Long was born in Wiltshire, the son of Thomas Long.[1]
He became a lawyer at the Inns of Court in London and in his legal career was greatly assisted by members of the Hungerford family, including Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford, who employed him as an advisor and trustee.[1]
A Robert Long was acting as a deputy marshal in the Court of King's Bench by 1408, and this may have been the same man.[1]
In 1414, Long was elected as one of the two members of parliament for Old Sarum, and will have attended Parliament when it met in November. In 1417 he was elected for Calne, and the one session of that parliament was from November to December. Thereafter, he was six times a knight of the shire for Wiltshire, in May 1421, December 1421, October 1423 to February 1424, September 1429 to February 1430, 1433, and January to March 1442. There were many intervening parliaments for which he was not elected.[1]
Richard Long, MP for Old Sarum in 1442, the year that his father and two brothers were all Members of Parliament for various Wiltshire constituencies.[1]
Secondly, before 1428, he married Margaret Popham (born 1 May 1400), the widow of John Cowdray and of William Wayte of Draycot, Wiltshire, and daughter and eventual heiress of Sir Philip Popham, of Barton Stacey, Hampshire.[1]
^ abcdefghiKightly, Charles, “Long, Robert (d. 1447), of South Wraxall, Wilts”, in J. S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe, eds., in History of Parliament: House of Commons 1386–1421 (1993), pp. 551–552
^Richard Symonds, Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army During the Great Civil War; Kept by Richard Symonds: Now First Published from the Original Ms. in the British Museum (Camden Society, 1859), p. 118
