Sir John Baker, MP, Speaker of the House of Commons

Summary

• Born circa 1489 died London 23 Dec 1558; Will 16 Oct. 1555; testament 12 Jan. 1558; 27 Sept. 1558, 5 Dec. 1558 codicils
• Parents Richard Baker and Joan Barrett
• Married 1st say 1514 Catherine Sackville - no children with Catherine
• Married 2nd by 1530 Elizabeth Dingley
• Children all with Elizabeth Dingley: Richard (eldest), Mary, John, Cecily and Elizabeth
• See History of Parliament and Burke

Biography

Sir John Baker was born in Sissinghurst circa 1488, the eldest child of Richard and Joan Baker and grandson of Thomas and Benet Baker of Cranbrook. The Bakers of Cranbrook were wealthy landowners in the Weald of Kent.

Sir John was educated at Cranbrook and was in chambers at the Inner Temple in London by June 1506 at the age of 18. He retained a life-long connection with the Inner Temple and was appointed Governor of the Inn twelve times between 1532 and 1557. His career developed into high office in the time of Henry VIII when he was Under-Sheriff of London in 1520, Recorder of London in 1526, Attorney-General in 1536, elected to the Privy Council in 1540 and Chancellor of the Exchequer (or as known then Chancellor of the Court of First Fruits and Tenths and Keeper of the Privy Seal of that Court) in 1540. Throughout the rest of Henry VIII's reign Sir John is active in the politics of the time and was named as one of the trustees of Edward VI in the 1547 will of Henry VIII.
When Queen Mary came to the throne in 1553, Sir John is Chancellor of the Exchequer and member of the Privy Council and he retains these roles throughout her reign. It is during this time that Sir John aquires the acronym "Bloody Baker" for his role in the persecution of reformers - in particular John Bland, Vicar of Adisham and Edmund Allin, a miller from Frittenden - who were subsequently condemned to death. There is some controversy over the extent of Sir John Baker's role but over the years the Bloody Baker name has stuck.

Circa 1520 Sir John had married Catherine Sackville the daughter of Richard Sackville of Withyham in Sussex. Her brother was married to Margaret, sister of Sir Thomas Bullen, the father of Queen Anne Boleyn. It is probable that this relationship had a bearing on Sir John's future career. Catherine died within a few years and circa 1525 Sir John married the widowed Elizabeth Barrett who was the daughter and heiress of Thomas Dyneley, lord of the manor of Wolverton in Hampshire. Sir John and Elizabeth had six children.

Within a month of the death of Queen Mary, Sir John Baker died on 23rd December 1558. He was buried at St Dunstan's Church at Cranbrook in the family vault and in 1736 a monument to him and the Baker families was erected in the church.

More About

• Notes on the life of Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst
• Hasted's History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent
• A Glimpse at Cranbrook
• Highways and Byways in Kent
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Date--- Type--- Information--- Source

c 1488--- Born--- In the Parish of Cranbrook, Kent--- Sir John Baker

c 1520--- Married--- Catherine Sackville--- Estimated date

12th May 1520--- Appointed--- Under-Sheriff of London--- Sir John Baker

c 1525--- Married--- Elizabeth Barrett--- Estimated date

17th Nov 1526--- Appointed--- Recorder of London--- Sir John Baker

c 1530--- Birth of a son--- Richard--- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

c 1531--- Birth of a son--- John--- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

1532 to 1535--- Birth of a daughter--- Catherine--- Estimated date

1532 to 1535--- Birth of a daughter--- Mary--- Estimated date

1532 to 1557--- Appointed--- Twelve times appointed Governor of the Inner Temple--- Sir John Baker

1535--- Birth of a daughter--- Cicely--- Charles J. Phillips' ; History of the Sackville Family

20th Aug 1535--- Appointed--- Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster--- Sir John Baker

10th Jul 1536--- Appointed--- Attorney-General--- Sir John Baker

c 1540--- Birth of a daughter--- Elizabeth--- Charles J. Phillips' ; History of the Sackville Family

July 1540--- Granted--- Grant in fee of Delmynden in the Parish of Cranbrook, --- Sir John Baker

10th Aug 1540--- Appointed--- Privy Council--- Sir John Baker

11th Nov 1540--- Appointed--- Chancellor of the Exchequer--- Sir John Baker

1543--- History--- Participates in the conspiracy against Archbishop Vranmer--- Sir John Baker

