GATE, Roger atte

More can be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 163-4.

On 16 Dec. 1430 payment was made to atte Gate at the Exchequer for providing a ship called Le George of Winchelsea, used to carry the sum of £6,000 under escort to the King at Rouen. E403/696, m. 10.

The close friendship between atte Gate and Robert Onewyn† of Rye has already been remarked upon. What was not realized earlier was that Onewyn asked atte Gate to be an executor of his will, While he was up at Westminster for his final Parl., in the Mich. term of 1427, atte Gate and his co-executors, William Catton† and Onewyn’s widow, were sued for a debt of 50 marks, left owing by the deceased: CP40/667, rot. 67d. and that his son, Robert Onewyn I*, was married to Joan, one of atte Gate’s two daughters. The other daughter, Margaret, also made a good marriage, by becoming the wife of John Greenford*, the steward of Dover castle. The evidence comes from transactions relating to certain lands which atte Gate had held jointly with his late friend. These, leased to Thomas Pope* for seven years in April 1444, were then settled in reversion on Joan and Robert Onewyn and their issue, with remainder to the Greenfords. Cat. Rye Recs. 123. The fact that atte Gate himself was not party to this settlement strongly suggests that he had recently died.