CORBET, Roger II

Like his elder brother, Roger Corbet spent his early years in the keeping of his stepfather, Sir William Mallory of Papworth St. Agnes in Cambridgeshire. This, at least, is the implication to be drawn from the frequency with which the brothers are found in association with the Cambridgeshire knight. In July 1431, for example, a commission of oyer and terminer was issued on the complaint of the abbot of Ramsey that Mallory and his servants, including the young Roger, had committed a series of trespasses against his property and tenants at Graveley near Papworth.5 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 133-4. Roger was also with his stepfa. at the Salop parlty. election on 29 Dec. 1436: C219/15/1. At this date our MP was merely a younger son, a consideration that may have prompted him to embark on a brief military career. In May 1430 he mustered at Mantes in the retinue of the Lincolnshire knight, Sir Walter Tailboys, and early in 1436 he was serving under John, Lord Talbot, whose niece his elder brother, Thomas, had married shortly before.6 Archives Nationales, Paris, K63/10, m. 1; 64/1, m. 34. Later in the same year, however, his material prospects were transformed by Thomas’s premature and childless death. Further military adventures were abandoned.

Corbet inherited an estate with a total value of about £40 p.a. but one burdened by the interests of both his mother and widowed sister-in-law, Ankaret.7 His own inq. post mortem valued his patrimony, then exclusively in his hands, at about £42 p.a.: C140/24/17. This burden was eased by his mother’s death early in 1439, and it was perhaps in connexion with her holdings that he was moved to seek election to the Parliament which met late in the same year. On 12 Nov., the day on which that Parliament assembled, her inquisition post mortem was held, after a long delay, at Bridgnorth; and, on 16 Dec., while Parliament was in session, our MP successfully sued out royal letters awarding him seisin of the manor of Shawbury (near Moreton Corbet), which she had held in jointure.8 CIPM, xxv. 147; PSO1/63/16; CFR, xvii. 124. Yet, although influential enough to win election to Parliament while still in his twenties, he was remarkably slow in establishing the sort of place in local affairs to which he was entitled by his family’s standing. An explanation may lie in Ankaret’s survival into the late 1440s and perhaps beyond. On 25 Mar. 1448 our MP confirmed her life interest in Corbet lands in nine Shropshire vills, a confirmation presumably necessitated by a dispute between them.9 Salop Archs., Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/259. Yet her survival can be no more than a partial explanation. It did not prevent his election to Parliament in 1439 nor again in 1447. Further, he did not become notably active in local administration even after her death (she does not appear in the records after 1448). Either he was reluctant to assume such responsibilities or the Crown was not happy to appoint him.

If the latter, the reason may have lain in a reputation for violence and corrupt behaviour. Two Chancery petitions are suggestive here. It was probably in the 1450s that John Lardener, a servant of Richard, duke of York, complained that Corbet had forcibly entered property in Wem, a few miles from Moreton Corbet, with ‘grete Riott’ at the head of 80 men, and that no redress could be had against him for he was so ‘myghty’ with so ‘many of misdoers and Walshemen to hym adhereaunt’.10 C1/16/253. At about the same time a local yeoman, John Sheldon, alleged that our MP, in vengeance for a complaint of harassment that the yeoman had made against him to the chancellor, had procured John Colle*, one of the county coroners, to take a false indictment against him for the murder of a plague victim.11 C1/22/191. The records of the ct. of KB show that this indictment was taken 9 June 1453; the petition must have been presented by the following morrow of All Souls when our MP and Colle, no doubt at the order of the chancellor and as a preliminary to acquittal, stood surety for their victim’s appearance for trial: KB9/271/101-2; KB27/770, rex rot. 8d. Corbet’s argument may not have been with Sheldon personally. The indictment names three esquires as abettors, William Ludlow I* and two other Ludlows, all of Stokesay. Later, in Hilary term 1459, our MP was obliged to appear personally in the court of King’s bench to answer an allegation that he had illegally granted livery to many of his lesser neighbours, securing dismissal when no evidence was laid against him. The charge, taken in conjunction with Lardener’s complaint, implies that he had the resources of manpower to make himself a formidable opponent.12 KB27/791, rex rot. 12d.