23rd Nov 1545--- Elected--- Speaker of the House of Commons--- Sir John Baker

January 1547--- History--- Trustee of the Crown during the minority of Edward VI--- Sir John Baker

1553 to 1558--- History--- Chancellor of the Exchequer and member of the Privy Council during the reign of Queen Mary--- Sir John Baker

1554--- History--- Sir John's activities earn him the name Bloody Baker--- Sir John Baker

27th Jan 1557--- Will--- Will proven 30th January 1559--- Sir John Baker

23rd Dec 1558--- Died--- London--- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

January 1559--- Buried--- At St Dunstan's Church in the Parish of Cranbrook, Kent--- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

1736--- In memory At St Dunstan's Church in the Parish of Cranbrook, Kent--- Annals of Cranbrook Church

Memorial Inscription

• "Near this Pile, In a vault lie entombed the remains of the Baker's, of Sissinghurst, of this parish. A family considerable for rank and fortune, through a succession of several generations, from the time of their first settlement here in the person of Thomas Baker, Esq., or Richard, his son about the latter end of the reign of King Henry the 7th. The said Richard was father to Sir John Baker, Knight, who was bred to the law, and became eminent as for his abilities in that profession, so for his promotion to divers high posts of trust and honour in the service of the Crown and State, being in several parts of his life Recorder of London, Attorney General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Privy Counsellor to King Henry the VIII, Edward the VI, and Queen Mary. He deceased soon after the Accession of Queen Elizabeth, and is with great probability supposed to have been deposited here, with a numerous race of descendants, and allies of whom take a catalogue in the following order on the other side of this tomb, according to the date of their respective interments."
• From: http://www.theweald.org/N10.asp?NId=3902

Y DNA Analysis by Roland Henry Baker, III, Molecular Genetics, U.C. Berkeley. Y-DNA Haplotype R-L664 subgroup 2.D R1a1-CTS4385>L664>(S3478?)>S2894>YP282-C>YP441>A172 Verified from two separate descendants. DNA supports a Kent, England origin.

