HOWDEN, Robert (d.c.1397), of Nottingham.

Howden became a burgess of Nottingham before 1370, and during the following decade he brought suits in the borough court and was himself accused of selling ale against the assize. As ‘of Nottingham, pynner’ (pin-maker), in April 1381 he took out a royal pardon for failing to appear in the court of common pleas to answer a suit for debt brought by a Londoner of the same trade. He also dealt in cloth.4Nottingham Archs. ct. rolls 1276B m. 1d, 1291 m. 18; Nottingham Recs. i. 205; CPR, 1377-81, p. 593. A local coroner’s inquest of 1386 revealed that on 14 Jan., in his house in the town, Howden quarrelled with a guest, Hugh Charnels, and in self-defence stabbed him in the stomach, Charnels dying from the wound. Taken into custody by the town bailiffs, he was released on bail soon after and, in the autumn, he was actually elected to Parliament for the third time. One of the grooms of the Chamber was persuaded to petition the King on his behalf for a pardon, which was secured on 18 Oct. 1387.5JUST 1/2/123 m. 5; CPR, 1385-9, p. 354.

It may have been this Robert Howden who, described as ‘serjeant’, was acting in 1394 on behalf of Thomas Fox in the local courts. He witnessed a deed at Nottingham in February 1395,6Nottingham Archs. ct. roll 1293 mm. 1d, 14d; Nottingham Univ. Lib. Middleton ms D782. but died before July 1398 when his daughter, Maud, commenced legal proceedings at the Nottingham assizes against John Tansley over her maternal grandfather’s property in Bradmore, some five miles south of Nottingham.7JUST 1/1508 m. 10.