Born in about 1403, he was the son of Sir Robert Wingfield (died 1409) by his wife Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Sir
John Russell (d.1405), of
Strensham in
Worcestershire and his first wife Agnes. The elder Robert was son of Sir John Wingfield and his wife Margaret Hastings (died 1397),[4] later second wife of Russell. As guardian of her son, it was Russell who arranged the marriage of Robert to his daughter Elizabeth.[5]
He is thought to have been kin, although the precise nature of the relationship is unknown, to Sir
John de Wingfield (fl.c.1350) of
Wingfield Castle in
Suffolk, about 12 miles north of Letheringham, chief administrator to Edward the
Black Prince (1330-1376), whose daughter and heiress Catherine Wingfield married
Michael de la Pole, later 1st Earl of Suffolk, and lived at
Wingfield Castle in
Suffolk.
In December 1447 he was named as a rioter in Suffolk and was imprisoned in the
Marshalsea, but was pardoned in February 1448. In September of that year he complained that the Duke of Norfolk had attacked his home at Letheringham with an armed force and had burned his furniture and removed goods worth the then huge sum of £1,200.[4]
Sir John Wingfield (died 1481), of Letheringham, who married Elizabeth Fitzlewis, a daughter of Sir John Fitzlewis, MP, by whom he had sixteen children, including Sir
Richard Wingfield, Sir Robert Wingfield, Sir
Humphrey Wingfield, and Thomas Wingfield.[4]
Sir Robert Wingfield,[4] who married Anne Harling.
Sir Henry Wingfield (died by May 1494), of
Orford in Suffolk,[4] who married firstly Alice Seckford and secondly Elizabeth Rookes, and was the ancestor of the Wingfields of
Tickencote.
He died in 1454 and was buried at Letheringham. His will, made on 6 October 1453, was proved on 21 Nov 1454.[4]
References
^Letheringham was the site of a small priory which later passed to Sir Anthony Wingfield at the
Dissolution. The parish church, which became ruinous in the 18th century and was afterwards restored, contained early Wingfield memorials. See J.M. Blatchly, 'The lost and mutilated memorials of the Bovile and Wingfield families of Letheringham', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute for Archaeology and History XXXIII Part 2 (1974),
pp. 168-94 & Pls XIV-XIX (Suffolk Institute pdf).
^G. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 16.