Robert Pakington

Robert Pakington (c. 1489 – 13 November 1536) was a London merchant and Member of Parliament. He was murdered with a handgun in London in 1536, likely the first such killing in the city. His murder was later interpreted as martyrdom, and recounted in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. He was the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Sir John "Lusty" Pakington. Family Robert Pakington, born about 1489 at Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire, was a younger son of John Pakington and Elizabeth Washborne, the daughter of Thomas Washborne. He had three brothers, John, Augustine, and Humphrey. Life By 1510 Pakington had completed an apprenticeship with the Mercers' Company, one of the twelve great livery companies of London, and was exporting cloth and importing various wares. In 1523, and again in 1529, he and others were chosen to draw up articles on behalf of the Mercers for presentation to Parliament. According to Marshall, one of the articles drawn up in 1529 was "sharply anti-clerical". In 1527-8 Pakington was elected Warden of the . He was elected to Parliament in a by-election in October 1533, and was re-elected in 1536. The chronicler Edward Hall records that in Parliament Pakington again revealed anti-clerical sentiments, "speaking somewhat against the covetousness and cruelty of the clergy".