Whatever the reason for Corbet’s virtual exclusion from office, that exclusion and his apparently turbulent temperament did little to diminish his standing in the eyes of his neighbours. The authorities of Shrewsbury certainly considered him a significant figure (and not only because he held property in the town): in 1443-4 they spent 2s. 9d. on wine ‘pro honestate ville’ when Corbet and a servant of Humphrey, earl of Stafford, visited the town; and, two years later, they gave a gallon of red wine worth 10d. to him and his wife.13 Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/377, mm. 3, 5d. Corbet was an occasional litigant in the borough’s court: Shrewsbury ct. rolls, 3365/870, 898. He was again elected to represent the county in Parliament at hustings held on 12 Jan. 1447, although, perhaps because Parliament was summoned to the inconvenient location of Bury St. Edmunds, he appears not to have attended. With the MP elected with him, Hugh Cresset*, he sat on an inquisition post mortem jury at Shrewsbury on 20 Feb. (or, at least, he is recorded as having done so), ten days after the Parliament had begun and only 11 days before it ended.14 C219/15/4; CIPM, xxvi. 490. He is not recorded as having been elected again, but he played a part in deciding who was.15 The county’s MPs are not known for the Parls. of 1460, 1461 and 1463, to any of which Corbet might have been elected. On 16 Oct. 1449 he was one of only four attestors to the election of two prominent lawyers, William Burley and William Lacon I*, and he was named second on the list of attestors and stood mainprise when the same men were returned again a year later.16 C219/15/7; 16/1. Interestingly, on the latter occasions, the four sureties for the attendance of the elected MPs were the first four attestors, suggesting, perhaps, that they had acted as their sponsors. Sureties, when they were not entirely omitted from the return, were usually men of lesser standing than the leading attestors. He was also active on the more important local juries: in January 1449 he headed a jury before the county j.p.s at Shrewsbury; on 3 Nov. 1451 he was again at the county town to head the jurors in the inquisition post mortem of Sir Richard Vernon*; and in the following summer, when royal commissioners of inquiry came to the county, he was on the grand juries at Bridgnorth and Ludlow which laid indictments against the supporters of the duke of York’s unsuccessful rising.17 KB9/262/110; 270A/12, 77a; C139/145/8. He is more frequently found on peace session juries than was generally the case with men of his rank: KB9/272/33; 284/38; 299/71.

Corbet’s presence on these latter juries should not be held as indicative of his political sympathies. What firm evidence there is suggests that, notwithstanding his dispute with Lardener, he later became an adherent of the duke of York, although not, it seems, a deeply committed one. His brother-in-law, Walter Hopton, held a stewardship in the duke’s service, and perhaps this led our MP into his own association with York. In 1458-9 the Shrewsbury authorities, anxious for the duke’s help against various men of Lancashire who were plaguing the town, paid 3s. 4d. to one of York’s yeomen for carrying a letter about the matter to Corbet, who, soon afterwards, received two marks from them for arresting the miscreants. The reasonable inference is that Corbet was acting at the duke’s behest. More tantalizing is a reference in the town’s bailiffs’ account for September 1460-1: 12d. was spent on forwarding a letter to Corbet from the duke’s son, Edward, earl of March, then seemingly at Hereford. The subject of this communication can only be a matter of speculation, but it may have been written on the eve of the earl’s victory at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross on 2 Feb. 1461 to ask Corbet for his support.18 CPR, 1452-61, p. 552; Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/387, m. 1; 899, rot. 15. Yet, if our MP did fight for the Yorkist cause, he did not make traceable gains there-from, and his support for York may have been more passive than active. This passivity was perhaps prompted in part by a quarrel of his own with a group of Yorkist partisans, headed by Sir John Neville, brother of the earl of Warwick, and including his Shropshire neighbours, the brothers Roger* and Nicholas Eyton*, over the manor of Poynton near Moreton Corbet. Our MP claimed the property as heir-in-tail by virtue of a settlement upon his great-grandparents in 1361; his rivals, as feoffees of one Richard Burton, whose intention was no doubt to exploit their influence to disturb Corbet’s seemingly superior title. Corbet responded, if a later action is to be taken at face value, by forcibly entering on the possession of the feoffees on 20 Oct. 1460, an action that was later to bring him difficulties.19 KB27/810, rot. 78.

None the less, although Corbet seems to have taken no active part in the civil war of 1460-1, the events of these years had a profound effect on the future prosperity of his family. His marriage in about 1445 to Elizabeth Hopton, the young daughter of a Shropshire neighbour, had promised nothing in terms of significant material advancement.20 In Hil. term 1448 our MP sued his father-in-law for a debt of 500 marks, probably on a bond given when the marriage was contracted: CP40/748, rot. 353. The marriage had taken place by Sept. 1445: Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/377, m. 5d. Her prospects of inheritance were, however, transformed by two childless deaths: on 10 July 1460 her mother’s brother, Sir William Lucy*, fell fighting for Lancaster at the battle of Northampton, leaving her brother, Walter Hopton, as coheir to his considerable inheritance; Walter’s own death in the following February brought her title to both her family patrimony and a moiety of the Lucy lands. This windfall was much more than enough to restore the Corbets to the prosperity they had enjoyed before the division of their inheritance between heir male and heirs general in the time of our MP’s grandfather, Sir Roger† (d.1395).21 For this division: The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 658. Its value can be accurately assessed from the detailed inquisitions taken on Elizabeth’s death in 1498: the Hopton lands in Shropshire were valued at about £46 p.a. and her share of the Lucy inheritance, lying in no fewer than ten counties but principally in Herefordshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, at as much as £110 p.a. Nor was this a complete valuation: it excludes the lands of the Lucys in Cornwall (part of the inheritance of Elizabeth’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor, daughter and coheir of Sir Warin Archdeacon† of Ruan Lanihorne) and Hopton property in Herefordshire, Norfolk and Warwickshire.22 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 130-1, 155-9, 233-4. The omitted lands are detailed in the inqs. post mortem of Walter Hopton: C140/5/42.

