James Leyburn

Sir James Leyburn (c. 1490 – 20 August 1548), also Laybourne, Labourn, etc., was a senior representative of one of the powerful families within the Barony of Kendal. He was at different times a Justice of the Peace for Westmorland, Escheator for Cumberland and Westmorland, and Commissioner for the survey of the monasteries of Lancashire. He was caught up in the troubles at Kendal during the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536-1537). As an assistant (and kinsman) to Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy Warden of the West March, he took an important part in the Battle of Solway Moss (1542). He was one of the two MPs for Westmorland in 1542 and 1545. Leyburn of Cunswick The Leyburn family of Westmorland, which derived from the family of the same name seated at Leybourne Castle in Kent, received a grant of land at Skelsmergh, a little north-east of Kendal, in or about the second quarter of the 13th century. Becoming established among the principal families of the area, in the mid-15th century the marriage of Katherine de Leyburne to Sir Henry Bellingham of Strickland Ketel (lord of the double pele tower of Burneside Hall, just to the north of Kendal) produced a daughter Katherine Bellingham. Sir Henry Bellingham suffered attainder in c. 1461 for his adherence to the Lancastrian cause, in the victory of Edward IV, and his estates passed temporarily into the keeping of William and John Parr of Kendal. His daughter Katherine married an elder James Leyburn of Cunswick, her cousin. The Leyburn seat at Cunswick Hall, then in the parish of Kendal, was at Cunswick (Conyngeswyke, 1301), by Underbarrow, near Crosthwaite and the head of the Lyth Valley, slightly less than midway on the road passing south-west from Kendal towards the southern end of Lake Windermere at Newby Bridge. The original Hall was replaced two hundred years ago by a house of moderate scale, but some remains of an earlier gatehouse and outbuildings survive. The eldest son of James and Katherine Leyburn was Thomas Leyburn. In 1487, early in the reign of Henry VII, James made a contract for the marriage of Thomas as his son and heir to Margaret, daughter of Sir John Pennington, of Muncaster Castle, Cumberland, and widow of John Lamplugh. Early career The eldest son and heir of Thomas and Margaret was James Leyburn, born around 1490: Thomas died in August 1510, and at his inquisition post mortem held at Kendal in the following January James, aged 21, was found to be heir to his estates.