WHITGREVE, Robert

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 834-6.

Whitgreve must have been a man of considerable energy. The numerous payments recorded to him on the issue rolls illustrate the number and variety of the tasks he was required to undertake as a long-serving Exchequer official. On several occasions he was commissioned to convey large sums either across the Channel, when the King was himself in France, or to ports of embarkation for the payment of departing retinues. In 1430, for example, he took over £7,000 to the cofferer of the King’s household and the clerk of the King’s jewels at Rouen; in the following year he again went to Rouen with 11,000 marks to finance a new campaign; and in 1436 he and another teller, William Baron*, conveyed £14,000 in cash to Winchelsea to pay the retinues of Richard, duke of York, and William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. It is interesting to observe the variation in the cost of transferring such large sums. The total cost, for example, in taking £14,000 to the south coast in 1436 was a modest £57 18s., but it was much more costly to convey money across the Channel. In carrying the smaller sum of 11,000 marks to Rouen in 1431 Whitgreve earned wages and incurred costs of as much as £140, an indication of the high cost of hiring shipping. Other tasks that came his way were more routine. In 1437, for example, he spent 33 days travelling to York and Lincoln to acquire 2,000 bows and 4,000 sheaves of arrows, to Coventry and Worcester to collect money loaned to the Crown by the citizens, and, also for the collection of various loans, to the abbeys of Evesham, Cirencester, Gloucester and other creditors. E403/696, mm. 11, 19; 723, m. 6.

Such lengthy absences from Westminster, however inconvenient, provided a significant addition to Whitgreve’s income. As a teller he drew a daily wage of 3d., but when travelling on royal business he received a much more generous 5s. per day. In going to Rouen early in 1431, for example, he earned £19 5s. for an absence of 77 days. E403/696, m. 19. To this he may also have added a further 2s. a day due to him from the borough of Stafford, which he was then supposed to be representing in the Parliament that met between 12 Jan. and 20 Mar. His absence from that assembly for part or all of its course meant that these wages were not earned, and he probably routinely forwent what was due to him from his constituents.

There is little to add to the earlier biography in respect of either Whitgreve’s domestic affairs or of his numerous social connexions. To the list of the important men he served is to be added William Heyworth (d.1447), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for whom he acted as an executor. E159/224, recorda Trin. rot. 9. His widow may have been the Elizabeth Whitgreve who in Hilary term 1456 sued a tailor of Stafford for breaking into her house and taking goods worth 40s. CP40/780, rot. 114. According to a much later petition presented in Star Chamber, he died suddenly and intestate. Other evidence supports the notion of his intestacy: although his two sons, Humphrey and Thomas, are described as his executors in one source, they are more commonly called his administrators. Whether suddenly or not, he died on 5 Aug. 1453 – at least this was the date used in accounts to calculate sums due from him, at his death, as receiver of the honour of Tutbury. STAC1/2/64; CP40/820, rot. 460; 824, rot. 293; C1/57/340; DL29/403/6463.