GAGE, Robert (c.1519-87), of Haling, Surr.

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

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1554

Family and Education

b. c.1519, 3rd s. of Sir John Gage of Firle, Suss. by Philippa, da. of Sir Richard Guildford of Cranbrook and Rolvenden, Kent. m. by 1563, ?Elizabeth, da. of Nicholas Wilford of London, 2s.1

Offices Held

Gent. of the household of Stephen Gardiner, bp. of Winchester by 1538, ?of Queen Catherine Parr by 1544; gent. pens. by May 1550-Sept. 1553 or later.2

Biography

With a leading courtier for his father and an elder brother already in the royal household, Robert Gage was brought up on the fringe of the court. He was still under age when he spent some time abroad, as one of Stephen Gardiner’s young men, with such companions as Edward Hungerford and Jacques Wingfield: in 1538 they were reported to be apt to brawl with the French. He may have been the ‘Mr. Gage’ who in 1544 and 1545 received a New Year’s gift of cloth as a member of the Queen’s household, but if so his transfer to the King’s took place before her death: he was, however, no longer a gentleman pensioner at the death of Queen Mary.3

Gage’s family was originally from Surrey and by 1551 he had a house at St. Mary Overy in Southwark. This he was to sell early in Elizabeth’s reign to Anthony Browne I, Viscount Montagu, but he had meanwhile received other lands in Surrey by a settlement made before his father’s death: in 1555 he thus acquired the lordship of Haling, near Croydon, and the manor of Truchante, near Alton, in Hampshire. During the 1570s his property yielded him an income of not above £30, but other sources more than trebled this figure. Like all his close kin he was a Catholic, and his only incursion into public life was as a Member for Lewes in the second Marian Parliament, an opportunity given him by his father. Under Elizabeth he seems to have suffered nothing worse than exclusion from affairs, although in 1577 he was said to be ‘the Queen’s majesty’s prisoner in his own house’ when reported for not attending church. His elder son Robert was executed for complicity in the Babington conspiracy and the younger, John, was imprisoned as a recusant.4

Gage died at Haling on 20 Oct. 1587. If he made a will it has not survived. His lordship of Haling and manor of Truchante descended to his surviving son John Gage, then aged 24, who was the father of Sir Henry Gage the royalist.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: R. J.W. Swales

Notes

  • 1. Aged 19 or under in February 1538. CPR, 1555-7, p. 213; C142/216/98; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 141-2.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, xiii; E101/423/12, ff. 8, 12; LC2/2, f. 42v, 4/7, f. 23v E;179/69/63; E101/427/5, f. 29, ex inf. W. J. Tighe.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xiii; E101/423/12, ff. 8, 12; CPR, 1553-4, p. 82.
  • 4. CPR, 1550-3, p. 179; 1554-5, p. 185; 1555-7, p. 213; Barbican House, Lewes, BA 37; Gage ms 21/40; Cath. Rec. Soc. xxii. 42; HMC Hatfield, iii. 308; iv. 272; CSP Dom. 1591-4, p. 507; APC, xviii, 415; xix. 194; xx. 207; J. Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Catholics, ii. 364.
  • 5. C142/216/98; Manning and Bray, Surr. ii. 342-3; DNB (Gage, Sir Henry).