SMITH, Robert

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 397.

There is a slight irregularity in Smith’s return to the Parliament of 1431: his name and that of his fellow MP, Thomas Stokkes*, have been added over an erasure (and those of the knights of the shire inserted in a blank space) in the Derbyshire election indenture. Further, the sheriff, (Sir) Hugh Willoughby*, departed from the usual practice, in neither returning a separate indenture for Derby nor appending the names of borough attestors to the county return. C219/14/2. These inconsistencies may represent no more than a corrected error, but the possibility cannot be discounted that there was something improper in the conduct of the elections for both shire and borough. Curiously, Smith was chosen as one of the collectors of the tax voted by the assembly in which he sat, a burden which his Membership should have enabled him to avoid. He does not appear in the records after 1431, and he was probably dead by 1434 when his name is not included in a list of 101 men of Derby who were to be sworn to keep the peace. CPR, 1429-36, pp. 410-11.