Ancestral Trails 2016 » Reginald CORBET (1509-1566)

Personal data Reginald CORBET 

• He was born in the year 1509 in Moreton Corbet, Wemme, Shropshire.
• He died on November 19, 1566 in Stoke-upon-Tern, Shropshire, he was 57 years old.
• He is buried November 1566 in Corbet Chapel, Stoke Upon Tern, Shropshire.Source 1
• A child of Robert CORBET and Elizabeth VERNON

Household of Reginald CORBET

He is married to Alice GRATEWOOD.

They got married on August 23, 1546 at Parish Church, Hodnet, Shropshire, he was 37 years old.Source 2

Child(ren):

1. Roland CORBET  ± 1550-????
2. Francis CORBET  ± 1552-????
3. Andrew CORBET  1549-????
4. Peter CORBET  ± 1558-????
5. Maria CORBET  ± 1556-????
6. Elizabeth CORBET  ± 1554-????
7. Anne CORBET  1558-1601
8. Margaret CORBET  ± 1562-????
9. Jane CORBET  ± 1566-????
10. Robert CORBET  1564-1601
11. Richard CORBET  1564-1601 

Notes about Reginald CORBET

Reginald Corbet (by 1513-1566) was a distinguished lawyer in four reigns across the mid-Tudor period, and prospered throughout, although he seems to have been firmly Protestant in sympathy. He was appointed serjeant-at-law and Justice of the King's Bench, and represented Much Wenlock in the parliament of 1542 and Shrewsbury in those of 1547, October 1553 and 1555. He enjoyed great wealth, partly because his wife was an heiress of Sir Rowland Hill, the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London.

Reginald Corbet was the third son of Sir Robert Corbet (c. 1477-1513) of Moreton Corbet Castle in Shropshire. The Corbet family were landed gentry of Anglo-Norman descent, who had lived in the Shropshire Welsh Marches for centuries. Many Corbets had represented Shropshire in the Parliament before. Elizabeth Vernon (died 29 March 1563), daughter of Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon Hall and Tong and Anne Talbot, daughter of John Talbot, Second Earl of Shrewsbury. Elizabeth had close ties with regionally and nationally powerful families. Her father had been treasurer to Arthur Tudor, the Prince of Wales. The Talbots had vast estates in western and northern England.

Reginald had two brothers: Roger Corbet (c. 1501-1538), the heir to Sir Robert's estates, and Richard Corbet (died 1566). Both were to be MPs. However, of the three brothers, only Roger was provided for when Sir Robert died on 11 April 1513: aged about 12, he was to undergo a long wardship before coming into full possession of the Corbet estates in 1522. Although Sir Robert made generous provision for his four daughters, he never mention Richard or Reginald, The will dates from 1509, making it likely that the two younger sons were born after that date, so Reginald was probably little more than an infant when his father died. Both younger sons would have to look elsewhere for advancement. For Richard this meant, initially, the court, while for Reginald it was the law.

Legal career
Reginald was educated at the Middle Temple and called to the bar, although the dates of his early career are not known. He was to be Lent Reader in 1552, by which time he was a distinguished lawyer. He was auditor at the Middle Temple in 1556, assistant to the reader in 1559.

It is likely that Corbett was still at his Inn of Court when he served as MP for Wenlock in 1542. Only from about 1543 do the main outlines of his progress become clear.

In 1543 Corbet served as Feodary for Shropshire, an official of the Court of Wards and Liveries. In 1546 he married Alice Gratewood (died 1603), the daughter of John Gratewood (d. 8 August 1570) of Wollerton, Shropshire, and Jane Hill. Alice was a niece of Sir Rowland Hill of London and Hodnet, an official of the Worshipful Company of Mercers who had made immense wealth from the trade with the Netherlands. Hill was the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London. Marriage was immediately followed by a welter of appointments that can only be explained by Corbet's greatly improved connections.

