CORBET, Roger (1501/2-38), of Moreton Corbet, Salop; Linslade, Bucks. and London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1529
? 1536

Family and Education

b. 1501/2, 1st s. of Sir Robert Corbet, and bro. of Reginald and Richard. m. by 1522, Anne, da. of Sir Andrew Windsor, 1st Lord Windsor, 4s. inc. Sir Andrew and Jerome 4da. suc. fa. 11 Apr. 1513.2

Offices Held

Sheriff, Salop 1529-30, Nov. 1538-d., Beds. and Bucks. 1535-6; j.p. Bucks. 1532.3

Biography

With a landed income estimated by Leland at some £550 a year, the Corbets had been eminent in Shropshire since the Conquest. The King’s favourite and future brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, obtained Roger Corbet’s wardship in 1514 and it was doubtless he who arranged the youth’s marriage with the daughter of a leading courtier. Corbet obtained livery of his inheritance on 22 Oct. 1522 and not long afterwards began to figure in both Shropshire and Buckinghamshire, where his father-in-law was prominent. He is not known to have taken part in Suffolk’s campaign of 1523, nor did he receive the knighthood which his wealth and connexions could have been expected to yield.4

Corbet may have sat first in the Parliament of 1523, for which most of the names are lost. Sir Andrew Windsor, who would presumably have promoted his son-in-law’s election then, may be thought to have done so six years later. The two Shropshire seats were taken by his uncle Sir Thomas Cornwall and John Blount, but he owned land near Truro, which had descended to him as heir-general to the Arcedekne family, and this may have helped him to become senior Member there. The fact that some three years later Cromwell was to record a vacancy at Truro to be filled at ‘the King’s pleasure, could mean that Corbet had by then transferred to a knighthood of the shire, perhaps in succession to his father-in-law in Buckinghamshire, but it is more likely that Cromwell should have written Lostwithiel, the borough standing immediately before Truro on the list of Members for the Parliament of 1529. In either case Corbet probably sat again in 1536 in accordance with the King’s request for the re-election of the previous Members, although the ‘Mr. Corbet’ named with three others on the dorse of an Act passed by that Parliament for continuing expiring laws was doubtless John Corbet II who had shared in the scrutiny of the bill concerned.5

Corbet was a sick man when he made his will on 27 Nov. 1538. ‘Lamenting the captive bondage of wardship’, he instructed his wife and the supervisors of his will to ‘redeem’ from that ‘thraldom’ his heir apparent Andrew, for whose marriage he had already been offered 1,000 marks. He provided for his wife and other children, and concluded by asking that his ‘evidences’ at Linslade and ‘at his chamber in the Strand’ should be taken to Moreton Corbet. He died on the following 20 Dec., his heir being barely 16 years old.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Harding

Notes

  • 1. House of Lords RO, Original Acts, 28 Hen. VIII, no. 6.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., C142/28/5. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 135-7.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, viii.
  • 4. Leland, Itin. ed. Smith, iii. 65; C142/28/5, 39, 70, 87, 120, 133-4, 144; PCC 27 Fetiplace; LP Hen. VIII, i. iii.
  • 5. Leland, i. 199; VCH Beds. iii. 405; VCH Bucks. iii. 339; LP Hen. VIII, vii. 56 citing SP1/82, ff. 59-62.
  • 6. PCC 24 Dyngeley; C142/60/114-123, 80/165.