DOGET, Robert

The first reference to our MP in connexion with Rochester was when he attended the shire court to attest the parliamentary election in December 1430. Two years later he sat on a local jury, and in 1439 he gave evidence at an inquisition post mortem. Thus Doget was already a man of some local standing in the 1430s.2 E199/20/16; CIPM, xxv. 164. In 1444 he was paid for candles and wax for the chapel of Rochester bridge and he continued to supply such items to the chapel regularly until his death.3 Rochester Bridge Trust, wardens’ accts. 1444-5, 1451-2, 1456-7, 1466, 1467-8, 1469, F 1/44, 50, 52, 61, 65, 67. This suggests that he was a chandler by trade, but in Easter term 1442 he had been described as a brewer when he was accused of a trespass in King’s bench. Doget and two other local men similarly accused asked that proclamation be made in Rochester and that any information against them be presented to the King. No informants were forthcoming and he and his fellow defendants went sine die.4 KB27/724, rex rot. 10.

This accusation was presumably made shortly after Doget sat in his only Parliament, which assembled at Westminster on 25 Jan. 1442 and was dissolved on the following 27 Mar. No details survive of the manner of his election or his activities while at Parliament. At Michaelmas 1447 he was chosen bailiff of the city. During his official year he received a subpoena to answer a charge by one William Harry. The details of this accusation are not known but Doget again went sine die, this time with the assent of the plaintiff.5 C253/28/9. As a member of Rochester’s ruling elite, Doget witnessed local deeds and wills,6 E326/3148; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Rochester consist. ct. wills 1440-53, DRb/PWr 1, f. 48; CCR, 1441-7, p. 358. and in August 1450 he sat on the Rochester jury that indicted associates of James Fiennes*, the late Lord Saye and Sele, in the aftermath of Cade’s rebellion.7 R. Virgoe, ‘Ancient Indictments in K.B.’, in Med. Kentish Soc. (Kent Rec. Ser. xviii), 222. In July 1455, along with Thomas Cotyng*, he stood surety for the city’s two representatives going to the Parliament at Westminster.8 C219/16/3. In October 1462 Doget was elected as the city’s second mayor, following the grant of a new charter by Edward IV which had changed the title of the chief citizen from bailiff to mayor. As such he was appointed to assess the city’s contribution towards the extraordinary parliamentary grant of a subsidy of £37,000 in that year.9 CFR, xx. 107. In the same capacity, he sold wine which was forfeit to the King, and delivered the proceeds to the Exchequer.10 E405/20, rot. 2. As mayor he also witnessed a grant of the inn Le Herte on the Hoope to Thomas Cotyng.11 S.T. Aveling, ‘Rochester Inns’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxi. 316.

Doget made his will on 10 Apr. 1470. He asked to be buried in the east end of his parish church of St. Nicholas next to his unnamed first wife, and left money for ten obits to be performed. Other small bequests were made to several of his servants. Doget’s property in Rochester and elsewhere was left to his widow, Agnes. The couple were evidently childless because on her death these holdings were to descend to John Durkynghole, citizen and tailor of London, although the nature of their relationship is not explained. Certain lands in nearby Eastgate and Great Delse were to be sold on Agnes’s death and the proceeds employed towards the marriage of Durkynghole’s daughter, Joan, and to purchase ‘a competent payr off organs to do devyne servyce’ in St. Nicholas’s church. Any remaining profits were to ‘be dysposid to fowle wayes, maydens mariages [and] in almes to power and nedy pepill’ in Rochester. The execution of the will was left to the widow, Durkynghole and a local man, John Wode, while John Soneman* was named as supervisor.12 Rochester consist. ct. wills 1468-81, DRb/PWr 3, ff. 57v-58. Doget’s widow was still alive in 1473 when she paid rent for a storehouse to the wardens of Rochester bridge.13 Rochester Bridge wardens’ accts. 1472-3, F 1/70.