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- Knight of the shire for Norfolk, 1495. Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, 1501-02. Admitted a knight of Lincoln’s Inn in 1467; knighted in 1494. He attended the funeral of Henry VII in 1409, and attended Henry VIII at his meeting with emperor Charles V at Gravesend in 1520.
From An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk by Francis Blomefield (citation details below):
Clere and his quarters Ormesby, Snecke, Westlesse, Wichingham, Somerton, Owydale, viz. and his two quarterings of the de-lises, and Rusteyn, impaling Boleyn.
This Sir Robert was famed for his great wealth, and acquired much reputation for his manly courage; he was knighted on AllSaints eve 1494, by Henry Duke of York, was sheriff of Norfolk in 1501, and was present at that great interview between King Henry VIII. and the French King on the 7th of June 1520, when he attended the Queen with a grand equipage; his testament is dated August 1, 1529, by which he ordered his executors, as soon as they well could, that they should cause 100 masses of the five wounds to be said for him, and also that they should provide a priest to pray for his soul, those of Dame Anne, daughter of Sir William Hopton, Knt. and of Dame Alice, daughter of Sir William Boleyn of Blickling, Knt. his two wives, and of all his ancestors and friends, and ordered that this service should be kept five years in the church he was buried in; but above all, he desired that if any persons could prove, that he had hindered them, or against conscience wronged them, in their goods or substance, that his executors on such proof should make them restitution.
His first wife lies buried at the altar in Ormesby with this on a brass plate,
Orate pro anima Domine Anne Clere, nuper Uroris Domini Roberti Clere Militis, de Ormesby, que obiit rriiio die Mensis Januarii, Anno Domini Mcccccv, cuius anime propicietur Deus.
His second wife is also buried at Ormesby with this, and Clere impaling Boleyn.
Orate pro anima Domine Alicie Clere, nuper Uroris Robertt Clere Militis, filie Willielmo Boleyn Militis, que obiit io de Mensis Novemb' Anno Domini Mvcxxxviiio cuius anime propicietur Deus.
He lies buried at the altar by his wives, under a stone circumscribed with these words, and a shield of arms, between each word,
Orate pro anima Roberti Clere Militis, qui obiit decimo die Mensis Augusti, Anno Domini Millessimo Quingentissimo Uices simo Nono, cuius anime propicietur Deus Amen.
The arms are: 1, Clere, &c. being the same as on the tomb here.
By his first wife he had a son, William, who died without issue; but by the 2d, he had three sons, John, Richard, and Thomas, and four daughters; Elizabeth, wife of Sir Robert Peyton of Iselham, Knt.; Anne, a nun at Denny; Dorothy, who married Robert Cotton; and Etheldred or Audrey, who espoused William Jenney; Thomas, the youngest son, was buried at Lambeth in 1545, and was a great favourite with that learned peer, Henry Howard Earl of Northampton, who to perpetuate his memory, hath enumerated his services in the following epitaph,
Norfolk sprang thee, Lambeth holds the dead, Clere of the County of Cleer-mont, though hight, Within the Womb of Ormond's Race thou bred, And sawest thy Cosin Crowned in thy Sight; Shelton for Love, Surry for Lord thou chuse, Aye me! while Life did last, that League was tender, Tracing whose Steps, thou sawest Kelsall blaze, Laundersey burnt, and batter'd Bullen render; At Muttrel Gates, hopeless of all Re-cure Thine Earl, half Dead, gave in thy Hand his Will; Which Cause did thee, this pining Death procure, E're Summers, Seven times Seven, thou could'st fulfill.
Ah! Clere, if Love had booted, Care, or Cost, Heaven had not wonn, nor Earth so timely lost.
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