The register of John Gilbert, the Bishop of Hereford, shows that Burley jointly exercised the advowson of the church at Wistanstow, presenting Edmund de Ludlowe as rector on 6 August 1385.

[11] Ludlow's inquisition post mortem at Shrewsbury in January 1391 showed that, despite his great wealth, technically he held no land at all in the county, as the king, Richard II, had licensed him to vest everything in Burley and other feoffees,[12] a stratagem that allowed him to avoid payment of impositions like feudal relief as well as free disposal of the properties according to his own wishes.

The History of Parliament Online names the most influential nobles of Shropshire during the period as the earls of Arundel, Stafford and March, and the Lords Talbot, Furnival and Burnell.

Early in 1387 Burley joined Talbot's contingent to fight under Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel in a successful naval campaign against the French and their allies in the English Channel.

Richard Talbot's wife, Lady Ankaret, who was heiress to the Barony of Strange of Blackmere,[15] settled a small estate on Burley, who paid two marks into the royal hanaper to ensure the gift was recorded on 17 February 1408.

This involved two other feoffees, Geoffrey Lowther and Hugh Burgh, a retainer of Lord Furnivall who had become rich by marriage on lands that were the focus of a Corbet family dispute.

[20] Burnell's second wife, Joyce Botetourt, brought him considerable wealth, as she was the cousin (once removed) and heiress of Hugh la Zouche, a wealthy Leicestershire landowner who died in July 1399.

Although this was only to a lesser extent in Shropshire, they were the dominant force in the county's politics and parliamentary representation: between 1386 and 1397 eleven of the twenty MPs were clients or allies of Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel.

In July 1397, immediately after Arundel's arrest, Burley was involved in some sort of deal with John Eyton that required a reciprocal agreement to pay each other a substantial £200 the next Michaelmas.

An almost adjacent entry in the Patent rolls for 4 February shows how delicately the king, evidently worried by spreading disaffection, was handling Shropshire people affected by Arundel's attainder.

Following the successful coup by the coalition of Bolingbroke and the Arundels, Burley's long-term client Hugh Burnell was one of the barons who accepted the surrender of Richard II at the Tower of London.

[49] In 1404 he was accompanied first by the heavily indebted George Hawkstone[50] but to the second parliament of the year by John Darras, another member of the Arundel affinity, who had been an active and violent participant in the Corbet family's feuds.

"[55] Burley was sent to tackle cases of murder, as at Hereford in January 1403,[56] He was also the man for serious outbreaks of disorder, as when, a month later, organised poachers attacked a deer park at Kingswood in Shropshire, driving off game and breaking down the hated fencing.

On 18 November 1400 he was sent with Lee, Holbache and Sir John Wiltshire, a close friend of Arundel,[59] to investigate a case where it was suspected a dead man's property was being concealed from the king,[60] a form of tax evasion.

Whatever the outcome of this particular phase in the dispute, the Mawddwy estates were ultimately to pass to Hugh Burgh, Burley's associate as a feoffee for the Talbots, who married the missing heir's sister.

[66] The abbot of Lilleshall Abbey was ordered to take an oath of loyalty from Cornwall and Burley, the king had "appointed them controllers of all the arrayers and leaders of men at arms, hobelars and archers of the marches of England towards North Wales.

On 7 October 1405, Burley and Cornwall, this time with a cleric, Roger Haldenby, were commissioned to raise troops for Arundel to garrison castles in North Wales and Shropshire.

On 11 May 1407 Burley was commissioned, along with Prestbury, Arundel, Charleton, Burnell, Holbache, Young and Lee, to track down and imprison those "preaching, publishing or maintaining or holding schools of any sect or doctrine contrary to the Catholic faith and the sacraments of the Church.

[74] The Testimony of William Thorpe, records an unauthorised sermon by a Lollard preacher at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury on 17 April 1407,[75] suggesting that this commission was a direct response.

When, on 25 January 1407, the earl granted a new charter to Oswestry,[79] enhancing its liberties and giving it a commercial monopoly over a considerable area,[80] the steward Burley's name headed the list of witnesses.

This began in 1407 with St Pierre buying from feoffees property, mainly valuable urban plots in Abbey Foregate and elsewhere, that Gerard was hoping to inherit from his grandfather.

John Cornwall had been rewarded for his services to the king with the grant of the lucrative keepership of Morfe and Shirlett, areas of Royal forest, apparently in preference to Nicholas Gerard, who had been promised the post.

The issue finally came to a head in 1413 when John Marshall, Dean of the royal free chapel at Bridgnorth, explicitly named Cornwall as the culprit in harassing himself and his tenants at Claverley.

Henry V was present in person,[100] along with William Hankford, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, to make a show of taking seriously the complaints against his most powerful supporter in the region, and much of what is known of the violence is derived from allegations made at that court.

In March 1412 Roger Corbet, Robert's younger brother, led an armed force of forty men to raid the rectory of St Peter's Church, Edgmond, where he had a quarrel with the incumbent, Nicholas Peshale.

"[103] He then attacked the man with his sword, bata, naufra, et ses chambes coupa, luy endonant pluseurs autres horribles ployes a son final anientisement et grauntz maheime, eusi q'il estoit en point de mort: beating and wounding the man, hacking at his legs and causing horrible sufferings, maiming him seriously, to the point of death.

The same term, maihem, is used in allegation that in August 1413 the younger John Burley and his gang carried out another armed ambush, attacking William Munslow, from the name possibly one of his father's tenants, at Ludlow, although on this occasion the victim seems to have escaped death.

In 1413, as Lord Furnival seemed to be acquiring still more power by inheriting his mother's estates – a process assisted by Burley as feoffee – open hostilities broke out between his and Arundel's men.

On 1 December 1414, using the rector of Upton Magna and vicar of Wrockwardine as his feoffees, and for a fine of £20, he received a licence to alienate in mortmain substantial property to Shrewsbury Abbey,[112] where his associate Prestbury was still abbot.

In return the abbey promised to find a chaplain from within the monastic chapter to celebrate mass daily for Burley and Juliana in the chapel of St Katharine.