Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shardelowe, John de
SHARDELOWE or SCHERDELOW, Sir JOHN de (d. 1344?), judge, appears as an advocate in the reign of Edward II (Foss), and on 28 Jan. 1332 was appointed a judge of the court of common pleas and received knighthood. Dugdale says that in 1339 he exchanged courts with a justice of the king's bench, but this must have been only some temporary arrangement, for he was sitting in the common pleas in 1340 (ib.; Year Book, Edward III, Mich. 1340). In December of that year he, in common with other judges, was arrested and committed to custody (see Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. c. 16). He was afterwards restored to office, and sat in his court in 1342. He was a trier of petitions in the parliament of 28 April 1343, and died either in that or the following year. During his lifetime he settled his manor of Thompson, Norfolk, upon his elder son, Sir John de Shardelowe, and, in addition, died seised of the manor of Fulbourn and of lands in Leverington and Wisbeach in Cambridgeshire, of the manors of Barrow and Cowlinge or Cooling, and of lands in Brandon, Cavenham, and elsewhere in Suffolk, and of land in Downham in Norfolk. He and his wife Agnes were buried in the parish church of Thompson. His younger son, Sir Thomas de Shardelowe, who appears to have been attorney-general in 1366, became heir to his elder brother, Sir John, was a commissioner of array in 1376 (Fœdera, iii. 1045), and was buried at Thompson. The two brothers founded a perpetual chantry or college, of a master and five clerks, in the church of Thompson in honour of St. Martin, the Virgin, and All Saints, and for the souls of their father and mother, and also joined in giving the advowson of the church of Cooling to the master and scholars of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The elder brother, Sir John, appears to have died about 1369, for on 28 April of that year his widow Joan took a vow of chastity before Thomas Percy, bishop of Norwich, and remained until her death attached to the college at Thompson. The arms of Shardelowe, adopted by the college of Thompson, and represented in the church, 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.).]