Robert de la Mare, MP, of Aldermaston

• from MARE, Robert de la (c.1379-1431), of Aldermaston, Berks.

Family

b.c. 1379, s. of Sir Thomas de la Mare† (d.1405) of Aldermaston by his w. Margaret. m. by lic. 21 Jan. 1398, Katherine, da. of Sir Bernard Brocas (exec. 1400) of Beaurepaire, Hants by Joan, da. of Sir Thomas Midleton,1 sis. of William* and Bernard Brocas*, prob. 2s. (1 d.v.p.).

Biographical Notes

In 1349 the bulk of the de la Mare family estates in Wiltshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire had passed at the death of Robert’s grandfather, Peter de la Mare, to the latter’s eldest son, Sir Robert† (d.1382), from whom they eventually descended to his daughter Willelma, widow of Sir John Roches*. Robert himself was to inherit only one of his uncle’s manors—situated in Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire, descent of which was governed by tail-male—and this he did not obtain until the death of his uncle’s widow, in April 1405. However, he was not destined to be a poor relation, for his father, Sir Thomas de la Mare, had acquired from the maternal side of the family the Berkshire estates of the Acards, principally the manors of Aldermaston, Sparsholt, Eastmanton and Sulhamstead Bannister, and to these our MP was the sole heir.2