The year after his marriage, Corbet was made Recorder of Shrewsbury, an office he was to hold until 1559. That same year he was also made a justice of the peace for Shropshire and commissioner for chantries in the county, an important post in a year when chantries and colleges were being wound up by the new Protestant regime of Edward VI. In 1548, he was paid ten shillings "for a supplication exhibited to the Lord Chancellor to obtain a free school." Significantly there was also a receipt for 20 pence to bribe the lord chancellor's servant to win his ear. Augusta Corbet, the family historian, claims Corbet and a group of friends had originated the scheme some years earlier in the reign of Henry VIII, hoping to use proceeds from the dissolution of Shrewsbury Abbey. This time the agitation was to prove ultimately successful and Shrewsbury School was opened in 1552, initially as a distinctly Calvinist institution.

Honorific and lucrative appointments continued through Corbet's life, initially in Shropshire, then in other counties in the Marches and Wales, irrespective of the religious complexion of the regime. He was commissioner for relief in Shropshire in 1550. Under Queen Mary's Catholic regime, he was appointed to the Quarter Sessions of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, Monmouthshire, and the Welsh counties. In 1553, he was made a member of the powerful Council of Wales and the Marches, together with his nephew, Sir Andrew Corbet. Toward the end of Mary's reign, on 6 April 1558, Corbet was made a justice of the Court of Great Sessions in Wales for the Northern Circuit, which consisted of Anglesey, Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire.

In her final months, Mary approved Corbet's call as serjeant-at-law, although the appointment was not confirmed until April 1559, when Elizabeth's Protestant regime was firmly in control. The following October, Elizabeth made him a justice of the king's bench, necessitating resignation from the recordership at Shrewsbury, which he completed on 27 December.

His work as a justice was distinguished, with colleagues commending his summings up, but not prolonged, as he died in 1566.

Marriage and family
Reginald Corbet married Alice Gratewood, daughter of John Gratewood of Wollerton, at Hodnet on 23 August 1546. Her uncle, Sir Rowland Hill, the first Protestant Lord Mayor of London, died without issue in 1561. He had used some of his immense wealth to buy estates in his native Shropshire and the neighbouring counties, most of them on the market because of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. These he left to his two nieces. Alice inherited large estates that made herself and Reginald Corbet wealthy and secure for the latter part of their lives. On Alice's death, the estates were listed as the manors of Drayton, Adderley, Stoke on Tern, Hales, Almington and Blore, the village of Child's Ercall and granges at Cliffe, Tern Hill, Burnhill and Cheethill.

Corbet and Alice had six sons and five daughters.

Andrew predeceased his father.
Robert predeceased his father.
Rowland died while at school in Drayton.
Francis predeceased his father.
Richard (died c. 1601), Reginald Corbet's heir, married Anne Bromley, daughter of Lord Chancellor Thomas Bromley Their son, Sir John Corbet, 1st Baronet, of Stoke upon Tern was a prominent opponent of Charles I's absolutist policies in the 1620s and sided with Parliament in the English Civil War.
Peter married Elizabeth Pigott, daughter of Thomas Pigott of Chetwynd.
Elizabeth married Robert Arden of Park Hall, Castle Bromwich.
Mary married Francis Newton of Heightley.
Anne married first Edward Mytton of Halston, then Sir William Leighton of Plaish.
Margaret married Sir Humphrey Lee of Langley and Coton, near Alveley.
Jane

Death
Augusta Corbett gives Reginald's year of death as 1569, but the date of probate makes this impossible and 19 November 1566, is now the accepted date, only about four months after the death of his brother, Richard. He had made his will the previous year and it was proved on 22 January 1567.