____________________

• Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speaker of the House of Commons1,2,3
• M, b. circa 1506, d. 1558
• Father Richard Baker
• Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speaker of the House of Commons was born circa 1506 at of Sissinghurst Castle, Cranbrook, Kent, England.3 He married Elizabeth Dineley, daughter of Thomas Dineley, Esq. and Philippa Harpesfield, circa 1530.2 Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speaker of the House of Commons married Catherine Sackville, daughter of Richard Sackville, Esq., Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex and Isabel Digges, circa 1542.4 Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speaker of the House of Commons died in 1558.
• Family 1 Catherine Sackville b. c 1496
• Child
  • Thomas Baker+
• Family 2 Elizabeth Dineley
• Children
  • Sir Richard Baker b. c 1533, d. 18 Jun 1594
  • Cecily Baker+2 b. c 1535, d. 1 Oct 1615
  • Elizabeth Baker+5,6,7,8 b. c 1537, d. 17 Nov 1583
  • John Baker b. c 1539
  • Mary Baker b. c 1541
• Citations
• 1.[S11297] Unknown author, Stemmata Robertson, p. 223.
• 2.[S11568] The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, by George Edward Cokayne, Vol. IV, p. 423-424.
• 3.[S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 335.
• 4.[S61] Unknown author, Family Group Sheets, SLC Archives.
• 5.[S2301] Unknown author, Stemmata Robertson & Durdin., p. 223.
• 6.[S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 335-336.
• 7.[S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 631.
• 8.[S15] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, p. 352.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p1034.htm#... ____________
• Sir John Baker1
• M, #219758, d. 1555
• Last Edited=11 May 2008
• Sir John Baker married Elizabeth Dineley, daughter of Thomas Dineley.1 He died in 1555.1
• He held the office of Attorney-General.1 He held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.1 He held the office of Recorder of London.2 He held the office of Speaker of the House of Commons.1 He lived at Sissinghurst, Kent, England.1
• Child of Sir John Baker
  • 1.Mary Baker+2
• Children of Sir John Baker and Elizabeth Dineley
  • 1.Sir Richard Baker+1
  • 2.John Baker+1
• Citations
• 1.[S2172] Barry Watson, "re: BAker Family," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 28 February 2007. Hereinafter cited as "re: Baker Family."
• 2.[S15] George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume I, page 70. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Baronetage.
• From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p21976.htm#i219758 ________
• Sir Richard Baker
• Spouses/Children:
• Unknown
  • Sir John Baker+
• http://www.stepneyrobarts.co.uk/131288.htm
• Sir John Baker married Elizabeth Dineley, daughter of Thomas Dineley and Unknown.
  • Cecily Baker+
  • Mary Baker+
  • Sir Richard Baker+
• http://www.stepneyrobarts.co.uk/131287.htm
• Cecily married Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset, son of Sir Richard Sackville and Wynifred Bridges. (Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset was born in 1536 and died on 19 Apr 1608 68.)
• http://www.stepneyrobarts.co.uk/15837.htm ___________________
• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 03
• Baker, John (d.1558) by Charles Francis Keary
• BAKER, Sir JOHN (d. 1558), chancellor of the exchequer, is said to have been of a Kentish family; but, as Lodge says, 'his pedigree at the College of Arms begins with his own name' (Illust. of English History, 2nd edition, i. 60). He was bred for the law. In 1526 he was joined with Henry Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, in an embassy sent to Denmark. Not long afterwards he was elected speaker of the House of Commons, and subsequently appointed attorney-general and a member of the privy council. In 1545 he was made chancellor of the exchequer. Lodge states that Baker was distinguished by being the only privy councillor who refused to put his name to the 'Device for the Succession,' which Edward VI drew up when on his death-bed, and which was designed to exclude the princesses Mary and Elizabeth from the succession. This statement is refuted by the fact that Baker's name appears at the foot both of this document and of the 'Letters patent for the limitation of the Crown' which were subsequently issued (see the publication of both by Mr. J. G. Nichols in his Queen Jane and Queen Mary, Camden Soc.). Baker continued in his office until his death in December 1558. Almost his last employment in the service of the state was upon a commission appointed in March 1558 to see to the defences of the country. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Thomas Dinely, and widow of George Barret, Esq.; he had an estate at Sisinghurst, Kent; and was grandfather of the chronicler, Sir Richard Baker [q. v.]
• [Lodge's Illustrations of English History, 2nd ed. i. 60; cf. Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 93 ; State Papers, Domestic, Mary, vols. x. xii., Eliz. vol. i.]
• From: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Baker,_John_(d.1558)_(DNB00) ____________
• Sir John Baker (1488–1558) was an English politician, and served as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, having previously been Speaker of the House of Commons of England.
