James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley, 2nd Baron Tuchet (c. 1398 – 23 September 1459) of Heleigh Castle was an English peer.
James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley, son of Elizabeth Stafford and her husband John Tuchet, 4th Baron Audley, was a distinguished veteran of the Hundred Years' War. In the opening phase of the Wars of the Roses he raised troops from his estates in Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire and commanded the Lancastrian force that moved to block the Yorkist Earl of Salisbury's route to Ludlow where he intended linking up with the rest of the Yorkist army.
The two forces clashed in the Battle of Blore Heath on 23 September 1459 and Audley was killed by Sir Roger Kynaston of Stocks near Ellesmere (Kynaston incorporated emblems of the Audley coat-of-arms into his own). Audley's Cross still stands on the battlefield marking the spot where he died.
Audley was buried in Darley Abbey, north of Derby, about away from Blore Heath. The Abbey no longer stands, so his final resting place is no longer marked.
Marriages and children
Audley married twice:
- Firstly, having obtained a marriage licence dated 24 February 1415, to Margaret de Ros (c. 1400 - before 14 February 1430), daughter of Margaret FitzAlan (D'Arundel) and her husband William de Ros, 6th Baron de Ros. They were granted a Papal Dispensation for being related in the 3rd and 4th degrees of kindred. Together they had three children: Like his father, he supported the House of Lancaster. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkesbury and tried before Richard, Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Norfolk. Executed with other Lancastrian leaders in the Market Square he was buried under the pavement in the Chapel of St Nicolas, in the Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin.
- Thomas Touchet (c. 1440 - June 1507),
- Eleanor Touchet (born circa 1442), who married Humphrey Grey, son of Sir Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville and Antigone Plantagenet, in 1460.