This great inheritance did not come to Elizabeth and Corbet in its entirety at her brother’s death. It was charged with dower and jointure interests, principally those of Sir William’s widow, who had a substantial jointure.23 She held the Lucy lands in Northants. with other property in Beds., Kent, Essex, Herts., Worcs. and Cornw.: C140/20/29. None the less, the couple gained lands enough to make a significant difference to their income: on 22 Mar. 1462 the escheators in six counties, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Cornwall were ordered to give them seisin of Elizabeth’s inheritance.24 CFR, xx. 77. The windfall may also have been timely in another respect for there is some slight evidence that our MP’s finances were troubled. On 21 Feb. 1459 he sold the wood and trees from his park at Shawbury to eight local men, including his own parker there, William Nesse, who were to fell the trees and take them away over a period of five years, paying a total of 20 marks in instalments. Such asset-stripping was not the obvious resort for a man of wealth.25 Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/265.

Despite his new inheritance, Corbet’s career did not flourish in the early years of Yorkist rule. He faced a series of actions in the courts of common law. In November 1461 he and his wife were sued by her stepmother, Alice, for dower in the outlying Hopton manor of Billingford (Norfolk), and, perhaps in connexion with a similar claim in Shropshire, their possession of the manor of Hopton was troubled by episodes of close-breaking.26 KB27/804, rot. 14; CP40/818, rot. 350. Alice eventually won her case before the Norfolk assize justices on 15 Jan. 1465, a jury awarding her as much as £66 in lost revenues with a further £28 in damages. Our MP’s response to this setback shows his character in an unpleasant light. Having failed to have the verdict overturned on a writ of error, he resorted to a bizarre conspiracy. At a session of the peace held at Shrewsbury on 12 Jan. 1467 Alice was indicted for the fatal poisoning of her husband Thomas Hopton as long before as 1434. This indictment was purely malicious: Thomas did not die until 1453. Further, there can be no doubt that our MP procured it, for the jurors named as an accessory to the crime one William Price of London, the attorney who had represented Alice in the dower action.27 KB9/317/5-6; CP40/818, rot. 350. The j.p.s before whom the indictment was purportedly taken were an unusually powerful group, headed by John, earl of Shrewsbury, and John, Lord Strange. Some at least of them must have known that Thomas Hopton did not die in 1434. The likelihood is that the indictment was fraudulently drafted, perhaps by the clerk of the peace, John Salter, who returned it into King’s bench and who had acted as the Corbets’ attorney in the dower action.

Such conduct makes it difficult to sympathize with Corbet in his other legal difficulties. In the intensification of the dispute over Poynton, he faced more formidable rivals than Alice. In Easter term 1463 Neville, then Lord Montagu and soon to be elevated to the earldom of Northumberland, and the Eytons had sued him on a bill for his entry of 1460, claiming damages of £100. Since the bill was brought against him as a prisoner in the Marshalsea, it must be assumed that he was also then answering at the suit of the Crown on this or another matter. No verdict has been traced, but later events suggest that the bill was successful, and that, in attempting to regain the property, our MP once more put himself on the wrong side of the law. On 15 Feb. 1466 he made a further forcible entry, only vacating the property in the following summer when Roger Kynaston and Thomas Horde*, as Shropshire j.p.s, came to make inquiry. That inquiry, held on 13 June, awarded his opponents damages of £100 and left him to answer an indictment at the suit of the Crown.28 KB27/810, rot. 78; 814, rot. 34; 822, rex rot. 25d; KB9/313/16. Nor was Neville the only influential figure he alienated. In 1465, in company with his kinsman, Thomas Corbet I*, Richard Stury*, and many other gentry of Shropshire and Staffordshire, he was sued by Margaret Beauchamp, widow of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (d.1453), for raiding her property at Whitchurch and Blackmere. This was presumably an episode in the famous dispute within the Talbot family, with the alleged raiders acting in support of Elizabeth, widow of Margaret’s stepson, the earl of Shrewsbury who had fallen in the Lancastrian cause at the battle of Northampton.29 CP40/816, rot. 279d; I. Rowney, ‘Staffs. Political Community’ (Keele Univ. Ph. D. thesis, 1981), 158.

