John Cavendish

Also known as: sir Iohn Cauendish · Family: England · Role: chief justice of England · First appears: Richard II 17

Life events

• c. 1381 · John Cavendish is beheaded, and his head is set upon the market-place pillory.(Richard II 17 · 📍 S. Edmundsburie)
  • “they slue, and beheded sir Iohn Cauendish lord chiefe iustice of England, and set his head vpon the pillorie in the market place in S. Edmundsburie.”

Richard II 17

• friends with John of Cambridge (The narrative explicitly identifies an old friendship between the chief justice and the prior.) “they slue, and beheded sir Iohn Cauendish lord chiefe iustice of England, and set his head vpon the pillorie in the market place in S. Edmundsburie. Also sir Iohn of Cambridge the prior of saint Edmundsburie, as he would haue fled from them, was taken not far from Mildenhale, and likewise beheaded, his bodie being left naked in the open field, and no man presuming to burie it, during the space of fiue daies, for feare of the cruell commons. His head was set vpon a pole, and caried before Iohn Wraw and other of those wicked people; the which comming to Burie, and entring the towne in maner of a procession, when they came into the market place where the pillorie stood, as it were in token of the old friendship betwixt the lord chiefe iustice, and the said prior, they made sport with their heads, making them sometime as it were to kisse, other whiles to sound in either others eare.”
• sworn: Richard II (John Cavendish held the office of chief justice under the king.) “they slue, and beheded sir Iohn Cauendish lord chiefe iustice of England”
• enemies with John Wraw (John Wraw instigated the rebels who executed John Cavendish.) “by the setting on of Iohn Wraw, a naughtie lewd priest, that had beene first among the Essexmen at London, and was sent downe in all post hast from Wat Tiler, to stir the commons in those parts to commit the like mischéefe as he had séene begun about London. These fellowes therfore, after they were assembled togither, fell to the destroieng of the manors and houses of men of law, & such lawiers as they caught, they slue, and beheded sir Iohn Cauendish lord chiefe iustice of England”

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Extracted from the original text of Holinshed's Chronicles — the reigns Shakespeare dramatized. Made with Rho MD.