Richard de Willoughby

Sir Richard de Willoughby, who lived from around 1290 until 14 March 1362, was an English landowner, politician and judge from Nottinghamshire. He represented Nottinghamshire in Parliament in 1324, became a serjeant at law that same year, was made a justice of the Common Pleas in 1328, and served as Chief Justice of the King's Bench across three separate periods between 1332 and 1340 while Geoffrey Scrope was away. His career was marked by controversy: in 1332 he was kidnapped for ransom by the Folville gang and its allies, and royal records later accused him of corruption, describing him as selling the laws as if they were cattle or oxen. After a 1340 corruption investigation he was imprisoned and fined, though he later returned to judicial service before retiring in 1357.