MARE, Malcolm de la (d.c.1399), of Yatton and Little Hereford, Herefs. and Kidderminster, Worcs.

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

Sept. 1388

Family and Education

yr. s. of Sir Reynold de la Mare of Yatton. m. by 1382, Alice (d. 28 June 1400), wid. of John Romsey of Kidderminster,1 s.p.

Offices Held

Commr. of arrest, Salop Feb. 1382; inquiry July 1390 (lands of Anne, countess of Pembroke).

Tax collector, Herefs. Dec. 1384, Dec. 1385, Jan 1392, Mar. 1398.

Sheriff, Herefs. 18 Oct. 1392-7 Nov. 1393.

Biography

Although he was the younger brother of the famous Sir Peter de la Mare, Speaker of the Good Parliament of 1376 and of the Parliament of October 1377, comparatively little is known about Malcolm himself. Sir Peter stood surety for him in 1381 (when he obtained a royal lease of certain property in Ludlow) and in October 1382 accorded him the reversion of the principal family manors of Yatton, near Ross-on-Wye, and Little Hereford, on the Herefordshire border with Shropshire. It seems likely that these came into Malcolm’s possession before his single election to Parliament. By then, too, he had married Alice (the widow of John, son of Sir Walter Romsey) who held a life interest in her late husband’s manor at Kidderminster. The couple may have later taken up residence there, for in January 1389 (when he stood surety for Richard Thurgrim*) de la Mare was described as ‘of Worcestershire’. He also had an interest in certain Shropshire lands, at Ashford Bowdler and Ashford Carbonell, near Little Hereford.2

Malcolm’s single return to Parliament occurred in 1388, when his fellow shire knight was William Seymour, the husband of his cousin Margaret. During the summer of 1390 he was involved (together with John Darras* and others) in a violent dispute with John Mawddwy, lord of Dinas Mawddwy, concerning the property of Mawddwy’s father-in-law, the late Sir Fulk Corbet. On 7 June the disputants were ordered, on penalty of 200 marks each, to appear in Chancery, but two weeks later they were excused, provided they appeared before the royal justices of assize when the latter next came to Shropshire. Nothing is recorded about de la Mare after March 1398 (when he served for the last time as a collector of subsidies) and he was dead by July 1400, by which date his widow Alice had also died. Since neither Malcolm nor his elder brother left direct heirs, the family holdings then passed to their cousin’s son, Roger Seymour.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

  • 1. Genealogist, ser. 2, xv. 152; VCH Worcs. iii. 160; CPR, 1381-5, p. 460; 1399-1401, p. 349; C137/23/43.
  • 2. J.S. Roskell, ‘Sir Peter de la Mare’, Nottingham Med. Studies, ii. 24-37; CFR, ix. 277; x. 278; CPR, 1381-5, p. 460; 1388-92, p. 80; 1399-1401, p. 349; CIMisc. vii. 10; CAD, iv. A8934.
  • 3. CCR, 1389-92, pp. 143, 149; CPR, 1388-92, p. 340; 1399-1401, pp. 346, 349; CFR, xii. 81; C137/21/5, 23/43; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 248.