SPILLER, Robert (c.1592-1637), of Woking, Surr.

Spiller’s life was overshadowed by that of his controversial and popishly-inclined father, Sir Henry, whom he joined in the last two Jacobean Parliaments. The family’s connections with the Howards saw him nominated for Castle Rising by Thomas, earl of Arundel. SP14/135/42. His Commons career was probably intended as a political apprenticeship, but the only mention of him in the records of either Parliament was an appointment on 6 Mar. 1621 to the committee to consider the Wey River navigation bill. CJ, i. 539b; CD 1621, vii. 40-44. Spiller, who lived at Woking, in Surrey, through which the river flowed, probably supported the bill, since he did not sign the petition against the project. Harl. 6803, ff. 30-37. The measure failed to become law, however, and in 1635 Spiller was appointed to a commission to make the Wey navigable.

Two years before his death Spiller sold to his father the manors of Kingsey and Haddenham in Buckinghamshire, which he had acquired on his marriage. VCH Bucks. ii. 282, iv. 65. He died intestate in 1637, leaving an under-age daughter, Jane, and was buried near his mother at Shepperton church, Middlesex. On 15 June administration of Spiller’s estates was granted to Sir Henry during Jane’s minority on condition that he provide her with a portion of £3,000. PROB 6/16, f. 87. However, Sir Henry, a royalist, refused to pay his granddaughter’s portion in 1646 when she married James Herbert, son of the parliamentarian 4th earl of Pembroke (Sir Philip Herbert*). The dispute was only settled in Jane’s favour in 1650, a year after Sir Henry’s death. CCC, 1146; C2/Chas.I/H116/172; 2/Chas.I/H87/9; 2/Chas.I/H88/15. No further members of the family sat in Parliament.