ABRAHAM, Robert

Robert was quite likely the son of Henry Abraham, the former MP for Portsmouth. By the end of his life he was paying rent to the borough for three tenements and two shops (situated in the Butchery and in ‘Penystrete’), as well as for some 18 acres of land nearby.3 Portsmouth Recs. ed. East, 493-4, 500, 502. A royal pardon described him as a husbandman, but he was also a shipowner, and probably traded through the havens in and near Southampton, as did other members of his family.4 C67/38, m. 13; E122/140/62, f. 14d.

By virtue of his office as bailiff in 1432, Abraham was responsible for replying to the precept of the sheriff of Hampshire for the election of Portsmouth’s representatives in the forthcoming Parliament. He was himself elected in the following summer, with John Carpenter I* acting as one of his mainpernors.5 C219/14/3, 4. While bailiff he had seized a valuable consignment of wool which was being smuggled out of the port on the Spenasse of Portsmouth, but it was not until the Easter term of 1434 that he appeared in the Exchequer to render his account for the wool’s value. At the same time he and other men of Portsmouth were attached to answer for an assault on a royal servant, Thomas Habryngham, and for various activities whereby they had allegedly attempted to defraud the King. The two events were probably linked.6 E159/210, recorda Easter rots. 11-12d. During the Parliament of 1437, when Richard Abraham was one of the Portsmouth MPs, Henry VI granted the first general pardon of his reign, but it was Robert rather than Richard who took advantage of the offer, and, described as a former bailiff, obtained a pardon on 12 July. While again in office, in 1442 he once more made the return of the borough’s Members.7 C67/38, m. 13; C219/15/2.

Abraham’s vessel the Mary of Portsmouth, of 40 tons’ portage and manned by a master and eight mariners, was among those used to transport Margaret of Anjou’s entourage across the Channel to England for her marriage to Henry VI in 1445.8 Add. 23938, f. 19d. At the parliamentary elections of 1447, he and John Carpenter were mainpernors for John Colayn*.9 C219/15/4. When summoned to the court of common pleas in Easter term 1454 to answer a London grocer for a debt of £27 10s. incurred under a bond entered the previous summer, Abraham’s response was that he need not respond as the writ failed to specify which of the two vills in Hampshire called Portsmouth was his place of residence.10 CP40/773, rot. 303.

Abraham clearly long remained one of the most prominent figures in his home town, and when he witnessed deeds there he was always listed first after the bailiff and constables.11 Add. Chs. 15855, 15857, 15858; Portsmouth Recs. 672. Probably for this reason Bishop Waynflete selected him to be his bailiff at Gosport in 1456, and commissioned him in June 1464 to sequestrate the goods of the vicar of Portsmouth.12 Hants RO, Reg. Waynflete, 1, f. 82*. Abraham was willing to sponsor the return to Parliament of Waynflete’s esquire, Henry Uvedale*, as one of Portsmouth’s representatives: at the elections of 1467 he provided pledges for Uvedale’s appearance in the Commons.13 C219/17/1. He is not recorded after 1469, when a rental of local property was compiled.