ANDREW, Robert I, of Stoke near Ipswich, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

? 1393

Family and Education

prob. s. of William Andrew of Stoke and bro. of John Andrew† of Ipswich and James*.

Offices Held

Biography

Robert came from a prominent local family whose principal property holdings were at Stoke on the outskirts of Ipswich. There is no evidence that he engaged in trade, as did John Andrew and other of his kinsmen; it is more likely that he trained to be a lawyer like James Andrew. He is first recorded at the Ipswich elections to the Parliament of 1385 when he acted as mainpernor for Robert Waleys*. In March 1391 he and James Andrew both stood surety in Chancery for a man from Norwich. Robert was returned to Parliament later that year, shortly after the end of John Andrew’s second term as bailiff of Ipswich. He made further appearances in Chancery as a surety in 1394, 1397 and 1401, on the first of these occasions acting as pledge to Geoffrey Starling, his fellow parliamentary burgess in 1391, and it was also for Starling that he witnessed a conveyance of land completed in October 1397.1

Robert Andrew appears to have taken no part in the government of Ipswich, although he did hold property there. In October 1398 John Arnold I* sold him a tenement in St. Margaret’s parish, and two months later proceedings in the local court were suspended for a year after he and others had brought an assize of fresh force for possession of other premises in the town. Later transactions acquired for him land in the suburbs, a house and two shops in St. Mary’s parish and ‘la Condythous’ in St. Laurence’s parish, while he also shared a lease with James Andrew and others of three more tenements.2

In 1405 Robert and James Andrew had been co-feoffees of landed holdings in several places near Ipswich, including part of the manor of ‘Taston’ which they held by conveyance of John Lincoln, a London goldsmith, and his wife. In the spring of that same year Robert alone had been a trustee of other properties to the south west of Ipswich, apparently acting on behalf of the family of Belstead.3

Robert Andrew is not recorded after 1408.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: K.N. Houghton

Notes

Ipswich RO, recog. rolls 18-23 Ric. II.

  • 1. C219/8/12; E122/50/30; CCR, 1389-92, p. 326; 1392-6, p. 263; 1396-9, pp. 203, 217; 1399-1401, p. 481.
  • 2. CCR, 1396-9, pp. 355-6; Stowe Ch. 395; Ipswich RO, recog. rolls 18-23 Ric. II, 6-14 Hen. IV.
  • 3. CP25(1)224/111/12; CCR, 1402-5, p. 507.