Family and Education

b. by 1527, 1st s. of William Mason by Joyce, da. of George Langford, registrar of Hereford. m. (1) Alice Cox; (2) Jane.1

Offices Held

Churchwarden, Ludlow by 1551, bailiff 1555-6, 1563-4, 1571-2, alnager 1558; ?steward of the household household to the council in the marches of Wales 1567-9.2

Biography

Robert Mason came from a cadet branch of a gentle family settled at Minton in south Shropshire. His grandfather had made his career as a merchant in London, but Mason seems to have spent his life mostly in Ludlow, where he married into a well-connected family. If he is identifiable with a servant of (Sir) Henry Sidney during Elizabeth’s reign he was perhaps an employee of the council in the marches of Wales. In 1548 he paid the churchwardens at Ludlow 6s.8d. for a grave, and four years later he leased part of the town ditch and a fishpool from the town authorities. For supplying workmen towards an unspecified project at his own cost in 1555 he was awarded 1s.3d. by the bailiffs. His Membership of the last Parliament of Mary’s reign was a natural extension of his municipal career. It was probably he, and not Sir John Mason, one of the knights for Hampshire, who was the ‘Mr. Mason’ chosen with Sir John Baker during the first session to investigate John Marshe’s complaint against Thomas Wild for ‘saying he had unburdened the clothiers from the search of cloths and laid it upon the buyers’: the choice of Mason may have been influenced by his alnagership and his domicile in the same area as Wild. Mason served Ludlow twice more in Parliament under Elizabeth. He died between 12 Oct. 1591 when he made his will and 25 Nov. following when it was proved.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Harding

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 353-5; NLW, Herefs. wills box 8 Ma (1).
• 2. Churchwardens’ Accts. Ludlow (Cam. Soc. cii), 45; Bodl. Gough Salop 1, f. 277v; Salop RO, Ludlow bailiffs’ accts.; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 357-9; P. H. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 128.
• 3. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), vii. 15; (ser. 3), v. 45; T. Wright, Ludlow 490-3; CJ, i. 49; NLW, Herefs, wills box 8 Ma (1).