Death in Fleet Street: the demise of John Lowther, knight of the shire for Westmorland, in the parliament of January 1380*

Abstract

On the second day of the Westminster Parliament of January 1380 John Lowther, one of the MPs for Westmorland, was stabbed to death by a fellow Member, Sir William Curwen, who sat for Cumberland. A case study of this homicide (the principal record of which is printed in the appendix) and its background offers new information on the arrangements for the housing of MPs during 14th‐century parliaments and demonstrates how the affair acquired a long parliamentary afterlife, before eventually being settled in 1394.