TALBOT, Robert

Robert does not appear in the pedigree of the Talbot family whose property at Godlingston on the Isle of Purbeck in south-east Dorset passed to the lawyer Robert Rempston* early in the fifteenth century.2 J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 667. Nor does a more prominent figure, Simon Talbot, who was listed among those required to take the oath not to maintain malefactors in the county in 1434, and attested the shire elections held at Dorchester in 1432, 1437 and 1447. On this last occasion Simon’s putative kinsman Robert was returned for Shaftesbury.3 CPR, 1429-36, p. 382; C219/14/3; 15/1, 4. Another link between these two men was their employment by the wealthy local landowner, John Filoll*, whom Simon served as receiver of his estates in Dorset in 1442-3,4 Willoughby mss, Mi 5/167/21. and Robert officiated as bailiff of his principal manor at Woodlands in the north-east of the county. These factors are pertinent in the context of the elections to the Parliament summoned to Bury St. Edmunds in 1447, for Filoll was returned as one of the shire knights at the same time that his servant Robert Talbot secured election Shaftesbury.

No earlier record has been found of a Robert Talbot associated with Shaftesbury, save for that of a ‘clerk’ of this name who 21 years before had acted as proctor for John Burdeux, whom the abbess and convent of Shaftesbury abbey presented as rector of the church at Templecombe in Somerset.5 Reg. Stafford, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxi), 40. It may be the case that our Talbot was in the service of the abbess, whose steward was influential in the affairs of the borough. Possibly, he had received training in the law – the burgesses showed a distinct preference for lawyers to represent them in Parliament in this period. If so, he might have been the ‘gentleman’ of the London parish of St. Dunstan in the East, who stood surety at the Exchequer in October 1460 for the alnagers of Bristol.6 CFR, xix. 283. But there was a Bristol merchant of this name who was engaged in a dispute with Robert Strange† in 1469, and as ‘of Bristol and London’ was granted letters of protection in the retinue of the duke of Clarence, lt. of Ire., in Dec. 1470 and Jan.1471, during the Readeption: CCR, 1468-76, no. 310; DKR, xlviii. 448. But there are no firm grounds to support this speculation.

The activities of the same or another Robert Talbot came to be focused on Dorchester, where a namesake was listed as a potential juror at sessions of oyer and terminer held in the town on 31 May 1462, and appeared at the parliamentary elections held there in 1467 to stand surety for the representatives returned for Melcombe Regis.7 KB9/21/18; C219/17/1. It was probably he who married Joan, the widow of Thomas Rushton of Dorchester; together they relinquished their right in a burgage called ‘Le Rakehay’ in High East Street in 1482.8 Dorchester Recs. 309.