Robert Isham

Robert Isham of Pytchley, historically designated as Robert the second of that name, was a late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Northamptonshire freeholder whose life established the earliest documented descent of the Pytchley branch of the family.^? Born around 1270, he was the son of an elder Robert de Isham who had lived during the reign of King Henry III.^? His exact parentage is established by the Northamptonshire eyre rolls of 1293 and 1294, where he was recorded under the patronymic of Robert son of Robert de Isham as a defendant in an assize of novel disseisin brought by Henry de Isham of Isham concerning tenements in Pytchley.¹ This legal record proved his full majority by the early 1290s and definitively refuted earlier antiquarian theories that sought to identify him as an undocumented younger son of the contemporary Irthlingborough Isham lineage.^? A still earlier coroner's inquest from 1276 and 1277 concerning a drowning at Undermor near Pytchley records a Robert de Isham acting as a pledge alongside Thomas le Eyr, an entry that reflects either his father or his family's earliest involvement in local administrative duties.²

By the early fourteenth century, Robert had married Juliana, who is repeatedly confirmed as his wife in contemporary property settlements.³ Together they had at least three sons: William, Robert, and Henry.^3,4,5 In 1315, Robert was involved in extensive Court of Common Pleas proceedings when Simon de Orlingbury and Henry de Alcester, chaplains, brought a writ of right against twelve Pytchley landholders, demanding an acre and a rood of land held by Robert.^6,7 The contested holdings were temporarily taken into the King's hand following a procedural default before being replevied by Roger de Sutton, after which process continued on a wager of law.^8,9,10 The presence of his wider family in Pytchley affairs was further demonstrated in 1316, when his son William was named among the defendants in an assize of novel disseisin brought by Margery Parys.⁴ In the octave of Martinmas 1318, Robert and Juliana executed a significant family settlement enrolled in Common Pleas, levying a fine that conveyed a messuage, a virgate, and ten acres of land in Pytchley to their son Robert and Margery Eyestoun in tail, reserving a nominal annual rent of a rose at Midsummer and preserving the ultimate reversion of the property to Robert, Juliana, and their right heirs.³

During the general eyre of Northamptonshire in 1329 and 1330, Robert and his family appeared prominently in crown presentments detailing the widespread extortion practiced by local royal officials in Orlingbury Hundred.^? The eyre jurors reported that the purveyor John Raulyn had unlawfully coerced two shillings from Robert de Isham of Pytchley and Robert his son to spare their oxen and cows from being seized for the King's larder.^? In a separate presentment, the jurors revealed that John Daundelyn, a former sheriff of Northamptonshire, had wrongfully arrested Robert de Isham—expressly describing him as a man of good fame who had neither been appealed nor indicted of any felony—and had confined him in prison until Robert paid a fine to secure his release.^? These presentments reveal Robert as an established, substantial freeholder possessing livestock and land, yet vulnerable like many local gentry to the corrupt practices of county bailiffs.^?

Robert de Isham died around 1330 at Pytchley, leaving his principal patrimony to his son and heir, Henry de Isham.⁵ Prior to his death, Robert had demised certain houses and tenements in Pytchley to William Bene for a term of life.⁵ Bene's subsequent destruction of these buildings prompted Henry de Isham to initiate a multi-year waste suit in the Court of Common Pleas between 1330 and 1332.⁵ In those pleadings, Henry repeatedly cited Robert as his father whose inheritance had been wasted, ultimately recovering treble damages against Bene in 1332.^5,11 Through these continuous enrollments across the reigns of Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III, Robert stands as the crucial anchor connecting the thirteenth-century Isham forebears to the subsequent lords of Pytchley.^?