| Notes |
- Also called Roger Flore.
From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
Like his father, Roger was involved in the wool trade, working in partnership with William Dalby of Oakham, whose daughter Katherine he married by 1398 (and whose foundation of the hospital of St John the Evangelist and St Anne, Oakham, he effected as Dalby's executor and heir). Flower followed his father, too, in administrative duties in the royal manor of Oakham, and also in the forests of Rutland and Northamptonshire under Edward, earl of Rutland, later duke of York (d. 1415). It was probably through the latter's patronage that he was first elected to parliament for Rutland in January 1397, and again in 1399; the duke later appointed him an executor. Presumably he had received legal training before 1397, since he enjoyed an expanding practice thereafter.
The course of Flower's career was only briefly disturbed by Henry IV's seizure of the throne in 1399. He was entrusted with a commission against sedition in 1402, and returned to parliament in that year (and in October 1404), later becoming sheriff of Rutland in 1407–8 and 1412–13. In 1416 Henry V made Flower steward of the duchy of Lancaster's estates north of the Trent (and so also justice of the peace in no less than ten counties), with a salary of £40 plus 5s. per day worked; early in the following year he also became steward of Lancashire and Cheshire. In his will of 1417 the king nominated Flower as a possible replacement for any of the duchy's panel of trustees who should die during his absence in France. Flower was again returned for Rutland to the seven parliaments from 1414 to 1419, and for a twelfth time in 1422. He was also speaker an unprecendented three times running (October 1416, 1417, 1419). In 1422 he was appointed speaker yet again, immediately after a hurried election, which suggests that his experience was needed for the first parliament of Henry VI's minority. The parliaments in which Flower was speaker of the Commons were gratifyingly generous to the crown; if the Agincourt effect was largely responsible, it was also to his credit as a Lancastrian servant. It is possible that his personal concern with the impact of Lollardy in the east midlands influenced the petition presented in the parliament of 1417 for the speedy execution of Sir John Oldcastle. Flower continued to exert influence on Rutland elections after his retirement, and he attended the parliaments of 1425 and 1426 as the abbot of Crowland's proxy.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
- Bef 1427