• He was born the son of Richard Baker of Cranbrook, Kent and was educated for the legal profession in the Inner Temple.
• In 1520 he was under-sheriff of London and in 1526 appointed Recorder of London, which he gave up to be attorney-general of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was appointed attorney general in 1536 and by 1540 sworn of the privy council of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I. He had a reputation as a brutal persecutor of protestants, earning the nickname 'Bloody Baker'. A legend arose that he was riding to persecute protestants when he heard the news that Queen Mary had died. The place where he was said to have turned back became known as Baker's Cross in Kent. He was knighted in June 1540 but gained no further preferment until 1545, when, having recommended himself to the king by his activity in forwarding a loan in London and other imposts, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• He entered Parliament in 1529 and 1536 as MP for London, followed by terms as MP for Guildford in 1542 and Lancaster in 1545. He was then elected to Parliament in 1547 as knight of the shire for Huntingdonshire. He attained considerable eminence as Speaker of the House in both the 1545 and 1547 sessions. He afterwards represented Bramber (1553) and the county of Kent (1554, 1555 and 1558).
• Sir John married firstly Katherine, daughter of Richard Sackville of Withyham, East Sussex and secondly Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Thomas Dineley of Stanford Dingley, Berkshire and Middle Aston, Oxfordshire, and widow of George Barrett of Belhouse, Aveley, Essex, by whom he had issue (two sons and three daughters).[1] He kept a country estate at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent and was the grandfather of Sir Richard Baker, the sixteenth-century historian. His daughter Cicely married Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset; among their many descendants was the writer Vita Sackville-West, who restored Sissinghurst and created the Sissinghurst Castle Garden.
• He died in London from a short illness in December 1558 less than a month after the death of Queen Mary.
• From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baker_(English_statesman)
• (THIS LINK IS BROKEN BUT WILL TAKE YOU TO A PAGE WITH THE CORRECT LINK OR YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE IT IN YOUR BROWSER WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO THE PAGE) ___________________
• BAKER, John I (c.1489-1558), of London and Sissinghurst, Kent.
• Family and Education
• b. c.1489, 1st s. of Richard Baker of Cranbrook. educ. I. Temple. m. (1) ?Catherine, da. of Richard Sackville of Withyham, Suss. s.p.; (2) by 1530, Elizabeth, da. and h. of Thomas Digneley of Stanford Dingley, Berks. and Middle Aston, Oxon., wid. of George Barrett of Belhus in Aveley, Essex, 2s. John II and Richard 3da. suc. fa. 1504. Kntd. by 18 June 1540.3
• Offices Held
  • Bencher, I. Temple 1517, Lent reader ?1522, 1530, gov. 1532-3, 1538-9, 1540-1, 1542-3, 1545-8, 1551-2, 1555-7.
  • Commr. subsidy, Kent 1514, benevolence, Kent and London 1544/45, relief, Kent 1550, goods of churches and fraternities, Kent and London 1553; other commissions 1535-d.; j.p. Kent 1515-d., Mdx. 1537-d., Herts. 1537-40, Essex, Surr., Suss. 1538-40; under sheriff, London 1520-6, recorder 1526-35; attorney-gen. duchy of Lancaster 1535-6; attorney-gen. 1536-40; PC by 1540; chancellor, first fruits and tenths 1540-54; chancellor of Exchequer 1540-d., under treasurer 1543-d.; custos rot. Kent c.1547.4
  • Speaker of House of Commons 1545, 1547.
• Biography
• Richard Baker, making his will on 7 Aug. 1504, left his son John £10 a year until he was 24, ‘to find him to school’. On 29 June 1506 a newly built chamber in the Inner Temple was assigned to ‘Knightley and Baker’, who had largely paid for its construction; it was to belong for ever to them and their heirs who were members of the society. Three years after becoming a bencher, John Baker began a long career of service to the city of London. When in 1526 William Shelley resigned the recordership, Wolsey strongly recommended John Scott of the Inner Temple to the City in his place, but the court of aldermen insisted on their right of free election and ‘by the way of scrutiny’ chose Baker to be the new recorder.5
• In the Parliament of 1529 he was an active Member. An Act (21 Hen. VIII, c.13) of the first session prohibited the spirituality from holding leases; on behalf of the prioress of Dartford, Baker contended that it should not be retrospective. In February 1533 he reported to the court of aldermen that William Bowyer and Paul Withypoll ‘desired him to draw a bill to be exhibited to the Parliament House to corroborate and confirm the court of requests used in this city’, to which the court agreed. In April 1534 he was assigned to take the oaths of five of the City companies to the Act of Succession (25 Hen. VIII, c.22)6.
