TROTT, Robert

Robert was probably related to William Trott of Arundel, a notary who had served as a tax collector in Sussex in 1416 and attested the shire elections at Chichester in the following year.1 CFR, xiv. 150, 171; Add. 39375, f. 191; C219/12/2. His own occupation (as a chapman or mercer) is well documented, as is his residence at Arundel, even though the precise location of his property in the town is not known.2 In 1453 he sued a local tanner for breaking into his house: CP40/768, rot. 35d. Robert was among the townsmen fined in the court of the hundred of Arundel at Michaelmas 1427 for transgressions against local trading regulations, served on the jury at Arundel in September 1435 at an inquiry into the goods of the borough’s recently deceased lord, John, earl of Arundel, and was listed among the jurors giving evidence at the inquisition post mortem held there after the death of the earl’s mother, the dowager countess Eleanor, in 1455.3 Arundel Castle mss, Arundel ct. roll, M41; E159/212, recorda Mich. rot. 20; C139/159/35. An indication of his local standing is provided not only by his election to Parliament but also by his appearance as one of just four named burgesses of Arundel who joined the mayor in attesting the electoral indenture drawn up in November 1459. Furthermore, in the following year he was among the six burgesses who accompanied the mayor to Chichester on 28 Aug. to attest the borough election in the shire court.4 C219/16/5, 6. Trott was a witness to deeds dated at Arundel in May and August 1469, the latter concerning lands held to the use of Earl William.5 E210/9672; W. Suss. RO, Diocesan recs., Cap. I/15/1.

Many of the records referring to Trott concerned suits for debt arising from his trading activities. In 1440 he was sued in the common pleas for separate debts of £13 and ten marks owed to creditors in London as well as his home county, while in 1450 (shortly before his Parliament assembled) he brought an action for a smaller amount against a merchant from Chichester.6 CP40/717, rots. 164d, 436d; 758, rot. 37. In Hilary term 1460, as ‘mercer’ he was in mercy for many defaults in failing to answer the executors of Richard Crakebon for failing to pay him £5 11s. 6d. for wool, a horse and a piece of kersey he had bought at Goring near 20 years earlier, and in Hilary term 1465 he and a kinsman were both being sued by Richard Everley, a London mercer, and Master John Faukes (a master in Chancery and clerk of the Parliaments) for separate debts of £24 9s. 11d. and £25 15s. 8d.7 CP40/796. rot. 214; 814, rots. 30d, 32d. Transactions in the staple court at Chichester had also led to litigation. A Sussex yeoman who owed Trott £15 under a statute staple of October 1451 had to be pursued by him a year later, while at the same time he himself owed the same amount to Richard Hiberden. 8 C241/235/5; 236/1.

Trott’s single return to Parliament took place in the autumn of 1450, and not long after the dissolution a Robert Trott was appointed, albeit only briefly, as controller of customs at Poole.9 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 494, 504. Yet it seems unlikely that this was the chapman from Arundel, especially as there is no other sign of his employment by the Crown.