KEILWAY, Robert I (by 1483-1537 or later), of Salisbury, Wilts.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1483. m. Alice, wid. of John Byfleet (d.1502) of Salisbury, ?at least 1s. Robert II.2

Offices Held

Member of the Twenty-Four, Salisbury 1505, mayor 1515-16; j.p. Wilts. 1510-15; commr. subsidy, Wilts, and Salisbury 1512, 1514, Salisbury 1515, 1523, 1524; assessor for subsidy, Salisbury 1513.3

Biography

There were Keilways in Devon, Dorset and Gloucestershire and at Rockbourne, in southwestern Hampshire; Sir William Keilway was sheriff of Wiltshire in 1502 and other members of his family were sheriffs of Hampshire between 1519 and 1586. Robert Keilway, whose parentage is unknown, was presumably a younger son who settled in Salisbury. Like John Abarough, probably another scion of the gentry, Keilway was apparently never elected to the council of Forty-Eight; he was nominated to the inner council of Twenty-Four on 2 Nov. 1504 and elected to that body a year later.4

Keilway was one of the richer citizens of Salisbury, being assessed for the subsidy of 1524 on goods worth £150. On the conclusion of his mayoralty in 1516 he was paid £22 12s.d. for his pension and allowances, and in the following year he held the key of the ‘nether lock’ while the mayor, John Abarough, held that of the ‘over lock’, and on 6 Mar. 1523, the day of his return to Parliament, he was also entrusted with the key to a door in the council house previously held by Richard Bartholomew. On 11 Sept. 1523 Keilway and his colleague Abarough delivered a writ to the city ‘for the levying of £25 8s. for the burgesses’ expenses’ for 127 days at the rate of 2s. a day each.5

The last reference found to Keilway is as a member of the Twenty-Four on 5 Oct. 1537.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

  • 1. Salisbury corp. ledger B, f. 251v.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Req.2/11/70, 202; 13/14; PCC 11 Blamyr.
  • 3. Ledger B, ff. 214v, 228, 234; LP Hen. VIII, i-iv; Statutes, iii. 80, 113, 117.
  • 4. Vis. Devon, ed. Vivian, 510; Hoare, Wilts. Frustfield, 44; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 27; ledger B, ff. 213, 214v.
  • 5. E179/197/154; ledger B, ff. 236, 239v, 251v, 253.
  • 6. Ledger B, f. 284v.