These troubles, however, deserved and bothersome though they were, did not negate the augmentation of Corbet’s standing occasioned by his wife’s inheritance. Significantly, in recognition of his new wealth rather than of his record of support for the new regime, he was one of those singled out to take the honour of knighthood three days before the coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville on 26 May 1465.30 Letters and Pprs. ii (2), [784]. In the following year his immediate material circumstances were further improved by the death of Sir William Lucy’s widow, Margaret. On 29 Nov. 1466 he and his wife had royal licence to enter freely into a moiety of all the lordships which Margaret held at her death with a moiety of Sir William’s fee tail lands, the latter merely a recognition of an established seisin but made necessary by the attainder of the other Lucy coheir, William Vaux.31 CPR, 1461-7, p. 551. At about the same time he appears to have won a victory of another sort: his inquisition post mortem includes the manor of Poynton among those of which he died seised.32 C140/24/17.

Corbet did not enjoy his new prosperity for long. He died on 5 June 1467 leaving an heir just under-age and a wealthy widow who was not short of suitors.33 Writs of diem clausit extremum were issued to the escheators in 12 counties, but his wife’s continued seisin of her own inheritance meant that only the Salop escheator took an inq.: CFR, xx. 195-6; C140/24/17. She was quick to accept a new husband of higher rank than our MP. At Ludlow, probably in the autumn of 1467, she married (as his third wife) a prominent Yorkist servant, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, by whom, despite her advancing age, she had a son, Edward, born on 14 July 1469.34 CP, xii (2), 845-6. Shortly before the marriage she was the most important of the many individuals appealed of murder by Joyce, wid. of Richard Fray, but there is no evidence to give this alleged offence a context: KB27/826, rot. 58d; rex rot. 34. To add to her legal woes, at the Mdx. county court on 29 Oct. 1467 she was waivered for failure to pay Alice Hopton the damages won against her and Corbet in 1465: KB27/852, rot. 73. Had he lived beyond his youth, Edward might have proved an awkward rival to our MP’s son for their maternal inheritance; Elizabeth had, however, before her marriage to the earl, taken precautions against this eventuality, settling her lands on her issue by her first husband. On 8 Aug. 1467 her feoffees, headed by the Herefordshire knight, Sir James Baskerville†, conveyed her Lucy and Hopton lands in 11 counties to her for life with successive remainders in tail to her elder son, Richard, her other son, Robert, her issue by our MP, and her right heirs. In other words, even her daughters by Corbet would take precedence over male issue by a later husband.35 Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/266, 268-9. The formal partition of the Lucy inheritance between the families of Corbet and Vaux did not take place until after her death. In 1502 a division was made which contradicted rather than confirmed the existing geographical interests of the two families. Sir Nicholas Vaux was assigned the bulk of the Lucy lands in Herefs. and Worcs., including the lordship of Richard’s Castle; our MP’s grandson, Sir Robert Corbet, the greater part of those in Northants. and Bucks., including the former Lucy residence at Dallington: Corbet of Acton Reynald mss, 322/2/281. Soon after this conveyance the Crown acted in respect of the rights that had accrued to it through our MP’s death: on 9 May 1468 she and Tiptoft were pardoned for marrying without the necessary royal licence, thus removing the obstacle to the assignment of her dower; and three weeks later the wardship and marriage of Richard Corbet were granted to the Yorkist servant, Walter Devereux II*, Lord Ferrers, whose daughter Richard soon married.36 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 95-6, 113; CCR, 1468-76, no. 23.

Richard was to play a far more active part than his father in the dynastic conflict of the period. According to his own petition, he was responsible, in July 1469, for bringing the future Henry VII away from the field of Edgcote, where Henry’s guardian, Sir William Herbert*, earl of Pembroke, met defeat and death, to the safety of Hereford and the custody of the boy’s uncle, Jasper Tudor. Later he was among the first to join Henry in the campaign that ended at the battle of Bosworth.37 A.E. Corbet, Fam. Corbet, 256. For the alleged illegal setting aside of his election for Salop to the Parliament of 1485: CP40/902, rot. 404. By this date his mother had long been the wife of one who played a decisive role in that battle, namely Sir William Stanley, whose defection from Richard III was a major factor in Henry’s victory. Her marriage to Tiptoft had been brief – he was executed during the Readeption – and, by the end of 1471, she had married Stanley.38 CP, xii (2), 845-6.