LOVELL, Robert

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 632-4.

Lovell was among the men of distinction who joined the fashionable fraternity of St. John the Baptist founded by the Taylors’ Company of London. Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 61v.

As the earlier biography recounts, for many years he suffered from acute financial difficulties, largely resulting from his service to Henry of Monmouth as prince and King. To be added to the very long list of his creditors is the wealthy Devon landowner Sir John Dynham. CP40/660, rot. 360d. Lovell died an outlaw, heavily in debt. To what extent his widow suffered as a consequence (save for the removal of the contents of their house at Rampisham, valued at £125, to satisfy creditors), is unclear. So too is the precise purpose of the instructions she issued to her feoffees, a month before she died in 1437, to pay to a group of clerics an annual rent of 500 marks from the manors pertaining to her Bryan and Bures inheritance in Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Kent and Gloucestershire. No doubt this was to safeguard the interests of Elizabeth’s heir, her young grandson Humphrey, the son and heir of the Lovells’ only child, Maud (d.1436), and her second husband John, earl of Arundel. Humphrey’s death while still a minor meant that in 1439 the valuable estate was formally conveyed to his half-sister Avice Stafford, wife of Sir James Butler (afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormond). Suff. RO (Bury St. Edmunds), Hengrave mss, 449/2/641-3.