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Roger Corbet — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Wardship and marriage

Roger Corbet was about twelve when his father died and his wardship became a commodity to be sold by the Crown. The History of Parliament avers that his wardship was bought by Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, a close friend of Henry VIII, and that it was probably he who arranged Roger's marriage to Anne Windsor, the daughter of Andrew Windsor, 1st Baron Windsor. The family historian Augusta Corbet documents the Brandon wardship. There is also a record of Brandon appointing George Onslow as steward of the Shropshire estates in February 1514. However, Brandon cannot have held the wardship for long.

It is known that Andrew Windsor himself bought the wardship from the executors of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, probably in 1514, because a legal wrangle arose 42 years later between Windsor's executors and Robert Wingfield, son of Oxford's executor, Humphrey Wingfield. The issue is clouded by the fact that Oxford died a month before Sir Robert Corbet, so can never have been Roger's guardian. The connection seems to be Humphry Wingfield himself, who was Brandon's cousin, and a lawyer for both him and the de Veres. The

details are obscure but he appears to have engineered the transfer of the wardship to Windsor via the estate of the earl of Oxford. His son claimed that the payment of 950 marks was never completed, to his own detriment, and Windsor's executors could not produce a receipt. However, they denounced Robert Wingfield's claims as merely vexatious, "contrary to all right, equity & good conscience", in a complaint to Nicholas Heath, the Lord Chancellor. Both sides, however, accepted that the purchase agreement was between Andrew Windsor and the earl's executors.

Having acquired the wardship and marriage of Roger Corbet, Andrew Windsor arranged his marriage to his own daughter, Anne, by 1522. Windsor was very rich because he was deeply embedded in the mechanisms of power at Court. As Keeper of the Great Wardrobe to Henry VII of England, he had responsibility for an annual budget running into thousands of pounds and was an important part of the network of his cousin, the notorious Edmund Dudley. He had survived Dudley's fall to continue in office under Henry VIII. He therefore had influence he could use on his son-in-law's behalf.

Landowner

Corbet obtained livery, i.e. took full possession, of his inheritance on 22 October 1522.

Corbet's seat was Moreton Corbet Castle, Shropshire. The Corbets buried their dead in the parish church of St Bartholomew, just to the north of the castle.

In Buckinghamshire he had the manors of Cublington and Linslade (now in Bedfordshire. Half of Cublington had been inherited by Roger's grandmother, Elizabeth Lucy. The Corbets seem to have acquired the other half as a result of its successive owners being attainted during the Wars of the Roses and saw off a legal attempt to regain it by Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden in 1500. Roger was able to settle it on himself and his wife in 1525. Linslade was another former Lucy property that descended with Cublington. Roger also inherited land from the Arcedekne family in Cornwall, including an estate near Truro.

In Warwickshire Corbet held the manor of Harborough Magna, acquired by his great-grandfather, also called Roger. In Hertfordshire he held Wigginton, part of the Lucy inheritance.

Corbet became prominent both in Shropshire, his family's traditional focus, and in Buckinghamshire, where Windsor was particularly influential. He occupied the customary offices of county gentry. He was pricked to be High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1529. In 1532 he was made a justice of the Peace in Buckinghamshire and in 1535 High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. In 1537 he was one of the three nominated for Sheriff but he was not selected. In November 1538 he was selected to be High Sheriff of Shropshire for the second time, but he died the following month.

The three sons of Sir Robert Corbet are all shown armed on his tomb. The History of Parliament points out that Roger seems not to have gone to war: at least there is no indication that he took part in Suffolk's French campaign of 1523, part of the Italian War of 1521–26 – a campaign in which he might have been expected to participate. It appears that in 1536 he was summoned to take part in the suppression of the Lincolnshire Rebellion, but a countermanding letter arrived before he could respond, as the rebels had already been defeated. Lacking military experience and dying young, Corbet never achieved a knighthood.