire, and Up-Ottery, Devonshire. In or before 1475 he married Blanche, daughter and coheir of Sir John Champernowne of Beer Ferrers, Devonshire, and Callington, Cornwall. Through her he became possessed of the Beer Ferrers estate. His mother died in or before 1479, in which year he was found to be cousin and coheir, in her right, of Humphrey Stafford, earl of Devon [q. v.] His mother's family were strong Lancastrians, and Willoughby joined them as one of the leaders in the abortive rising of Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham [q. v.], in October 1483. After the dispersion of the insurgents Willoughby, with three of the Cheneys, escaped to Brittany (, p. 700), where they joined Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond (Henry VII). An act of attainder was immediately passed, in which Willoughby is described as ‘late of Byerferrys, knight’ (Rot. Parl. vi. 246). Probably under a grant following on this act, Humphrey Stafford of Grafton seized Willoughby's estates [see under ].

Willoughby doubtless returned with Richmond when he landed at Milford on 7 Aug. 1485. He is mentioned by the ‘Croyland Continuator’ (p. 574) among the fourteen leading generals of Richmond's army at Bosworth. Immediately after the victory Henry detached him from the main army to march from Leicester to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, and seize the person of Edward, earl of Warwick, son of George, duke of Clarence, and nephew of Edward IV, and his cousin, the Princess Elizabeth, who had both been imprisoned there by Richard III. Sheriff Hutton apparently surrendered without resistance, and Willoughby marched with Warwick to London (, p. 718).

On 24 Sept. in the same year Willoughby was granted the receivership of the duchy of Cornwall and the office of steward of all manner of mines in Devonshire and Cornwall in which there was any proportion of gold or silver. He was appointed high steward of the household preparatory to Henry VII's coronation on 30 Oct. (, Mat. ii. 3, &c.). Parliament met on 7 Nov. 1485, and at once repealed Richard III's act of attainder against Wil-