Richard was his heir. However, as Reginald owed his good fortune mainly to his wife's inheritance, he recognised in his will and testament:

"And as concerning any devise to be made of my lands, I can make none, for my wife is joint-purchaser with me, and so that I remit wholly to her and to her provision for our children after such plat and devise as I have drawn, and remaineth in my coffer." He gave a gelding to Sir Andrew and another gelding, together with his crossbow and a parcel-gilt silver cup, to Robert Corbet (died 1583), Sir Andrew's son, and asked them both to be good to Alice. He gave a gelding also to his brother-in-law, William Gratewood, forgiving him a debt of £14. He left the very large sum of £400 for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth, then still single. He was generous to his servants, giving each a full year's pay and up to an extra year's free board and lodging while they looked for employment. Alice was made the sole executrix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Corbet#Marriage_and_family

SUMMARY: The document below is the Prerogative Court of Canterbury copy of the
will, dated 26 August 1565 and proved 22 January 1567, of Reginald Corbet (born
c.1510, d. 19 November 1566), third son of Sir Robert Corbet (b. about 1477, d. 11 April
1513), and Elizabeth Vernon (d. 29 March 1563), the daughter of Sir Henry Vernon
(d.1511) of Haddon.

The testator’s eldest brother, Roger Corbet (d.1538/9), had been a ward of John de Vere
(1442-1513), 13th Earl of Oxford (see TNA C 1/1485/58). After the 13th Earl’s death, the
wardship was sold by his executors to Andrew (1467-1543), 1st Lord Windsor, who
married his ward to his daughter, Anne Windsor (d.1550/1). Anne Windsor’s brother,
George Windsor (d. before 1520), was the first husband of Ursula de Vere (d.1558), sister
and co-heir of John de Vere (1499-1527), 14th Earl of Oxford. Edward (1532?-1575), 3rd
Lord Windsor, married Oxford’s half-sister, Katherine de Vere (1538-1600). Moreover
the testator’s sister, Anne or Joan Corbet, married Thomas Newport (d.1548x51), the
father of Sir Richard Newport (d.1570/1), the owner of a copy of Hall’s Chronicle
containing annotations thought to have been made by Shakespeare. There were thus
strong family connections in this generation between the Newports (owners of the
annotated copy of Hall’s Chronicle), the Corbets, the Windsors, and the de Veres.
The testator had another older brother, Richard Corbet (d.1564x66), and four sisters:
Jane, who married Thomas Lee (d.1561x3) of Langley, the son and heir of Fulke Lee and
Alice, the daughter of Sir Richard Cornwall of Berrington, Herefordshire; Joan or Anne,
who married Thomas Newport (d.1548x51), as noted above; Mary, who married Thomas
Powell of Oswestry; and Dorothy, who married Sir Richard Mainwaring (b. about 1499,
d. 30 September 1558) of Ightfield, Shropshire.

For the will of the testator’s father, Sir Robert Corbet (b. about 1477, d. 11 April 1513),
see TNA PROB 11/17, ff. 214-5. For the will of the testator’s elder brother, Roger
Corbet (d.1538/9), see TNA PROB 11/27, f. 194. For the will of the testator’s sister-inlaw,
Anne (nee Windsor) Corbet (d.1550/1), see TNA PROB 11/34, ff. 241-2. For the
will of the testator’s brother, Richard Corbet (d.1564x66), see TNA PROB 11/48, f. 408.
For the will of the testator’s brother-in-law, Thomas Lee (d.1561x3), in which the
testator is named as a trustee, see TNA PROB 11/46, ff. 23-4. For the wills of the
testator’s brother-in-law, Thomas Newport (d.1548x51), and nephew, Sir Richard
Newport (d.1570/1), owner of the annotated copy of Hall’s Chronicle, see TNA PROB
11/34, f. 112 and TNA PROB 11/53, f. 290.

