RUSSELL, Robert I

More may be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 256-8.

In August 1412 Russell did business at Bristol with two Wiltshire merchants, Walter Charlton and Robert Newman†. In one transaction they jointly bought merchandise from him for £200, entering into a statute staple as a security that they would pay him by the following February. In the other, he sold certain goods for £50 to Charlton alone, from whom he likewise took a statute staple for payment by the same date. Evidently the two Wiltshire men failed to meet their obligations, since by January 1414 he had begun action against them in the Bristol staple on the strength of these securities.5 C241/206/49-50.

Further evidence of Russell’s association with John Newton† is provided by a settlement of 1420, in which he and Roger Levedon* acted as feoffees of holdings in Bristol and Gloucestershire on behalf of John and his wife.6 CP25(1)/291/64/98.

As was customary by this period, Russell was simultaneously mayor of the Bristol staple during his terms as mayor of the town, and it was as such that he took the opportunity in April 1427 to begin proceedings in the staple against one John Riglyn. Just over seven years previously, Riglyn had entered into a statute staple when purchasing goods from him for £50. According to Russell, Riglyn should have paid him this sum in February 1420 but had failed to honour this commitment.7 C241/220/9.

Also in the late 1420s, Russell took legal action against the Gloucestershire esquire, Thomas Berkeley. In pleadings at Westminster in Michaelmas term 1429, he alleged that Berkeley owed him just over £14, a debt arising from a bond made between the two men at London in November 1423. Presumably the bond was a security for a commercial transaction, namely a sale of merchandise from Russell to the defendant. Berkeley responded by citing the Statute of Additions of 1413 and asserting that Russell had wrongly referred to him as ‘of Coberley’ when initiating the suit, since at that time he was in fact residing at Gloucester.8 CP40/675, rot. 319. It seems likely that the defendant was related to the late Thomas Berkeley† (d.1405) of Coberley, although the latter was succeeded by daughters.

As an office-holder, Russell was perhaps not always beyond reproach in the conduct of his duties. While sheriff of Bristol he obtained a royal pardon,9 C67/37, m. 51 (3 Feb. 1415). and the initiative of 1421, through which he and Thomas Fish* were authorized to build a vessel for use in their work as customs collectors at Bristol proved sadly short-lived, possibly through their own neglect. By 1427 the vessel in question, a balinger (light sea-going craft) known as the Marie de Toure, lay wrecked, having suffered from several maritime and other ‘accidents’, and afterwards from the depredations of ‘malefactors’ who had taken the opportunity to steal her tackle. In February that year Fish, Russell and the latter’s successor as customer, Thomas Russell, were directed to have the remains of the vessel and its apparatus appraised and sold. The subsequent appraisal produced a valuation of 50s., a sum which the three men, of whom Thomas was perhaps the MP’s son, were then directed to send to the Exchequer.10 E159/203, recorda Easter rot. 5d.

Evidence of Russell’s real property at Bristol remains extremely scanty but he is now also known to have held a tenement situated on the eastern side of Small Street and a messuage in the town’s suburbs, and at one stage a garden in Grope Lane that by June 1423 had passed into the hands of Henry Vyel (son of John Vyel†).11 Topography of Bristol, i (Bristol Rec. Soc. xlviii), 158; Bristol RO, All Saints parish recs., P/AS/D/NA 41. As for his lands outside Bristol, it is likely that he was the Robert Russell taxed in 1428 for one and a half knights’ fees at Tytherton and Cockelborough in Wiltshire, given that these parishes lay near Seagry, the parish in that county where he acquired holdings from relatives.12 Feudal Aids, v. 252, 253. Whatever the case, he was evidently a landowner of some substance in Wiltshire since it was by virtue of his interests there that he was distrained for knighthood (as Robert Russell of Bristol) in 1430.

Also in 1430, Russell was chosen to help resolve a dispute between a London mercer and a Bristol brewer. Presumably he proved a satisfactory arbitrator, since in August the following year he and John Burton I* were among those appointed to arbitrate between the widow of John Clyve† of Bristol on the one hand and Thomas Erle, a merchant from the town, on the other.13 Bristol RO, Christchurch deeds, 26166/278.

While the exact date of Russell’s death remains unknown, he was certainly still alive in May 1438 when he received a reward from the Exchequer for information (unspecified but of evident value to the Crown) that he had given to the treasurer, the serjeants-at-law and the King’s attorney-general, John Vampage*.14 E403/731, m. 2.

He was survived by at least one child, a daughter. Named Alice, she was married to another Bristol merchant, Clement Bagot, probably in the 1420s. As part of the marriage contract, Russell agreed that the couple and their heirs should have his messuage in the suburbs of Bristol worth four marks p.a., a property that he assigned to three feoffees, Robert Colville†, William Clyve and Richard Alisaundre, to settle upon them once they were married. Such a transfer had yet to occur when Colville (whose will was proved in early 1428) and Clyve died, and afterwards Russell sued Alisaundre, as the surviving feoffee, for allegedly refusing to make the required conveyance to the couple, even though they were by then husband and wife. In the late fifteenth century, John Bagot (presumably the Bagots’ son) and his wife made arrangements for a perpetual obit to be observed at Bristol after their deaths, for the welfare of their souls, for those of Clement and Alice and for those of Russell and his wife.15 C1/69/350; Gt. Red Bk. of Bristol, iv (Bristol Rec. Soc. xviii), 107.