• Baker resigned the recordership of London on his appointment as attorney-general to the duchy of Lancaster. It appears that he was replaced as one of London’s Members by the new recorder Sir Roger Cholmley, but he may well have been found another seat for the last session: his experience of conditions at Calais-on August 1535 he had served with Sir William Fitzwilliam I and others on a commission to redress disorders in the pale-would have been useful to a government which during that session produced legislation for Calais. It is also practically certain that he sat in the Parliament of 1536: his name is found, with those of three other lawyers, on the dorse of the Act for abjurors in certain cases not to have benefit of clergy (28 Hen. VIII, c.1). He was appointed attorney-general on the day on which Parliament was dissolved, and official disbursements for 1536 included £26 13s.4d. to ‘John Baker, the King’s attorney, for his pains in the time of the Parliament’.7
• As attorney-general Baker appeared for the crown in the trials of the Lincolnshire and northern rebels in 1537 and of the bishop of London and Lord Montagu in the following year. In 1539 he was summoned by writ of assistance to the House of Lords; he and the solicitor-general received £30 each, with £6 13s.4d. to be divided between their clerks, ‘in reward for their pains in penning and writing of sundry Acts’ in the first session of the parliament. Within 12 months, however, what had been hitherto a steady upward progression was to turn into a spectacular one: out of the administrative upheaval which followed the fall of Cromwell Baker was to emerge as one of the half-dozen leading servants of the crown. One of his new offices, that of chancellor of the Exchequer, had been Cromwell’s, but the other, the chancellorship of first fruits and tenths, was only created with the court of that name by an Act (32 Hen. VIII, c.45) which was rushed through both Houses in a single week in July 1540 and which Baker himself may have helped to draft. The knighthood which had already come to him was a favourable omen, and it was to be followed before the autumn by admission to the Privy Council. Three years later he added to the chancellorship of the Exchequer the office of under treasurer, being the first holder of the two offices.8
• Baker’s surrender of the attorney-generalship brought to an end his sojourn in the Lords and allowed him to resume his career in the Commons. He was returned to the Parliament of 1542 for Guildford, doubtless with royal approval but also perhaps as the nominee of the local magnate, his former colleague in France, Sir William Fitzwilliam, now Earl of Southampton and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which Baker himself had once served. (A further link between Baker and Guildford was his relationship by marriage with Christopher More of Loseley.) In February 1544 he was one of a Commons’ deputation to ask the Lords to appoint members to a joint committee concerning the King’s style. In the following Parliament he sat for Lancaster: his own connexions with the duchy would probably have sufficed to procure his election, but as he was to be Speaker it is probable that the central government asked Sir John Gage, the chancellor of the duchy, to provide a seat for him. Nothing is known of his performance as Speaker of this Parliament save that his address to Henry VIII at the prorogation of 24 Dec. 1545 is said to have moved the King to reply in person rather than through Chancellor Wriothesley.9
• Baker retained his Councillorship, and his offices, at the accession of Edward VI, a circumstance which makes even more remarkable the manner of his entry to the next Parliament. It was not simply to find him a seat, as had been done in 1545, but to see him returned as a knight of the shire, as befitted a Speaker-elect, that the new government intervened in the elections in his home county of Kent. On 28 Aug. 1547 the Council wrote to the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Sir Thomas Cheyne, ordering him ‘to recommend Sir John Baker so to those that have the naming of knights of the shire as at the next Parliament he may be made knight of the shire of Kent accordingly’: a similar letter went off to the sheriff ‘to make his friends for the election of Sir John Baker’. That there was opposition to Baker’s election, or to the way in which the Council’s recommendation was presented, appears from its further letter of 28 Sept. to the sheriff, ‘understanding that he did abuse towards those of the shire their request into a commandment’ and informing him that ‘as they meant not nor mean to deprive the shire by any their commandment of their liberty of election whom they should think meet, so nevertheless if they would in satisfaction of their lordships’ request grant their voices to Mr. Baker they would take it thankfully’. The lord warden was likewise rebuked for misinterpreting their request, as the Council was informed, ‘to menace them of the shire of Kent; so they advised him to use things in such sort as the shire might have the free election’. Baker was not elected for Kent; instead he was returned, presumably by a more successful intervention, for Huntingdonshire, a county with which he had no known connexion. On 4 Nov. 1547 he was elected Speaker. During the third session of this Parliament he signed the Acts for a general pardon and for the fine and ransom of the Duke of Somerset (3 and 4 Edw. VI, cc.24, 31) and headed a successful delegation of the House to ask the King’s permission, ‘by his Council’, for the amending of the Act for a relief (2 and 3 Edw. VI, c.36) passed in the previous session. He was also required on 3 Dec. 1549 to give notice to the 9th Lord la Warr to produce his nephew William West before the House, and on 31 Mar. 1552 to report to the Duke of Northumberland the resolution of the House in the case of Sir Robert Brandling.10
