GLADE, Robert (d.1423/4), of Nottingham.

Glade came from Arnold, a village three miles to the north-east of Nottingham. From 1391 he traded through Kingston-upon-Hull, exporting wool in substantial quantities and inmporting a variety of goods, such as paper and wine, which were shipped up the Trent to Nottingham. On a more local scale he was concerned in the production of woollen cloth, being assessed for alnage in 1392-5 and 1402-3 on 65 dozen cloths of assize.E101/343/21, 346/9; E122/59/23, 60/5 m. 2, 160/1. With some of the proceeds he acquired property in Nottingham: in 1408 he was accused at the great tourn of building a wall on common ground at the end of his garden to the north of the town; in 1416 he occupied a house in St. Mary’s Gate; he subsequently purchased another in ‘Great Smith Gate’ (now Pelham Street); and before 1423 he owned a messuage called ‘Pykard Place’.Nottingham Recs. ii. 61, 113; Nottingham Archs. ct. roll 1313 m. 10d.

Glade was also successful in municipal affairs. He served as mayor for as many as four annual terms, and it was while holding office that he represented the borough in the Parliaments of 1414 and 1419. Naturally, he was often required to witness local conveyances and to act as a feoffee-to-uses. Thus, in 1405 he was made a trustee of the property and executor of the will of William, son and heir of another wool merchant, John Crowshaw, and in 1409 a trustee of the then bailiff, William Arnold, who, in the following year, granted to his feoffees all his goods and chattels in England. Glade attended the borough elections to the Parliament of 1411; and in 1417 and 1422 he was party to the election indentures for both the borough and the shire.Nottingham Univ. Middleton mss, D785, 786, 792; Nottingham Recs. ii. 31-33, 117, 405; Nottingham Archs. ct. roll 1302 m. 26, 1303 m. 18d, 1305 mm. 3d, 26d; York registry wills, iii. f. 92; C219/10/6, 12/2, 13/1.

In 1411 Glade and his wife obtained a papal licence for a portable altar, along with an indult allowing a confessor of their choice to grant them in the hour of death plenary remission of all their sins. However, Glade survived for more than 13 years longer. He made his will on 20 Dec. 1423, requesting burial before the chapel of the Holy Trinity in St. Mary’s church, Nottingham, and providing £40 for a chaplain to celebrate mass there. Glade’s bequests to neighbouring religious foundations were generous: £11 to Lenton priory, £6 to Welbeck abbey (whose abbot was named as a supervisor of the will), and £2 to each of the priories of Beauvale, Shelford, Newstead and Felley. However, he apparently most favoured the mendicant orders: the Nottingham Franciscans received 50 marks, and Friar Richard Tollerton £2. He bequeathed £10 towards the fabric of St. Mary’s and £1 each to St. Peter’s and St. Nicholas’s; and to Arnold parish church, where his parents lay buried, he left a like amount. Sums of £10 and five marks were provided for repairs to Hethbeth bridge and the borough’s pavements, respectively, and £20 for the poor. Glade’s executors, who included Thomas Kay, a fellow merchant and former mayor, each received a pipe of wine. The residue of his goods, both in Nottingham and overseas, was to pass to his widow. Glade died before 5 Jan. 1424, when Thomas Poge is first named as mayor in his place.CPL, vi. 330, 339; Trans. Thoroton Soc. xxi. 79-80; York registry wills, sede vacante f. 335; Nottingham Recs. ii. 427. Joan survived him by more than 20 years. By her will, dated 18 Nov. 1443 and proved a month later, she left a further £30 for services at the Holy Trinity altar in St. Mary’s for the next six years. She stipulated that her late husband’s properties were to be sold and the proceeds used to keep, for as long as possible, the anniversaries of the deaths of Glade, herself and their benefactors. Accordingly, in 1444 Glade’s surviving executor sold a messuage in the street leading from Bridlesmith Gate to Smithy Row, five cottages in Goose Gate and Castle Gate and six acres of land, all to Robert Strelley of Strelley, esquire.Trans. Thoroton Soc. xxi. 81-82; York registry wills, ii. f. 73; CAD, vi. C4555.