Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rishton, Nicholas
RISHTON, NICHOLAS (d. 1413), diplomatist, was presumably a native of Rishton, Lancashire, and was, like others of his name, educated at New College, Oxford, where he was fellow in 1407 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, pp. 29, 35). On 9 June 1391 he was one of the clerks who were engaged at the Roman curia on the suit of John de Waltham, bishop of Salisbury, with his chapter (Fœdera, vii. 702). He held the prebend of Pole at Crediton till 1410, and in 1399 he obtained the prebend of St. Stephen, Beverley. He was one of the English commissioners to negotiate with France on 28 April 1403, and was employed in negotiations with the French and Flemings during the greater part of this and the following two years. The French and English representatives could not agree on the basis for negotiations, and in October 1404 Rishton crossed over to England to lay the matter before the king at Coventry. On 12 Nov. he and his colleagues had fresh instructions for treating with France and Flanders (ib. viii. 301, 327, 344, 375–7; Hingeston, p. 404; Nicolas, Proc. Privy Council, ii. 240–2). Rishton returned to Calais on 5 Dec., and the negotiations proceeded through the spring without much result. At the end of 1408 he went with Sir John Colvil and John Polton on a mission to Pope Gregory, and appears to have been present as one of the English representatives at Pisa. Rishton had papal graces sub expectatione in 1406 for prebends at York, Salisbury, and Lincoln. He was prebendary of Nether Avon, Salisbury, from 4 June 1408 till his death in June 1413. In 1404 he is described as doctor utriusque juris and auditor of causes in the holy apostolic palace. A number of letters written by Rishton and his colleagues in connection with his missions in 1403–4 are printed in Hingeston's ‘Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry IV’ (cf. pp. ciii–cx). For seven of the letters Rishton is solely responsible. Rishton also wrote some sermons, and a treatise ‘De tollendo Schismate,’ which Leland says was formerly in the library at Westminster Abbey (Collectanea, iii. 48). There was another Nicholas Rishton, who was rector of St. Dionys Backchurch in 1430 (Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 330), and who may be the person of that name who had a grace to incept in canon law at Oxford on 25 Jan. 1443.
[Rymer's Fœdera, orig. edit.; Nicolas's Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council; Hingeston's Royal and Historical Letters, Henry IV (Rolls Ser.); Wylie's Hist. of England under Henry IV, i. 471–2, ii. 79, iii. 369 (see note 8 for further authorities), and 373; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 635.]