John Turner

He is of the Turners of Cropinghall Essex, England

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His very detailed will may be found here:

http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-61_ff_274-7.pdf

Turner had been a servant of John de Vere (1516-1562), 16th Earl of Oxford, and was named as an executor of his will, although he renounced the execution when probate was granted on 29 May 1563 (see TNA PROB 11/46, ff. 174v-6).

As the will indicates, John Turner and his wife Christian (nee Fisher) had one daughter, Margaret, the wife of Thomas Smyth, for whose children (Charles, Thomas, John and Arthur, Margaret and Abigail) Turner provides in his will. After Thomas Smyth’s death Margaret married Stephen Powle (c.1553-1630) in late 1593 (see entry for Powle in The Dictionary of National Biography). It would appear that of John Turner’s four grandsons, only John and Arthur were still living in 1596 when they joined with their grandmother, Christian Turner, and their mother, Margaret, and her second husband, Stephen Powle, in the sale of the manors of Bacons and Flories mentioned in the will below (see Fitch, Marc and Frederick Emmison, eds., Feet of Fines for Essex, Vol VI:1581-1603 (Oxford: Leopard’s Head Press, 1993), p. 132).

As indicated in the will, John Turner held leases of three of Oxford’s manors, Crepping Hall, Castle Camps, and Lamarsh. After his death, by a fine levied on 25 November 1584 and 20 January 1585, his widow, Christian Turner, purchased the manors of Lamarsh and Crepping Hall from Oxford (see TNA CP 25/2/132/1696/27ELIZIHIL, Item 30).