The testator married Alice Gratewood (d.1603), the daughter of John Gratewood (d. 8
August 1570) and Jane Hill, whose brother, Sir Rowland Hill (c.1495-1561), born in
Hodnet, was a prominent member of the Mercers’ Company and the first protestant Lord
Mayor of London. For the will of Sir Rowland Hill (c.1495-1561), in which he leaves
bequests to his brother-in-law, John Gratewood, his niece, Alice (nee Gratewood) Corbet
(d.1603), and her brother William Gratewood (d. circa 1583) of Adderley, Shropshire, see TNA PROB 11/44, ff.259-60

By his wife, Alice (nee Gratewood) Corbet (d.1603), the testator had six sons, Andrew,
Robert, Roland, Francis, Richard (d.1601?) and Peter, of whom only the latter two left
heirs, and five daughters, Elizabeth, Maria, Anne, Margaret and Jane.

The testator’s eldest surviving son and heir, Richard Corbet (d.1601?) married Anne
Bromley, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bromley (c.1530-1587), one of the trustees in
Oxford’s indenture of 30 January 1575 (see ERO D/DRg2/25).
The testator’s daughter, Elizabeth Corbet, unmarried at the time the testator made his
will, became the wife of Robert Arden (d.1635), the son of Edward Arden (1533-1583) of
Park Hall and his wife, Mary Throckmorton (d.1603), the daughter of Sir Robert
Throckmorton (b. circa 1510, d. 12 February 1581) of Coughton and his second wife,
Elizabeth (nee Hussey) Hungerford Throckmorton (d. 23 January 1554). Sir Robert
Throckmorton (b. circa 1510, d. 12 February 1581) was the uncle of Job Throckmorton
(1545-1601) who was involved in the publication of the Marprelate tracts. Edward
Arden (1533-1583) of Park Hall was the son of William Arden (d.1545), said to have been
a second cousin of Mary Arden, the mother of Shaksper of Stratford.
The testator’s daughter, Margaret Corbet, married Sir Humphrey Lee (d.1632) of
Langley, son and heir of Richard Lee (d.1590/1), and grandson of the testator’s brother-inlaw,
Thomas Lee (d.1561x3) of Langley. In the will below the testator mentions his
‘nephew Lee’, i.e., Richard Lee (d.1590/1), the son of the testator’s sister, Jane Corbet,
and her husband, Thomas Lee (d.1561x3) of Langley. For the will of Sir Richard Lee
(d.1590/1), see TNA PROB 11/77, ff. 379/80.
The testator’s brother-in-law, William Gratewood (d. circa 1583), referred to in the will
below as ‘my brother Gratewood’, married Mary Newport, the daughter of Sir Richard
Newport (d.1570/1), owner of the annotated copy of Hall’s Chronicle mentioned above.
After the death of William Gratewood (d. circa 1583), Mary Newport married Ralph
Sneyd (b. circa 1527, d. 15 August 1620), who was the maternal uncle of Oxford’s second
wife, Elizabeth Trentham (d.1612), and acted as a trustee in several documents entered
into in connection with Oxford’s marriage to Elizabeth Trentham (d.1612). See the will of
Elizabeth Trentham, TNA PROB 11/121, ff. 74-5. Mary Newport’s second marriage
perhaps came about because of earlier connections between the Corbet and Trentham
families. The testator’s aunt, Elizabeth Corbet, the sister of the testator’s father, Sir
Robert Corbet (b. about 1477, d. 11 April 1513), was the wife of Thomas Trentham
(d.1518/9) of Shrewsbury. Thomas Trentham (d.1518/9) and his wife Elizabeth Corbet
were the great-grandparents of Oxford’s second wife, Elizabeth Trentham (d.1612). For
the will of Thomas Trentham (d.1518/9), see TNA PROB 11/19, f. 196.
The testator appoints his brother-in-law, Thomas Powell, the wife of his sister, Mary
Corbet, and his nephew, Sir Andrew Corbet (d.1578), the son and heir of his elder
brother, Roger Corbet (d.1538/9), as overseers of his will. Sir Andrew Corbet’s son and
heir, Robert Corbet (d.1583), also mentioned in the will, was a close friend of Sir Philip
Sidney (1554-1586) and is perhaps the ‘Mr Corbeck’ mentioned in Oxford’s letter to
Lord Burghley written from Paris on 17/18 March 1575 (see Cecil Papers 8/24)

