Not the least surprising aspect of modern opinions about Shareshull is the fact that the writers of his native shire, although recognizing his political importance, do not express pride in him as a Staffordshire man or acclaim his services to king and prince. Instead, they join in denouncing him as a judge who did not ‘ bear a high character for integrity’ and who in an age notorious for judicial corruption was himself corrupt and like other chief justices made a large fortune by the abuse of justice. So serious are these charges that it is essential to try to discover the evidence on which they are based.

The first accusation to be considered is that Shareshull's dismissal, in April 1333, of an assize against the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, on the ground of the omission of an ‘n’ in ‘Cannokbury’, was probably due to his acceptance of a bribe from the bishop. But the inference that in a period of great diversity in the spelling of names Shareshull's decision could not have been bona fide, ignores the circumstance that at this date he was still a serjeant-at-law, accustomed to taking advantage of technical errors. Excessive formalism is certainly no proof of bribery.

The next attack to be noted, curiously enough, omits the events of 1340 and maintains that Shareshull in 1353, as chief justice, instigated criminal proceedings—the ‘odious’ appeal—against Sir Hugh de Wrottesley of Shropshire and Staffordshire, accused of the murder of Philip de Lutteley. The ‘ rapidity of the process’ in contrast to the usual medieval dilatoriness—so runs the argument—proves that Shareshull, whose daughter Elizabeth had recently married John de Perton the younger, a nephew of Lutteley, was actuated by the ‘irresistible’ desire of adding to his manor of Patshull the neighbouring Wrottesley estates. Sir Hugh's deeds of violence furnish the best rebuttal of these assertions.

An assault by Sir Hugh, his brother and his son, and fourteen others, on John de Perton the elder at Tettenhall, Staffordshire, had led to the issue on 7 October 1337, at Perton's request, of a commission of oyer and terminer to Shareshull, Swynnerton and Hillary.