Nicholas Colfox

The murder of Thomas of Woodstock in Calais by Colfox's gang, from Froissart's Chroniques. Sir Nicholas Colfox (flourished 1400) was a medieval English knight who in 1397 was involved in the murder of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, uncle of King Richard II, apparently on the orders of the king. Colfox's involvement in the killing may have been alluded to in Geoffrey Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, in which a duplicitous fox is referred to as a "Colfox" and described as "liking to murder men".

Origins Nicholas Colfox appears to have come from Nantwich in Cheshire where he owned several salt furnaces and accompanying shares in the salt springs. He also held property at Barton Seagrave in Northamptonshire from Thomas Mowbray, part of the latter's inheritance as Earl of Norfolk.

A close ally of Richard II, Mowbray was later exiled. During Mowbray's exile, Barton Seagrave Castle was held by Richard Colfox, possibly Nicholas's son. He subsequently appears in records only for minor matters, including debt and tax assessment of his property in Gloucester. Scholars have criticised Hotson's theory by suggesting that Chauntecleer's colours are in fact similar to those of the Golden Spangled Hamburg cockerel, though Hamburgs do not have a black beak. Modern critics do not all reject Hotson's allegory theory, but believe that Chaucer's long version of the fable is written on many different levels of meaning.

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