GILBERT, Robert

More can be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 183-4.

Gilbert had begun his legal career by 1404, when he acted for both the prior of Deerhurst and the abbot of Cirencester as an attorney in the court of common pleas at Westminster.3 CP40/572, rot. 130; 574, rot. 129d.

Gilbert’s second term as escheator of Gloucestershire coincided with the start of the great dispute over the Berkeley inheritance following the death of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, in July 1417. The heir to the greater part of Thomas’s estates was his daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, although his nephew James Berkeley claimed Berkeley castle and other estates in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Somerset by virtue of a 14th-century entail in favour of the male line. Following Lord Thomas’s death, James sought to have an inquisition post mortem held for his uncle in Gloucestershire, but Elizabeth and her council did everything they could to delay it. It was Gilbert’s duty as escheator to hold such an inquiry, but he showed himself all too open to approaches from her servants. In return for hospitality, horses and a sum of ten marks, he sent a certificate in Elizabeth’s favour to the Chancery and had yet to conclude the inquisition when his term ended. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, the new escheator, Robert Lisle*, returned a verdict recognizing James’s claims to the entailed estates as soon as he took up office.4 A.F.J. Sinclair, ‘Great Berkeley Law-Suit’, Southern Hist. ix. 36-37.

Gilbert had a place on at least three other commissions of gaol delivery other than that of September 1424, for Gloucester castle in the previous August and for the town gaol in July 1430 and January 1436. He was certainly a working justice on the last of these occasions, when he was a member of the quorum.5 C66/414, m. 10d; 416, m. 27d; 427, m. 14d; 438, m. 14d.

In early 1438 the by then late MP’s feoffees (John Edwards* among them) made a settlement of 20 messuages, seven shops and 86 acres of arable land, meadow and wood which he had held in and around Gloucester. First, his widow, Alice, was to retain the 12-year term she then possessed in 18 of the messuages and, after that term expired, they were to pass to Gilbert’s son and heir John. Secondly, the remaining properties, which she held for life, were to revert to John after her death.6 CP25(1)/79/89/67. Alice had outlived at least two previous husbands, both Londoners, before marrying Gilbert, and she found another in Thomas Kempston* of Bedford following the MP’s death.7 CP40/718, rot 521.