MOUSEHOLE, Robert

Robert’s putative father had represented Midhurst in the Parliament of March 1416.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 801. He himself served on a jury at an inquisition post mortem held in the town in 1405,2 C137/46/13. and rose to become one of the principal burgesses. On 7 Apr. 1432, nine years after his own time in the Commons, he was among the eight named burgesses who reached an agreement with Sir John Bohun, the lord of the manor and borough of Midhurst, to end the differences between them by the mediation of Sir Stephen Popham* and Walter Veer*. It was decided that Bohun and his heirs should receive the tolls from the borough and the ‘Lawdaye’ court throughout the forthcoming year, but thereafter the burgesses were to keep the tolls in return for a flat payment to Sir John of £2 p.a.3 Cat. Cowdray Archs. ed. Dibben, 281; W. Suss. RO, Add. mss, 20801.

Mousehole, who held land at Woolbeding, a mile from Midhurst,4 KB27/715, rot. 54d. was described as a ‘husbandman’ in a suit for trespass brought against him in the court of common pleas in Michaelmas term 1435 by Eleanor, widow of John, Lord Arundel and Mautravers (the de jure earl of Arundel). On 17 Oct. that year a writ was sent to the under sheriff of Sussex to make distraint on certain jurors to appear in court at the octave of St. Martin, but further legal proceedings have not been traced.5 CP40/699, rot. 128d. In another lawsuit, of ten years later, Mousehole’s occupation was given as ‘baker’ when he was sued by a Lincolnshire knight for a debt of four marks.6 CP40/738, rot. 13. He is not recorded thereafter. John Mousehole, one of four townsmen named as party to the Midhurst electoral indenture on 28 Aug. 1460, may have been his son.7 C219/16/6.