BAMBURGH, Robert, of Scarborough, Yorks.

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

Family and Education

s. and h. of Adam Bamburgh (d.1405) of Scarborough by his w. Alice.1

Offices Held

Biography

In 1393 Robert’s father, Adam, obtained a grant of land in the Old Borough of Scarborough from the municipal authorities, and this eventually passed into the hands of his son, who still occupied it 20 years later. By the terms of his will, which he drew up in June 1405, shortly before his death, Adam also left him a messuage and tenements in the town, and named him among his executors. Other property, then occupied by his aunt, Joan, was promised to him in reversion, as were the holdings retained by his widowed mother, Alice. Robert is next mentioned in May 1409, when he acted as a mainpernor in Chancery for one John Salisbury, but no more is heard of him until the time of his first return to Parliament in 1415. In common with several other Scarborough merchants, Robert was involved in commercial ventures in the Baltic; and in 1420 he and his partner, John Dreng, confiscated a ship called the Marie Knyght of Danzig, in the mistaken belief that it belonged to a trader who owed them money. The latter, however, offered bonds of £100 (the estimated value of the cargo) as an earnest of his readiness to prove that the vessel was communally owned by the men of Danzig, which he did, indeed, manage to do. Robert went on to attend two more Parliaments, but little else is known about the rest of his career. He served as a juror in Scarborough, in 1428, when certain parishes claimed exemption from taxation, this being the extent of his participation in local affairs.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

Variants: Baumbergh, Baurnburgh.

  • 1. Borthwick Inst. York, York registry wills, iii. f. 236.
  • 2. Ibid.; White Vellum Bk. Scarborough ed. Jeayes, nos. 36C, 42E; CCR, 1405-8, p. 530; Feudal Aids, vi. 323; Surtees Soc. cxxv. pp. xxv-xxvi, 95, 98-99.