CARLISLE, Robert II

The dorse of the Cumberland electoral writ for the Parliament of February 1449 describes the MP as ‘junior’. There can thus be no doubt that the MP is to be identified with the ‘Robert Carlisle, junior’, who on 16 Oct. 1447 had been appointed by Marmaduke Lumley, bishop of Carlisle, as steward of the episcopal lordships of Dalston and Linstock, an office that carried with it a fee of 40s. together with an allowance of 13s. 4d. for a robe. These sums, for ease of payment, were assigned upon the farm Carlisle’s father paid for the episcopal tithes of Caldewstones (in Dalston). If the speculation in the previous biography is correct – that his father lived into the 1460s – then his tenure of this office and single return to Parliament is all that is certainly known of him. It is, however, likely that he is to be identified with the Carlisle who held office as one of the clerks of the courts in the Percy forest of Westward, and it may be that this Percy connexion was a factor in his return to Parliament. He was dead by Michaelmas 1469, by which time Richard Bewley* had succeeded him in his stewardship of Dalston and Linstock.2 Ibid.; C219/15/6; Cumbria RO, Carlisle, Diocesan recs. DRC2/9, 10, 12.