Robert Constable

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1270 and 1272
• Alternate death: Bef 1272

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 24 Jun 1300
• Alternate death: 1319

Notes:

Summoned to council at York, 15 Jan 1300. Summoned to serve against the Scots, 24 June 1300.

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 8 Dec 1336

Notes:

Summoned to serve in Scotland, 24 Jun 1300. Knighted 22 May 1306 together with Edward, Prince of Wales (the later Edward II).

"Sir Robert Constable, who may have sat in the Parliament of 1319 and was certainly summoned to attend a great council five years later, served on many royal commissions and helped to maintain the Yorkshire coast in a state of defence against pirates and the threat of foreign invasion." [History of Parliament]

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

A rare example of political involvement occurred at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when Sir Robert [i] Constable (fl. 1313–1338/9), the eldest son of Sir William [i] Constable (d. 1319), allied himself with Thomas, earl of Lancaster. In 1313 Robert was among those pardoned for his involvement in the death of the king's favourite Piers Gaveston in the previous year and he was again associated with the earl in May 1321, when the local Bridlington chronicler noted him among the northern gentry present at the earl's 'parliament' at Pontefract. Like many northerners, however, he later dissociated himself from the earl. He was not present at the Sherburn meeting in the following month, and in 1322 was given powers of array by the king. After that he appears to have withdrawn from public affairs, and in October 1331 secured exemption from office, although he was made an arrayer again early in 1333.

A partial explanation for Robert's withdrawal may have been his chronic indebtedness. From 1317 until the mid-1330s he acknowledged debts to a wide range of local merchants and clerics, as well as to more influential figures. His financial position may have eased by 1338–9, when he bought a mill and pasture in Flamborough, but in terms of public office the family remained eclipsed for a further decade.

Family/Spouse: Katherine. Katherine was buried in Flamborough, Bridlington, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 19 Mar 1377 and 19 Jun 1378, Flamborough, Bridlington, Yorkshire, England
• Alternate death: 1 Jun 1378

Notes:

He was sheriff of Yorkshire in 1360-62 and 1366-67. He was also one of the executors of the will of William la Zouche, Archbishop of York, his father-in-law's brother.

He is called in error "William Constable" in The Visitation of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564.

"By 1351 Marmaduke had the resources to undertake rebuilding at Flamborough and obtained licence to crenellate the manor. Alongside this suggestion of growing prosperity Marmaduke was taking on a larger public role. In 1349 he was appointed an executor of Archbishop Zouche, he was added to the commission of the peace in 1351, and was sheriff of Yorkshire in 1360–62 and 1366–7. He was discharged as commissioner in May 1370, which seems to mark the end of his public career, although he did not die until 21 May 1378. His last months were overshadowed by the murder of his kinsman John at Holme-on-Spalding Moor in June 1377 by two men identified as the cousins of the parson. There had been trouble there in 1365, when a commission of oyer and terminer had been appointed to investigate Marmaduke's complaint that the residents had attacked his manor house, and John's death was perhaps linked with continuing local unrest." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

"It is not unlikely that his name of Marmaduke was due to a connexion with the family of Thweng, who may have derived it from the family of Darel. Marmaduke de Thweng, living early in the thirteenth century, was the son of Robert de Thweng and Emma Darel, a niece of Marmaduke Darel; and there were subsequently many members of the Thweng family named Marmaduke. Certainly there was a connexion between the Thwengs and the Constables. In 1312 Robert de Thweng was instituted to the church of Holme upon Spalding Moor on the presentation of Sir William Constable of Flamborough; in 1348 a chantry in Kirkleatham was founded by Thomas de Thweng, the rector and patron of the church, for the souls of many relatives including Robert, William, Marmaduke and Katherine Constable; and a William de Thweng received a legacy in the will of Sir Marmaduke in 1377. It is possible that Katherine, Sir Marmaduke’s mother, was a Thweng; but of this there is no corroborative evidence." [Early Yorkshire Charters: Volume 12, The Tison Fee, citation details below]

Family/Spouse: Joan la Zouche. Joan (daughter of Roger la Zouche and Felicia) was born in of Lubbesthorpe, Blaby, Leicestershire, England; died before 1376; was buried in All Saints, Holme upon Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]