LACCHE (LECCHE), John, of Dartmouth, Devon.

Lacche resided in Dartmouth from 1376, when he acquired a house in ‘Pynnyslane’ (Horn Hill),H.R. Watkin, Dartmouth, 60. but his practice as a lawyer often took him to Exeter for the assizes and he also spent a good deal of time in the central courts at Westminster. For 16 years he acted as attorney in the King’s bench on behalf of the city of Exeter. His annual fee for this work was 13s.4d., but of course he was able to supplement it by appearing in Chancery and the court of common pleas for other clients, most notably for the abbot of Buckfast. In 1385 he stood surety in Chancery for Nicholas Wake when he was granted permission to speculate for gold and silver in Devon. Two of his more interesting cases, both arising in 1387-8, are recorded in the Year Books: he acted as attorney in the common pleas for John Jonet, one of the accomplices of Sir Matthew Gourney named in grave charges of assault and imprisonment brought by a prominent London weaver, and then he was briefed by the plaintiff in an action for armed robbery at Totnes. In 1387 and 1394 he provided securities at the Exchequer for John Down, a lessee of estates in Devon, and in the meantime, in 1391, he did likewise for the prior of Plympton, regarding lands in Cornwall. When, six years later, he was bound under a penalty of £100 to bring John Baker of Dartmouth before the Council, he was probably acting as Baker’s attorney in his long suit in the court of admiralty against Edmund Arnold.CPR, 1381-5, p. 572; Yr. Bk. 1387-8 ed. Thornley, 170, 178; CFR, x. 190; xi. 4, 130; CCR, 1385-9, pp. 298, 588; 1389-92, p. 329; 1396-9, p. 222; Trans. Devon Assoc. viii. 840-2. Lacche was occasionally asked to be a trustee of estates in Devon, and was co-patron of the rectory and chantry at Aveton Gifford on behalf of John Berie.Reg. Stafford ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 143; CP25(1)45/70/15.

In 1395 Berie and his wife Clarissa granted to Lacche and his son, Thomas, the manor of Highchurch in Somerset for term of their lives, but Lacche sold his interest to William, son and heir of William Burlestone, some 13 years later. Meanwhile, in 1406, he had been granted a lease at the Exchequer of lands in ‘Le Forde’ at Ipplepen, Devon, for as long as they were in the King’s possession. The date of Lacche’s death is not known, but it was his widow who, many years later in 1437, sold their house in Dartmouth to Nicholas Stebbing.CCR, 1405-9, p. 25; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xvii), 164; (ibid. xxii), 28; CFR, xiii. 39; Watkin, 115. He is to be distinguished from the John Lacche who became a freeman of Exeter in 1409, and died before 1453 leaving a widow named Nicola (Exeter City RO, ct. roll 10 Hen. IV. m. 34; ED/M802).