Robert Corbet (died 1676)

He is particularly known as the employer and mentor of Richard Gough, author of the Antiquities and Memoirs of the Parish of Myddle, a pioneering work of ethnographic literature, in which he is mentioned repeatedly.

Robert Corbet's background was in the landed gentry of Shropshire, a county which had no resident aristocracy in the 16th century,[2] and acquired one only slowly through the sale of honours by James I and Charles I.

Corbet was High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1636, during the period of Charles I's absolute monarchy, known as Thorough, when he was compelled to make ship money returns to the government in London.

[11][12] His tenure of the shrievalty suggests that Robert Corbet was not as yet a known opponent of the regime, as the appointment lay in the hands of central government and nominations were vetted by the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the staunchly royalist John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater.

[18] The king and Ottley issued a series of proscription lists, outlawing a wide range of Puritans and Parliamentarian sympathisers in the county.

[19] These proved more numerous than the king's warm welcome at Shrewsbury had suggested, not least because the royalist soldiers were ill-paid and took to looting in both towns and countryside.

[18] Robert Corbet's name appears in Ottley's papers on a list of ten indicted at the Spring assizes of 1643 for acts of disloyalty.

It is not likely that he appeared to face the accusation; by the time of the assizes he was already a member of Shropshire's parliamentary committee, which was set up in February 1643[21] and federated with its counterparts in Staffordshire and Warwickshire in April.

[22] The committee was an expansion of or replacement for the triumvirate of William Pierrepont, Sir John Corbet, and Richard More, appointed to the county by parliament in July 1642.

[22][24] The committee found it difficult to gain a foothold in its own county, mainly because the parliamentary commander in the region, Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh was lethargic and was soon accused of disloyalty.

The townspeople rallied behind the defenders and a rhyme declared: Robert Corbet seems to have moved to Wem immediately and stayed there throughout the greater part of the fighting.

In December he and Lloyd wrote to Mackworth, who was in London for Laud's trial, pointing out that both Wem and Nantwich were under threat, the countryside was being plundered and Irish troops were reinforcing the royalists.

"[26] January 1644 brought some relief, as Brereton and Lord Faifax came to the rescue of Wem, while Mytton defeated a royalist force at Ellesmere.

The fighting of Spring 1644 occasioned one of Gough's best-known anecdotes, involving one of Robert Corbet's employees, who had evidently followed him to war.

[28] Divisions were appearing on both sides: Rupert was forced to replace the governor of Shrewsbury twice and the Shropshire committee began to fracture, with most of the members alienated from the high-handed Mytton.

The committee members initially concealed from Mytton their evolving plans for the taking of Shrewsbury, where discontent with the royalist regime was prevalent.

They had difficulty maintaining their small garrisons at Moreton Corbet and Stoke upon Tern as they gathered resources for the attack on the county town.

They were turned into an ad hoc town council and elected Mackworth governor, passing over Mytton, a local man who might have had a good claim to the post.

After the restoration Ralphs was removed from office and fined for denouncing a village maypole, although the basis of the treason charge he at first faced was that he claimed “it was as greate a sin to sett up a May-pole, as it was to cut of the King's head”[39] - words he actually denied.

The public conflation of good order with “godliness” seems to have reached it peak in 1656, during the Rule of the Major-Generals, when James Berry, an Independent, was the regional representative of central government.

In 1640 a grand jury had set out guidelines for the corporations and justices: essentially to reduce ale outlets to a reasonable number and to enforce weights and measures legislation.

Corbet chaired the bench in April 1657, when Bartholomew Poyner was fined 20 shillings for selling ale without a licence,[48] although three other alesellers were licensed, bringing in £20 for the public purse.

Corbet also chaired the next sessions, when Poyner was brought before the court for a second offence and condemned to a public whipping if he failed to pay his fine, as well as three days in prison.

The local Puritan leadership certainly did not have an austere attitude to food and drink: Major-General Berry was entertained well at two inns during his stay, the second feast costing £14.

In January 1654 the Quarter Sessions made Corbet responsible for surveying the chancel at Baschurch and ensuring that the impropriators paid for repairs.

[50] The Michaelmas sessions of 1657 deputed Corbet to interview Stephen Hatchet and Thomas Adams, the former surveyors of Highways at Ellesmere,[51] who were in dispute over the accounts.

[60] There were a number of references to Corbet of such disputes, involving resolution of debt and personal or social conflict - an important part of the day-to-day business of local government during The Protectorate.

Philip Henry, a moderate Puritan ordained as a Presbyterian minister at Prees, Shropshire in 1657,[61] was a visitor at Stanwardine in the years after the Restoration, when he was ejected from his living.

[67] Although a general rundown of garrisons was discussed, Cromwell acknowledged that Shrewsbury was a special case – probably a victory for the lobbying of the local MPs.