RAUFF, Edward

Few details of Rauff’s career and family have come to light, but he may have been a son of Margaret Rauff, jointly with whom (she then being widowed) he brought an action for a debt of 53s. 4d. against the London brewer John Whitby in early 1450.2 CP40/756, rot. 128. His three returns to Parliament, of this there can be little doubt, Rauff owed to the patronage of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, feudal lord of both Reigate and New Shoreham. While no direct connexion between Rauff and the duke has been established, he did in May 1454 stand surety for a suit brought in Chancery by John Southwell*, a Mowbray retainer who was returned three times for Norfolk’s borough of Lewes, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that Rauff was a member of the same affinity.3 C1/24/76. The Parliament of 1453-4, to which both Southwell and Rauff had been returned, had only recently been dissolved.