LM: Testamentum Reginaldi Corbett
In dei nomine Amen. I, Reginald Corbet, one of the Queen’s Justices of her pleas before
her Highness to be holden, and the third son of Sir Robert Corbet, knight, of Moreton
Corbet within the county of Salop, make my testament concerning my goods in manner
and form following:

First, in charity I forgive all men that have offended me, and secondly I ask all them
forgiveness whom I have offended, and thirdly and chiefly, with all my might, with all my
heart and with all my soul I ask the Almighty God forgiveness of all my offences and the
punishment that I have deserved for the same, faithfully believing that by the death and
passion, and by thy promise, I have remission of all my sins and shall inherit the kingdom
of heaven;

First, I give unto Sir Andrew Corbet, knight, and to all his brethren and sisters that be the
children of my old master, my brother, Roger Corbet, the sum of one hundred marks, to
be delivered as [+to] Sir Andrew should seem meet by his discretion;

Item, I give unto Sir Andrew Corbet, after he hath taken his two heriots’ forfeit, my best
gelding remaining, and unto my cousin, Robert Corbet, his eldest son, I give the best
gelding he can choose, his father being served, of mine remaining, my cross-bow, and a
cup of silver being parcel-gilt with the cover, and I desire Sir Andrew Corbet and his
brethren, and my said cousin, Robert, to be good to my wife;

Item, I forgive my brother Gratewood the fourteen pounds which he borrowed of me, and
the best gelding he can chose, the former legacies performed;

Item, I give to every of my servants receiving wages one year’s wages with one year’s
entertainment with my wife until they be otherwise provided, and to them that receive no
wages I give to every of them twenty shillings apiece with like entertainment for one year
as is before expressed;

Item, I give to my brother Powell and to my sister, his wife, a goblet called Fountain,
double-gilt, with a cover to it;

And to my nephew Lee a jug of stone garnished with silver gilt, the best of them he can
choose, with letters in the top of the cover;

Item, I will that there shall be bestowed amongst my poor tenants in Stoke and Drayton
twenty marks, with such other dole(?), preparation and order of my burial as my
executors shall think most convenient, and I would wish it might please God I might be
buried in Stoke church;

Item, the residue of all my goods, plate, money, cattle(?), jewels not in this former
testament given nor hereafter to be given, I wholly give to my singular good wife, Alice
Corbet, whom I ordain and make my sole executrix, and overseers Sir Andrew Corbet and
my brother Thomas Powell, provided nevertheless and my will is that if hereafter my said
wife fortune to marry, my daughter Elizabeth then living unmarried, that then I give and
bequeath unto my said daughter, Elizabeth, in preferment of her marriage the sum of four
hundred pounds, so that she be married by the advice of my said wife, Sir Andrew
Corbet, my brother Powell, and my brother Gratewood, or the most part of them;

And as concerning any devise to be made of my lands, I can make none, for my wife is
joint-purchaser with me, and so that I remit wholly to her and to her provision for our
children after such plat and devise as I have drawn, and remaineth in my coffer;

And thus our Lord God have mercy on my soul. Written at Stoke the twenty and sixth
day of August a thousand five hundred threescore and five, anno regni Regine Elizabethe
octauo, all with mine own hand, and thereunto I have subscribed my name and set to my
seal.

[=The above-written testament was proved before Master Walter Haddon, Doctor of the
Laws, Commissary of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, at London on the 22nd day of
the month of January in the year of the Lord according to the course and reckoning of the
English Church the thousand five hundred sixty-sixth by the oath of Thomas Upton,
notary public, proctor of Alice, relict and executrix appointed in the same testament, to
whom administration was granted of all and singular the goods etc., sworn on the Holy Gospels to well.]
SOURCE: Modern spelling transcript copyright ©2007 Nina Green All Rights Reserved http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/

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Timeline Reginald CORBET

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