• Although Baker is not known to have sat in the Parliament of March 1553, it is highly probable that he did so. Shortly after the Parliament ended Baker had to face the supreme crisis of his career. Although, or because, he had long served Henry VIII (who in his will named him an assistant Councillor to his son) and Edward VI, Baker was reluctant to obey the King’s instructions for the alteration of the succession. On 11 June 1553, when it had become obvious that Edward had not much longer to live, Sir Edward Montagu, Baker, and three other lawyers were called to the court and ordered by the King himself to draw up the legal instrument necessary to devise the crown away from his half-sisters. They debated among themselves and reported to the Council that the very consideration of such an action was treasonable. Commanded on his allegiance to obey, Montagu offered to respect a commission given under the great seal if a general pardon were granted him immediately afterwards, while Baker, who had remained silent throughout the audience, evidently also gave his assent. Both signed the letters patent of 21 June, under which Northumberland’s daughter-in-law, Jane Grey, claimed the crown on the King’s death two weeks later, and promised ‘never to vary or swerve, during our lives’ from the defence of the succession thus established.11
• Baker kept that promise, on paper if not in action, up to 19 July, when he and other Councillors wrote to the lord lieutenant of Essex exhorting him to remain loyal to Queen Jane, but later that day he was present in Cheapside when Mary was proclaimed Queen and on 20 July he signed the Council’s order to Northumberland to lay down his arms. On Mary’s triumphant entry into London on 3 Aug. Baker circumspectly kept within his own house. Two days later he was sworn of the Privy Council; in the same month he was appointed to hear the appeal of the bishop of Durham against his deprivation; and on 10 Oct. 1553 he sued out a general pardon.12
• Throughout the reign of Mary, Baker remained chancellor of the Exchequer and under treasurer, but he lost his chancellorship of first fruits and tenths with the abolition of that court in 1554. On the surrender of his patent and in consideration of his service to Catherine of Aragon (about which nothing further has been discovered), Henry VIII and Edward VI, he was given an annuity of £233. He had been elected to the Parliament of October 1553 for Bramber, no doubt through the patronage of the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who in the following year named Baker one of his executors, but in the remaining Parliaments of the reign he sat as knight of the shire for Kent. In the two Parliaments of 1554 both his sons sat and in the two remaining Parliaments of the reign the elder one did so, an achievement rarely equalled during the period: it is even possible that the Thomas Baker returned for Bramber in 1555 was of the family. On 29 Nov. 1553 the bill for the uniting, dissolving or new creation of courts was committed to Baker after its second reading: it was in the reorganization of the revenue courts following on this Act (1 Mary st.2, c.10) that he lost the chancellorship of first fruits. Before the Parliament of April 1554 he was one of those appointed ‘to consider what laws shall be established in this Parliament, and to name men that shall make the books thereof’. It was probably he and not one of his sons who was the ‘Mr. Baker’ to whom the bill for the punishment of seditious rumour was committed after its second reading on 19 Nov. 1554, and again he rather than his son Richard to whom the bill for confirmation of patents was committed ‘to be reformed’ on 5 Mar. 1558. During the Parliament of 1555 he carried bills to the Lords and in February 1558 he had a privilege case committed to him.13
• Baker was a justice of oyer and terminer in Kent for the trials following the suppression of Wyatt’s rebellion. More important, since by it his post-humous reputation was established, he shared responsibility for the campaign to extirpate heresy in the county. Although he had evidently conformed under Edward VI, he had earlier shown his Catholic sympathies by his role in the prebendaries’ plot of 1543 against Archbishop Cranmer, and he remained a friend of another participant in that affair, Stephen Gardiner, giving evidence for the defence at his trial in 1551. As a justice of the peace and, from April 1556, a commissioner to inquire into heresy in Canterbury diocese, his name was connected in the popular mind with the burnings in Kent, which outnumbered those of any other county except Middlesex. Had he survived Elizabeth’s accession by more than a few weeks, Baker’s record would perhaps have told against his retention on the benches of those two counties: as it was, he died before the issue of the new commissions.14
