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John Penny was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. He was admitted as a freeman of Leicester
in 1475, appearing on the roll as 'John Pene pardonner', that is someone who was entitled to
sell
Papal
Indulgences. In 1481 he became a monk at the Abbey of St Mary de Pratis, Leicester. On the death
of the Abbot, John Shepished, on 23 August 1485, the day after the Battle of Bosworth, John
Penny and fellow monk William Stoughton were sent on behalf of the monastery to the new king,
Henry VII, then in Leicester, to obtain leave to elect Gilbert Manchester as the new Prior.
In 1493 Penny himself was elected Prior and, three years later, admitted Abbot.
In September 1503 he obtained the small priory of Bradley, Leicestershire and the following
year
was
nominated Bishop of Bangor. John Penny, who died at the end of 1519 on a visit to Leicester
Abbey, was, according to his wishes, buried in St Margaret's Church, to which he and his father,
who had been mayor of Leicester in 1481, had been special benefactors.
John Leland, who visited the town in 1538, tells us that Penny's effigy was in the church then
and
that it was Penny who 'made the new brick works of Leicester Abbey, and much of the brick
walls.'
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