Robert de Shardlow

[1] He seems to have already been a valued Crown official in his late twenties: he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Rome in 1228,[1] and was at the same time Constable of Guildford Castle.

[1] He and his brother became substantial landowners in Derbyshire and Leicestershire,[1] although they were forced to contest their rights with the royal favourite Peter de Rivaux, the Lord High Treasurer.

[1] There is a surviving record of one lawsuit which he and his fellow justices heard in 1250 between Matilda de Lacy and the Prior of Great Connell Priory, County Kildare, concerning an advowson, i.e. the right to appoint one's own candidate to an ecclesiastical benefice.

[5] He had administrative as well as judicial functions: on one occasion he organised the supply of a large quantity of corn to the future King Edward I of England, then in Wales.

[9] He was married (being only in minor orders he was not required to be celibate) and was the father of at least three children, including Geoffrey de Shardlow of Dublin, who died in 1274.