SHERINGHAM, Robert

Although Sheringham was long an important man in Leicester, little can be discovered about him. He came from a family established in the town since at least 1378, when a John Sheringham was named on the merchant guild roll. Another John, not improbably our MP’s uncle, was a canon of the New College in the 1440s.2 Ibid. 164; Vis. Religious Houses Diocese of Lincoln, ii (Lincoln Rec. Soc. xiv), 188. Robert first appears in the records in 1446, when, described as a ‘chapman’, he was defendant in a plea of detinue of chattels in the court of common pleas. Four years later he himself had pleas of debt for small sums pending in the same court against tradesmen of his home town, and in 1453 he acted as a pledge for a baker who had taken the farm of one of the bake-houses of the duchy honour of Leicester.3 CP40/742, rot. 357; 744, rot. 7; 759, rot. 195; DL29/212/3266. After attesting the parliamentary election of 19 June 1455, he began to take a more prominent part in the town’s affairs. Having been elected to represent the borough in the notorious Parliament of 1459, held at nearby Coventry, in the following Michaelmas he was chosen by his fellow leading townsmen for the first of his terms as mayor. His career continued on the same lines after the accession of Edward IV. He was again elected to Parliament on 8 May 1467, and, since no other returns survive for the 1460s, it is possible that his two known returns do not mark the full extent of his parliamentary service.4 C219/16/3, 5; 17/1. At the end of the decade he was elected for his second term as mayor. By a strange coincidence, his two terms coincided with the depositions of the hapless Henry VI.

During the first part of Sheringham’s career he appears to have made his living as a fishmonger. He was described as such when, in 1455, he sued another fishmonger of Leicester for a debt of as much as £15. Later, however, he was styled ‘draper’. In 1477 it was as a draper that he was involved in the resettlement of the property of John Frisley, a former mayor.5 CP40/779, rot. 251; Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 431. Our MP’s landholdings in the town are known to have included a tenement in the Saturday Market, held of the chantry of Corpus Christi at a rent of 2s., in which he probably lived, and another in ‘Le Cowlane’ in the parish of St. Martin. At unknown dates he leased both lands in the fields of the town from a grocer, Thomas Melbourne, and a croft in the Horsefair from the duchy honour of Leicester. A fine levied in Easter term 1468 implies that his wife owned about 30 acres of arable land and meadow in Primethorpe, eight miles south-west of the town, but no evidence survives to identify her.6 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 269, 437; Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, 359, 364, 374-5; CP25(1)/126/78/17.

Sheringham’s high standing in Leicester at the end of his career is attested by his election on four successive occasions as one of the three stewards of the fair. He last appears in an active role during the fourth of these annual terms: in June 1481 he witnessed a deed on behalf of a local grocer. He was dead by February 1485, when described as a deceased feoffee of John Frisley. His son, William, took over his lease of the duchy croft in the Horsefair, but he never achieved Robert’s prominence in the town’s affairs. He did not serve as mayor and is not recorded as having been returned to Parliament, although he did hold the lesser offices of fish tester and chamberlain.7 Leicester Bor. Recs. ii. 437, 450, 458; Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. 372, 374-5.