Nicholas Colfox

Sir Nicholas Colfox (flourished 1400) was a medieval English knight who in 1397 was involved in the murder of , 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".

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 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. Colfoxes were well connected, educated Lollard Knights, deriving their wealth from the luxury trades of salt and wool and obtaining their name from the trade in black fox fur which underwrote the re-circulation of trade cash from the Far East during the Dark Ages.

Colfox murdered the Duke of Gloucester in Calais. He was probably instructed personally by Thomas Mowbray, then Governor of Calais, in whose charge Gloucester was held after his recent arrest on the King's order. According to the 1404 confession of Mowbray's valet, John Hall, he was told by Colfox to help to get the Duke away from his usual lodging. Hall helped to move Gloucester to a different house where Colfox and others were waiting. They then strangled the Duke.

The rewards for the murder of Thomas of Woodstock were substantial. Six months after the overthrow of the other Lords Appellant with the murder of Thomas of Woodstock and execution of the Earl of Arundel, Thomas Mowbray was made first Duke of Norfolk and the first Hereditary Earl Marshall. Mowbray's grandmother, the Countess of Norfolk was made Duchess. John of Gaunt's son Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby was made Duke of Hereford.

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