Sir Robert Wingfield

  General Notes:

Sir Robert Wingfield of Letheringham (1403\endash 1454) in Letheringham, Suffolk, England was a son of a senior Sir Robert Wingfield (c. 1370 \endash 3 May 1409) and Elizabeth Russell. He was married to Elizabeth Gousell (1396\endash 1491). (Letheringham, which is near Wickham Market and Easton, Suffolk, was the site of a small priory which passed to Sir Anthony Wingfield at the Dissolution. The church, which became ruinous in the 18th century and was afterwards restored, contained early Wingfield memorials.)

The ancestral home of the Wingfield family was Wingfield Castle in Suffolk.

On 19 May 1426, Robert was knighted at Hereford by King Henry VI of England. From 1427 to 1436 he was Knight of the Shire for Suffolk. On 28 November 1436, Robert was appointed Steward of the Honour of Richmond in Norfolk.

In 1443 he became Steward to John de Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. He accompanied the Duke on his embassy to the court of King Charles VII of France. He was accused of rioting in 1447 and imprisoned in Marshalsea. He was pardoned in 1448. He was appointed Knight of the Shire for Hertfordshire in 1449.

He became a Member of Parliament under Henry VI. In 1450, Robert was denounced in the Parliament of England as one of the King's "evil advisors". He received a Royal Commission in 1451 and died in 1454.

Robert married Elizabeth Goushill, daughter of Sir Robert Goushill and Elizabeth Fitzalan, about 1427 in Derbyshire. (Elizabeth Goushill was born in 1402 in Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire.)