• Whether Baker hoped to keep, or could have kept, his knighthood of the shire in the new Queen’s first Parliament is likewise a matter for speculation. Even so, in the length and variety of his service he must be accounted the outstanding Member of the time. There were men with longer parliamentary spans—Sir Francis Knollys could boast one of 60 years—but none with such an unbroken one: with the single possible exception of March 1553, Baker sat in every Parliament held between 1529 and 1558, 11 times as an elected Member in the Commons and once as an assistant in the Lords. The climax of Baker’s Membership was his Speakership of the Parliaments of 1545 and 1547. Although not the only Speaker of the century to serve twice—John Pollard did so under Mary, and Sir John Puckering under Elizabeth—Baker occupied the chair for longer than either of them: he also outstripped his two precursors of the Parliament of 1529, Sir Thomas Audley and Humphrey Wingfield. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to say what effect, if any, Baker’s long tenure had on the Commons. His two Speakerships certainly coincided with important developments there, the rapid growth of Membership (from 349 when he first became Speaker to 379 when he laid down the office), the removal to St. Stephen’s Chapel, the rise of committees and the regularizing of divisions: wherever such changes originated, it must have fallen to Baker to guide the House in its adaptation to them, and here his continuity may have been his greatest asset. Among others were the ability and industry which had got him thus far, the freedom from political ambition and religious zeal (at least of the self-damaging kind) needed to keep him there, and the capacity to work and mix with disparate elements present in the House.
• Baker made his will on 16 Oct. 1555, on the eve of the fourth Marian Parliament. He provided for his younger son John and bequeathed the greater part of the estate to his elder son Richard; he had freed his Kent lands from the restrictions of gavelkind tenure by Act of Parliament (31 Hen. VIII, c.3) in 1539, and had increased the tiny inheritance left him by his father to the large patrimony handed on to his sons. Much of the new property he had acquired from the crown. On 12 Jan. 1558 he drew up his testament, asking to be buried beside his wife Elizabeth in the church at Cranbrook and directing masses to be said for him in the 12 parishes in Kent and three in Sussex in which he held land. He bequeathed to his elder son the plate and household stuff at Sissinghurst, together with the house which he had built in Cranbrook, and left to his second son the plate in his house in the city of London. He also made bequests to his three daughters, all married, one of them to Thomas Sackville; to his grandsons, John Baker and Richard Baker; to his stepson Edward Barrett and his friends Sir Martin Bowes and Sir William Petre. On 27 Sept. 1558 he added a codicil, leaving to his elder son the manor of Staplehurst which he had bought from Sir Thomas Cawarden since making his will. The witnesses to these documents included on each occasion two physicians, John Clement, who had been brought up by Sir Thomas More, and John Caius, the co-founder of Gonville and Caius College. On 5 Dec. 1558 Baker added a further codicil, in which he made a bequest to his sister-in-law, one-time prioress of Clerkenwell. He died in London on 23 Dec. 1558 and in the following month was buried at Cranbrook.15
• Ref Volumes: 1509-1558
• Author: Helen Miller
• Notes
• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. House of Lords RO, Original Acts, 28 Hen. VIII, no. 1.
• 3. Aged 62 ‘or thereabouts’ in 1551, Foxe, Acts and Mons. vi. 184. PCC 20 Holgrave, 26 Bodfelde; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 145; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. xlii), 63-64; C1/391/47; LP Hen. VIII, xv; DNB.
• 4. City of London RO, Guildhall, jnl. 12, f. 49; rep. 7, f. 148; 9, f. 112v; Somerville, Duchy, i. 408; LP Hen. VIII, viii, xi, xv, xvi, xviii, xx, xxi; PPC, vii. 3; APC, ii. 24, 163, 265, 379; iii. 39; CPR, 1547-8, p. 85; 1549-51, p. 140; 1550-3, pp. 355, 396; 1553, p. 355; 1553-4, p. 5; 1558-60, p. 56; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 118.
• 5. PCC 20 Holgrave; Cal. I.T. Recs. i. 6, 39; City of London RO, jnl. 12, f. 49; rep. 7, ff. 145-5v, 148.
• 6. LP Hen. VIII, vii, viii; City of London RO, rep. 8, f. 274; 9, ff. 56v, 57v; jnl. 13, f. 406v.
• 7. Chron. Calais (Cam. Soc. xxxv), 130-3; LP Hen. VIII, ix. xi; House of Lords RO, Original Acts, 28 Hen. VIII, no. 1.
• 8. LP Hen. VIII, xi-xvi; C218/1; Elton, Tudor Rev. in Govt. 23n, 201-2.
• 9. LJ, i. 243; S. E. Lehmberg, Later Parlts. of Hen. VIII, 229; E405/115, m. 16.
• 10. APC, ii. 24, 516, 518-19; Wriothesley’s Chron. i. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xi), 187; House of Lords RO, Original Acts, 3 and 4 Edw. VI, nos. 24, 31; CJ, i. 11, 12, 21.
• 11. LP Hen. VIII, xxi; Fuller, Church Hist. iv. 137-45; Chron. Q. Jane and Q. Mary (Cam. Soc. xlviii), 90, 99-100; W. K. Jordan, Edw. VI, ii. 516.
• 12. Chron. Q. Jane and Q. Mary, 15, 109; Wriothesley’s Chron. ii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xx), 11, 89; APC, iv. 419; CPR, 1553-4, pp. 76, 435.
• 13. Eliz. Govt. and Soc. ed. Bindoff, Hurstfield and Williams, 221-2; CPR, 1553-4, p. 5; PCC 14 More; CJ, i. 31, 37, 41, 49, 50; APC, iv. 398.
• 14. CPR, 1554-5, p. 92; 1555-7, p. 24; LP Hen. VIII, xviii; Foxe, Acts and Mons. vi. 184-5; Arch. Cant. xxxviii. 5; W. Tarbutt, Annals Cranbrook Church, i. 11-13.
• 15. PCC 24 Welles; CPR, 1553-4, p. 15; Hasted, Kent, vii. 101; C142/123/99; Machyn’s Diary (Cam. Soc. xlii), 185; Tarbutt, ii. 27
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/ba... _________________________________

