Thomas Staveley

Thomas Staveley ( 26 November 1626 – 2 January 1684) was a Stuart antiquary, magistrate, anti-Papist, and Church historian. He spent most of his life researching the antiquities of his home county, Leicestershire.

Born in East Langton, Staveley attended Cambridge University from 1644 to 1654. Here he studied law, that being the profession he would later take on, serving as a Lancashire Justice of the peace. He was described by contemporaries as a just and even-tempered magistrate, but was most renowned for his manuscripts of Leicestershire history, which were instrumental in the later histories of John Nichols. Staveley published only one work in his lifetime, ''The Romish Horseleech'' (1674), a political tract protesting James II's Catholicism, later held up as a "no-Popery classic". Staveley died on 8 January 1684 in Friar Lane. Posthumously, two lesser-known historical treatises of Staveley were published, on the English monarchy and Church history, respectively. Provided by Wikipedia