BURGESS, Robert

Admitted to the freedom of Maldon in 1435, Robert did not have to pay an entry fine to become a burgess because he was the son of a freeman.4 D/B 3/1/1, f. 27. He was active in the town before acquiring the franchise: a jury in a borough court of mid 1432 presented John Tyle junior for attacking him with a dagger,5 Ct. roll 1431-2, D/B 3/3/19, m. 2d. and two years later he himself faced a charge in the same court of having assaulted John Morell.6 Ct. roll 1433-5, D/B 3/3/20, m. 2. He became a wardman of the borough in 1439 and one of the bailiffs, an office in which he served a dozen terms in all, three years later. In 1455 he and his then co-bailiff, Thomas Fuller*, clashed with John Borell, a mercer from Chelmsford, who was said to have called them ‘buffoons’ (‘scurras’) and other scurrilous names.7 D/B 3/3/32, m. 1. During his last term as bailiff, he quarrelled with one of Maldon’s chamberlains, William Rason. In March 1461 Rason was amerced the significant sum of 20s. for assaulting him with a stick, although with the agreement of Robert and his fellow bailiff this was subsequently reduced to 13s. 4d.8 D/B 3/1/2, f. 6v. Burgess was returned to the Commons for the first time either just before or shortly after his fourth term as bailiff came to an end, but in his second Parliament he was both bailiff and MP. He was not only involved in parliamentary elections at Maldon, since he also attested the return of Essex’s knights of the shire on at least two occasions.

Although there is no evidence for Burgess’s business interests, it is likely that he was a merchant. In 1450, for example, he won a suit for debt against James Cooper and Andrew Wevere in the borough court, which awarded him two bales of madder seized from the defendants as well as his costs in transporting them home.9 Ct. roll 1449-52, D/B 3/3/30, m. 3. During his career he was party to several conveyances of land in Maldon and elsewhere in Essex, and he seems to have acted as a feoffee for the Darcys, the leading family in the town.10 D/B 3/1/1, f. 28; deed, 1440, D/B 3/3/547 (2); CAD, vi. C6513. There is no firm evidence for his own property, although Edmund Delamare, Andrew Taslar and their wives conveyed lands at Rivenhall and Kelvedon to him in 1445,11 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 36. and he paid the borough 12d. p.a. for the lease of a ‘colehepe’ in the late 1440s.12 D/B 3/1/1, ff. 28, 34. It is not clear whether Burgess was still alive when his son and namesake was admitted to the franchise of Maldon in January 1463,13 Ibid. f. 8v. but it was possibly the younger Robert whom the widowed Elizabeth Burgess (perhaps the MP’s widow) was suing for debt in the borough court the following April.14 D/B 3/1/2, f. 27. Whatever the case, Burgess was certainly dead by June 1475.15 D/B 3/3/38, m. 2.