Sir Walter Hungerford | |
---|---|
Died | c.1596 |
Spouse(s) | Anne Basset Anne Dormer |
Issue | 2 children by first wife (names unknown) Edmund Hungerford Susan Hungerford Lucy Hungerford Jane Hungerford 3 illegitimate sons 1 illegitimate daughter |
Father | Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury |
Mother | Susan Danvers |
Sir Walter Hungerford of Farley (died c.1596) was an English landowner popularly referred to as 'the Knight of Farley'. In his youth he recovered the lands forfeited by his father's attainder, and was favoured by Queen Mary, whose Maid of Honour, Anne Basset, was his first wife. In 1568 he sued his second wife, Anne (née Dormer), for divorce. He failed to prove the scandalous grounds he alleged against her, but chose to be imprisoned in the Fleet rather than support his wife or pay the costs awarded against him by the court. He was known in his day for his excellence at field sports.
Family
Walter Hungerford was the only son of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, and his first wife, Susan Danvers, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, by the heiress Anne Stradling.[1][2]
By his father’s second marriage to Alice Sandys, the daughter of William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, he had a brother and sister of the half blood:[1][3]
- Sir Edward Hungerford (d.1607), one of Queen Elizabeth’s gentlemen pensioners, who married firstly, after 1574, Jane Hungerford, widow of William Forster of Aldermaston, Berkshire, and daughter of Anthony Hungerford of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, and secondly Cecily Tufton (d.1653), daughter of Sir John Tufton of Hothfield, Kent, but died without issue.[4][5][6] His widow married Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland.[7]
- Mary Hungerford, who married firstly Thomas Baker, esquire, and secondly Thomas Shaa.[1]
Career
Hungerford succeeded his father on 28 July 1540.[3] By an Act of Parliament in 1542 he was restored in blood, but did not immediately regain his father's title and lands.[3] He was granted land by Edward VI in 1552, and in 1554 Queen Mary granted him the confiscated estate of Farleigh Hungerford, in Somerset, when the attainder on his father, Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, was reversed.[citation needed] He was knighted in the same year.[3]
He was Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1557, 1572, 1581 and 1587.
Hungerford excelled at field sports,[3][8] and 'was present at the first recorded horse race in Wiltshire in 1585'.[3]
In 1568 he sued his second wife for divorce, alleging that she had tried to poison him some years earlier, and that she had committed adultery with William Darrell of Littlecote, Wiltshire,[9] and had had a child by him.[3]
Hungerford failed to prove the allegations in court, and subsequently spent three years in the Fleet Prison for his refusal to support his wife or to pay the £250 in costs awarded against him in the divorce suit.[10][3] Two letters from Lady Hungerford, written in 1570, speak of her impoverished circumstances.[11]
Through the offices of the Earl of Leicester, Lady Hungerford obtained licence in 1571 to visit her dying grandmother, Jane Dormer (née Newdigate), who was living in the English Catholic community at Louvain.[3] She never returned to England. On 29 March 1586[12] she wrote from Namur to Sir Francis Walsingham, requesting that he protect her daughters from Hungerford's attempts to disinherit them.[13][3]
In his will, dated 14 November 1595, Hungerford left two farms to his mistress, Margery Bright, and the residue of his estate to his half brother, Sir Edward Hungerford,[3] with remainder to the heirs male of 'any woman' he should 'afterwards marry'.[14] Hungerford died in December 1596,[citation needed] and was succeeded by his half brother, whom Hungerford's widow, Anne, and his mistress, Margery Bright, both sued for dower. Lady Hungerford was granted 'generous' dower,[3] and died at Louvain in 1603.[15]
Two portraits of Hungerford are shown as engravings in Sir Richard Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Heytesbury Hundred; both were owned in Hoare's time by Richard Pollen, esquire, of Rodbourne, Wiltshire. In the earlier portrait, dated 1560, Hungerford is depicted in full armour, 'and about him are all the appliances of hunting and hawking, in which the inscription on the picture states that he excelled'. The later portrait, dated 1574, shows him with a hawk on his wrist.[15][16]
Marriages and issue
Hungerford married firstly Anne Basset, Maid of Honour to Queen Mary, and daughter of Sir John Basset of Umberleigh, Devon. On 11 June 1554 Robert Swyfte reported the wedding in a letter to Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, as having taken place ‘on Thursday last...at which day the Queen shewed herself very pleasant, commanding all mirth and pastime’.[17][3][18] There were two children of the marriage, who both died without issue.[10][3]
He married secondly, by 5 May 1558, Anne Dormer, sister of Jane Dormer, and elder daughter of Sir William Dormer[10] by his first wife, Mary Sidney, daughter of Sir William Sidney,[19][20][3] by whom he had a son and three daughters:[3][1][21]
- Edmund Hungerford, who died in December 1585 without issue.[3]
- Susan Hungerford, who married firstly Michael Ernley of Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, secondly John Moring, and thirdly Sir Carew Reynolds.
