George Dacres, MP, of Chesham

Family and Education b. c.1533, o.s. of Robert Dacres, master of requests, by Elizabeth, da. of George Mannock of Stoke by Nayland, Suff., wid. of Sir Thomas Denny of How, Norf. m. Elizabeth, da. of Sir Wymond Carew† of Antony, Cornw., 5s. 2da. suc. fa. 1543.1

Offices Held

J.p. Oxon. by 1564, Herts. by 1569, q. by 1574.2

Biography From his parents Dacres inherited considerable property, including the manor of Cheshunt and other lands in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Kent, Middlesex and Warwickshire. His will mentions also houses in Aldersgate Street, London and an estate on the borders of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. His valuable wardship was granted, as his father had wished, to his mother’s brother-in-law Anthony Denny, and in 1545, the year after the grant of the wardship, the boy’s marriage was arranged.3

Dacres was presumably brought into Parliament for Castle Rising through the influence of the elder branch of the Denny family with the 4th Duke of Norfolk, who owned the patronage there. The only reference to any parliamentary activity by Dacres is his membership of the committee considering the bill for the river Lea, 26 May 1571.4

He made his will ‘in perfect health’ in December 1579, and died at Poleworth, Warwickshire on 30 Sept. following. He left £500 to each of his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret, and divided his non-entailed lands among his three younger sons. The eldest son Henry having died in 1560, the heir was Henry’s brother Thomas, aged 23 when his father died. Dacres bequeathed a horse — ‘the simple gift of a poor friend’—to Lord Burghley, whose house at Theobalds was near Cheshunt. Two Hertfordshire ladies received ‘enough velvet to make a kirtle’. A codicil, dictated from his deathbed, asked his heir to remember Lawrence Norton, the servant who had cared for him in his last illness. The dying man ‘gave with his own hand to Mistress Frances Goodere a book in English called The Way of Life’. The will was proved in November 1581. Dacres was buried at Cheshunt.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: N. M. Fuidge Notes 1. C142/73/59, 89(2); Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 101; Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 101; CPR, 1554-5, pp. 309-10. 2. CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 371. 3. C142/73/59, 89(2); PCC 46 Darcy, 10 Pynning; LP Hen. VIII, xix(1), p. 371; SP1/245, f. 30. 4. CJ, i. 93. 5. PCC 46 Darcy; C142/195/56; Cussans, Herts. Hertford, 221.