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Sir John Baker (1488–1558) was an English politician, and served as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, having previously been Speaker of the House of Commons of England.

He was born the son of Richard Baker of Cranbrook, Kent and was educated for the legal profession in the Inner Temple.

In 1520 he was under-sheriff of London and in 1526 appointed Recorder of London, which he gave up to be attorney-general of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was appointed attorney general in 1536 and by 1540 sworn of the privy council of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I. He had a reputation as a brutal persecutor of protestants, earning the nickname 'Bloody Baker'. A legend arose that he was riding to persecute protestants when he heard the news that Queen Mary had died. The place where he was said to have turned back became known as Baker's Cross in Kent. Along with his gruesome title, he was believed by some townsfolk to be a vampire. He was knighted in June 1540 but gained no further preferment until 1545, when, having recommended himself to the king by his activity in forwarding a loan in London and other imposts, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He entered Parliament in 1529 and 1536 as MP for London, followed by terms as MP for Guildford in 1542 and Lancaster in 1545. He was then elected to Parliament in 1547 as knight of the shire for Huntingdonshire. He attained considerable eminence as Speaker of the House in both the 1545 and 1547 sessions. He afterwards represented Bramber (1553) and the county of Kent (1554, 1555 and 1558).

Sir John married firstly Katherine, daughter of Richard Sackville of Withyham, East Sussex and secondly Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Thomas Dineley of Stanford Dingley, Berkshire and Middle Aston, Oxfordshire, and widow of George Barrett of Belhouse, Aveley, Essex, by whom he had issue (two sons and three daughters). He kept a country estate at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent and was the grandfather of Sir Richard Baker, the sixteenth-century historian. His daughter Cicely married Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset; among their many descendants was the writer Vita Sackville-West, who restored Sissinghurst and created the Sissinghurst Castle Garden.

He died in London from a short illness in December 1558 less than a month after the death of Queen Mary.

Baker entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without graduating, but was granted the degree of Master of Arts by decree in 1594, studied law in London, and afterwards travelled in mainland Europe. In 1593 he was chosen Member of Parliament for Arundel, and in 1597 was elected to Parliament as the representative of East Grinstead as a nominee of Lord Buckhurst, his uncle.

In 1603 Baker was knighted by King James I at Theobalds Palace. At the time he was living in Highgate. He held the office of Justice of the Peace for Middlesex. In 1620 he was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, where he inherited the manor of Middle Aston.

By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife's family he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfordshire property in 1625. Penniless, he took refuge in the Fleet prison in 1635, and was still in confinement when he died 18 February 1645. He was buried in St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London.

References "A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland" John Burke, Sir Bernard Burke 1844 p32 BAKER, John (c1489-1558) of London and Sissinghurst, Kent

Further reading Baker, F.V. (1926). "Notes on the life of Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst". Archæologia cantiana. Kent Archaeological Society. 38: 5–26. Martin, W. Stanley (1896). "A Glimpse at Cranbrook —; The Town of the Weald." Post Office, Cranbrook: E. J. Holmes. pp. 79–80.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baker_(died_1558) ____________________________________________________________

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• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 18 2017, 21:03:19 UTC