- Lucy Hungerford, who married firstly Sir John St. John of Lydiard Tregoze, by whom she had a daughter, Barbara St John, who married Edward Villiers (Master of the Mint); and secondly Sir Anthony Hungerford of Black Bourton.
- Jane Hungerford, who married Sir John Carne of Ewenny, Glamorganshire.
Hungerford also had mistress, Margery Bright, by whom he had two sons and a daughter born during his lifetime, as well as a posthumous son. Hungerford married Margery Bright after making his will, having heard rumours that his wife was dead.[10][3]
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d Burke 1866, p. 282.
- ^ Macnamara 1895, pp. 154, 227, 235, 279–80.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Hungerford, Sir Walter (by 1527-95/97), of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, History of Parliament Retrieved 27 August 2013.
- ^ Hungerford, Sir Edward (by 1532-1607), of Farleigh Castle, Somerset, History of Parliament Retrieved 27 August 2013.
- ^ Hungerford, Sir Anthony (by 1492-1558), of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, History of Parliament Retrieved 27 August 2013.
- ^ Forster, William (d.1574), of Aldermaston, Berkshire, History of Parliament Retrieved 27 August 2013.
- ^ Loomie 2004.
- ^ Hore 1886, pp. 93–4.
- ^ Darrell, William (1539-89), of Littlecote, Wiltshire; later of Warwick Lane, London, History of Parliament Retrieved 28 August 2013.
- ^ a b c d Ashton 2004.
- ^ Hardy 1881, pp. 239–40.
- ^ Hardy erroneously dates the letter to 1589.
- ^ Lemon 2005, p. 316.
- ^ Hardy 1881, p. 242.
- ^ a b Harrison 1891, p. 260.
- ^ Hardy 1881, p. 240.
- ^ Harding 1982, p. 413.
- ^ Harding erroneously dates the wedding to 11 June.
- ^ Rylands 1909, p. 41.
- ^ Ashton erroneously states that Hungerford's second wife was the daughter of Jane Dormer.
- ^ Hardy 1881, p. 239.
References
- Ashton, D.J. (2004). Hungerford, Walter, Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury (1503–1540). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
{{cite book}}
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(help) (subscription required) The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. - Burke, Bernard (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire. London: Harrison. p. 292. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
{{cite book}}
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(help) - Harding, Alan (1982). "Hungerford, Sir Walter (by 1527-95/97), of Farleigh Hungerford, Som.". In Bindoff, S.T. (ed.). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558. Vol. II. London: Secker & Warburg. pp. 413–14. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
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(help) - Hardy, William John (1881). "Sir Walter Hungerford of Farley". The Antiquary. IV. London: Elliot Stock: 238–43. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
{{cite journal}}
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(help) - Harrison, William Jerome (1891). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 259–60.
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. In - Hore, John Philip (1886). The History of Newmarket and the Annals of the Turf. Vol. I. London: A.H. Baily and Co. pp. 93–4. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
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(help) - Lemon, Robert, ed. (2005). Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series of the Reign of Elizabeth 1581-1590 (CD-ROM ed.). Burlington, Ontario: TannerRitchie Publishing. p. 316.
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(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Loomie, A.J. (2004). Manners, Francis, sixth earl of Rutland (1578–1632). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help) (subscription required) The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. - Macnamara, F.N. (1895). London: Hardy & Page. pp. 154, 227, 235, 279–80 http://archive.org/stream/memorialsofdanve00macn#page/280/mode/2up. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
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(help); Text "Memorials of the Danvers Family" ignored (help) - Rylands, W. Harry (1909). The Visitation of the County of Buckingham. Vol. LVIII. London: Harleian Society. pp. 40–2. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
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Further reading
- Dugdale's Baronage;
- Burke's Extinct Peerage;
- Hoare's Hungerfordiana or, Memoirs of the Family of Hungerford, 1823;
- Jackson's Guide to Farleigh-Hungerford, 1853, and Sheriffs of Wiltshire;
- Burnet's Hist. of Reformation, i. 566–7;
- Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age;
- Hoare, Sir Richard (1822). Modern Wiltshire, Heytesbury Hundred. pp. 110, 112 sq.
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(help); - Brewer and Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII;
- Antiquary, ii. 233.