CONSTABLE, Robert.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

Offices Held

Biography

This Member remains unidentified. Some half-dozen or more namesakes of suitable age and status are shown in pedigrees of the Yorkshire families of Constable drawn by the heralds in 1584-5, 1612 and 1662, and later enlarged and annotated by Foster and Clay, but no evidence has been found to connect any with Appleby and the House of Commons or with the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, the patron of the borough. Still others of the same name occur fleetingly in the major manuscript sources for the period or are known from the pedigrees and records of other counties, but in no case is there information sufficient to support an identification. However, only one is found at an inn of court before 1586, and for this reason alone the claim of Robert Constable, barrister of Furnival’s Inn, who was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in February 1582, may be tentatively advanced as better than those of the others. Probably it was this man, son of Robert, 'mediocris fortunae', of North Pickenham in Norfolk, who, after four years' schooling at Saxthorpe, matriculated at Pembroke College Cambridge, at Easter 1573, and a year later, at the age of 18, moved to Caius College, where he took his BA in 1576-7.

Venn, Gonville and Caius Biog. Hist. i. 77. On his family see G. A. Carthew, Hundred of Launditch, iii. 256, 431.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: E.L.C.M.

Notes