BATHE, Robert, of Taunton, Som.

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

m. Tiffany.1

Offices Held

Portreeve, Taunton Mich. 1410-11, 1413-14.2

Biography

Except for his two terms in office as portreeve for Taunton, on one occasion in association with his friend Richard Marchaunt*, little is known about Bathe. He and his wife held four messuages worth £5 p.a. in the town which they conveyed in 1397 to a group of feoffees, including Marchaunt, to the use of the fraternity of Holy Cross in the local church of St. Mary Magdalen in order to support a resident chantry chaplain. The Bathes, however, neglected to secure a royal licence to alienate in mortmain, and so after an inquest held 30 years later, in 1427, the lands were taken into royal custody and then committed to (Sir) Thomas Brooke* and John Stourton I*. In 1429 the case came before the chancellor, defended by Marchaunt and the other trustees. There is a possibility that the initials R.B. on glass in the interior of the church belonged to Bathe, in which case the merchant’s mark accompanying them would indicate his calling.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Tissine, Tissania: C139/31/62.
  • 2. Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 159412, 159415.
  • 3. CFR, xv. 165; C139/31/62; Gerard’s Description Som. (Som. Rec. Soc. xv), 58-59; C44/26/16.