CORBET, Thomas II

The Corbets were a family of great antiquity. Two heads of the senior line, established at Caus in Shropshire, received personal summonses to Parliament between 1295 and 1322. The lands of this line passed to coheiresses before the middle of the fourteenth century, but by then the family had sprouted more than one cadet branch, the principal of which lived at Moreton Corbet, a few miles to the north of Shrewsbury.1 CP, iii. 417-18; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 133-4, 139. These Corbets were among the wealthiest gentry families in Shropshire (where all their lands lay) until the late fourteenth century, when their estates were divided between heir male and heir general. Importantly, however, the manor of Moreton Corbet and other nearby properties remained in the hands of the heir male, and the loss of status was not a major one. Both our MP’s grandfather and father, despite a diminished income, continued the family’s distinguished tradition of parliamentary service.2 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 653-4, 658.

Thomas Corbet thus stood heir to an important position in the politics of his native county, and it was one into which he came rather sooner than he might have liked. His father died when only in his mid-thirties, and Thomas, like his father before him, inherited the family patrimony several years short of his majority. According to the inquisition post mortem held at Shrewsbury on 9 Nov. 1420, he was just ten years old.3 CIPM, xxi. 449. Unlike his father, however, he was saved from wardship: the whole Corbet estate was in the hands of feoffees, and it is probable that he grew up in the household of his stepfather, Sir William Mallory (d.1445). Although Mallory’s home was at Papworth St. Agnes in Cambridgeshire, he spent time at Moreton Corbet: it was there that our MP’s half-brother, also Thomas, was born in 1425, and Sir William seems to have taken a close and beneficial interest in his Corbet stepsons.4 Salop Archs., Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/236; C139/144/45.

Thomas began to play a part in local affairs soon after his half-brother’s birth. In April 1427, while, if the earlier inquisition is to be credited, still short of his majority, he attested the county’s parliamentary election, and he acted again in the same role at the next four elections, appearing in June 1433 with Mallory.5 C219/13/5, 14/1-4. More interestingly, on 5 Jan. 1433 he accompanied his stepfather to a session of the peace at Shrewsbury and was one of those who then received wine from the borough authorities.6 Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/364. By this time he had taken charge of the family estates. In November 1431 jurors, charged with making assessments for a royal subsidy, returned him as seised of the manors of Shawbury and Waters Upton with land in Cross Hill (in Hinstock), property that had been in the hands of his stepfather and uncle, Roger Corbet I*, when a similar assessment had been made in 1428; and in the following Trinity term he appeared in person in the court of King’s bench to sue a yeoman of Moreton Say for trespass.7 Feudal Aids, iv. 248-9, 270; KB27/685, rot. 14. The jurors in both 1428 and 1431 disregarded the life estate of our MP’s mother in the manor of Shawbury: CIPM, xxv. 147.

Seemingly now at the beginning of a prominent career, it is not surprising that Thomas should have been able to marry well. By 24 Jan. 1435, when William Burley I*, as the last survivor of his father’s feoffees, made a jointure settlement on the couple (a settlement witnessed by Mallory), he had taken as his wife a niece of the Shropshire peer and soldier, John, Lord Talbot. In the following autumn, notwithstanding his youth, he was elected to Parliament in company with Burley, his stepfather numbering among the attestors.8 Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/259; C219/14/5. Unfortunately, however, the early promise of his career was to stand for nothing. In August he was at the Talbot lordship of Blackmere, attending to Lord Talbot’s business; but he was dead by the following October, when his young widow was taken by Lord Talbot’s receiver to the home of John Burgh III* at Wattlesborough, where she was presumably intended to remain until her powerful uncle should make a decision as to her future.9 Salop Archs., Bridgwater pprs. 212/Box 76, nos. 9, 10. Living in 1448, she was eventually buried with our MP in the now-demolished church of St. Alkmund, Shrewsbury, commemorated by a fine brass now sadly lost.10 Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/259; A.E. Corbet, Fam. Corbet, 245-6; H. Owen and J.B. Blakeway, Hist. Shrewsbury, ii. 287.