John Talbot, 1st Viscount Lisle

John Talbot, 1st Baron Lisle and 1st Viscount Lisle (1426 – 17 July 1453), English nobleman and medieval soldier, was the son of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and his second wife Margaret Beauchamp.

Titles

Butler was already a knight when, on 26 July 1444, he was created Lord and Baron Lisle of Kingston Lisle in Berkshire by Henry VI^[1] (his mother being one of the coheirs to the previous creation of the barony), and in 1451, was made Viscount Lisle. After 1449, his mother was one of three coheirs to her father, and through her he possessed a claim on Berkeley Castle.

Aggressive Acquisition

In prosecution of the claim against the Baron Berkeley, the heir-male, he stormed Berkeley Castle in 1452 and took the Baron and his sons prisoner.

Military service

In the winter of 1452, he led troops into Guyenne to reinforce his father.

Death Before Dishonour at Castillon

Both father and son were killed the next summer at the Battle of Castillon. Some chroniclers assert that when his wounded and unhorsed father begged him to quit the field and save himself, he refused, preferring death to dishonor; a scene memorialized by William Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part I.

Marriage & Issue

He married Joan Cheddar (b. c1425), the daughter of Thomas Chedder, Esquire and the widow of Richard Stafford in 1443 and had three children:

• Elizabeth Talbot (d. 1487), married Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Lisle
• Thomas Talbot, 2nd Viscount Lisle (c 1448 - 1470)
• Margaret Talbot (d. 1475)

Ancestry

References

• History of Berkeley