LONG, Robert

More may be added to the earlier biography.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 616-18.

There is a strong possibility that Long was a kinsman of Walter Lange† (d.1410) the merchant and shipowner of Southampton, and that it was through this relationship, rather than (as previously suggested) a consequence of Long’s second marriage, that he came to have an interest in the substantial property in the town known as ‘West Hall’. This he was able to sell for £120.7 Ibid. iii. 557 (although the possibility of such a relationship was not considered in Walter’s biography). In this regard, it should be noted that on occasion his name was spelled ‘Lange’,8 C67/36, m. 15. and that when, at Salisbury in 1429, John Pole of Southampton contracted a debt of £40 to our MP, the latter was also described as a ‘merchant’.9 C241/222/44.

Yet if Long did dabble in trade, such commercial activities remained peripheral to his career as a lawyer and his interests as a landowner of increasing substance. More has been discovered about his putative position as deputy marshal of the King’s bench. In February 1410 Laurence Newport entered bonds to the deputy marshal in £500 to acquit and save him and his superior the marshal harmless with regard to the custody of prisoners for two years after the following Easter. Similarly, Newport was bound to Long in £300 to pay him half the profits of the Marshalsea accrued in that period, with allowances for the maintenance of the prison buildings and for the victuals and stipends of his servants. Subsequently, Long was outlawed in Middlesex for failing to respond to a lawsuit, and the King’s attorney claimed these sums belonged to the Crown, although Newport asserted that Long had released him from all actions at Easter 1410.10 KB27/602, rex rot. 5. It is uncertain when the MP’s supposed term as deputy marshal came to an end. After Henry V succeeded to the throne Long took the precaution of obtaining royal pardons, as ‘of Somerset and Devon’, in May and December 1413.11 C67/36, m. 15.

Long’s employment as bailiff of the bishop of Salisbury’s liberties in Wiltshire commenced before the autumn of 1426 and continued until his death. During that period of over 20 years in the service of Bishop Neville and Bishop Aiscough he was frequently required to present accounts at the Exchequer, and to answer for Scottish coins forfeited in Salisbury, although he usually sent Thomas Tropenell* as his attorney to act on his behalf. He was on amicable terms with his predecessor as the bishop’s bailiff, William Westbury, now elevated to the judiciary, and at his court at Wraxall in August 1429 Westbury lent his authority to settlements of Long’s property at Rode, on the border of Somerset and Wiltshire, and then took the deeds to the King’s bench to have them enrolled on the plea rolls on the following 14 Oct. This was while Long was attending his sixth Parliament. Also while at Westminster for the same Parliament Long petitioned the Commons regarding difficulties he was encountering at the Exchequer over tallies charged to his account as alnager of Somerset, a post which he had vacated 16 years earlier. The petition was granted and a writ sent to the barons on 22 May 1430 instructing that he be discharged of any sums demanded on his account.12 KB27/674, rot. 21; E175/3/30; E159/206, recorda, Easter rot. 13. As an Exchequer official himself he probably found it quite easy to make sure the records were amended in his favour. He was on good terms with the under treasurer William Darell*, with whom in March 1431 he was paid expenses for conducting inquiries into breaches of the customs’ regulations in Southampton.13 E403/696, m. 20. For many years both men had been closely associated with the treasurer Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, to whom they owed their positions at the Exchequer and perhaps also their elections to Parliament for Wiltshire, where Hungerford was one of the leading landowners. Long remained closely involved in the affairs of Lord Hungerford right up to his death.14 CP25(1)/79/91/102.

However, Hungerford had left office as treasurer before Long’s election as knight of the shire for the fifth time on 16 June 1433. Ten days later the newly-elected MP attended a convocation in the city of Salisbury when the election of the city’s representatives was conducted.15 C219/14/4; First General Entry Bk. 289. It was an unusual occurrence for the bishop’s bailiff to participate in the citizens’ deliberations, and even more out of the ordinary for the citizens to elect the bailiff to represent them in Parliament. The bishop permitted them to choose their own mayor and other officials, yet all these were held to be subordinate to the bishop’s bailiff, before whom the mayor had to be sworn into office. Relations between bishop and citizens had long been uneasy, and were frequently contentious, so why the latter returned Long as one of their Members in the Parliament of 1442 is difficult to explain. He obtained a writ for payment of his expenses for 72 days’ service, amounting to £7 4s., and had it sewn into the civic record, but it is uncertain when or if the authorities paid him in full. Nearly a year elapsed before, on 15 Mar. 1443, assessors were named to levy the sums due to him and his companion. His service for the city was not over, as he agreed to act as one of the four auditors in 1444, and subsequently presented accounts for the rents and profits collected there during two mayoral years.16 First General Entry Bk. 375, 379, 390, 393.

It is a measure of Long’s influence that in his final Parliament he was joined in the Commons by three of his four sons, each representing a different Wiltshire borough. Two of them may still have been under age. Long probably also fathered a daughter, for whom he negotiated an advantageous marriage. In October 1429 he stood surety at the Exchequer for the two men who purchased the marriage of William Ringbourne* of Barton Stacey, Hampshire, a minor in the King’s wardship who was destined to inherit a share of the estates of his wealthy grandfather Sir William Sturmy*. Long was well aware of the heir’s circumstances as by this date he held a moiety of the manor of Barton Stacey in right of his second wife, Margaret Popham, and had acquired from the Carews the annual rent due from Ringbourne’s moiety. He may well have seized the opportunity to marry the ward to a daughter of his own. Some such close relationship would explain Ringbourne’s involvement in a number of Long’s property transactions of the 1430s. Furthermore, when Ringbourne obtained in 1438 a reversionary interest in the manor and advowson of Draycot Cerne, Wiltshire, this was entailed to pass on his death to three of Long’s sons in succession.17 CP25(1)/207/32/29; Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), nos. 477, 497, 510; CPR, 1436-41, p. 346; C139/138/18. The chief beneficiary of this arrangement was Long’s son John, for whom the MP arranged a marriage to one of his stepdaughters, Margaret Cowdray. He was party to the settlements on the marriage of his other stepdaughter, Maud Cowdray, in 1438, to William Vyell of Claverham, and in the same year he and his wife gave the couple his wife’s manor of Lyford in Berkshire, in return for an annual rent of £10.18 Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 91; CP25(1)13/83/24. It is uncertain when Margaret Long died, although she did so before the MP’s death on 31 Mar. 1447.19 C139/126/16. Her heir was her son Thomas Wayte, after whose childless death in the following year the estates of her father Sir Philip Popham were divided between the Cowdray girls, so that a moiety descended to Long’s son John.