James Wroughton, MP

Family and Education 4th s. of Sir William Wroughton† of Broad Hinton by his and w. Eleanor, da. of Edward Lewknor of Kingston Buci, Suss.; bro. of Thomas.

Offices Held

Biography Wroughton presumably owed his seat at Cirencester to his brother-in-law Sir Henry Poole, who later bought the manor of Cirencester from the Danvers family. He could have attended a Commons committee appointed to deal with Newport bridge on 29 Nov. 1597. Though of an established, if minor, Wiltshire family, little information survives about Wroughton. In 1579 he was serving in Ireland, and with other officers petitioned the Privy Council about his overdue pay. In March 1582 Sir Henry Sidney wrote to Sir Francis Walsingham thanking him for an unspecified favour shown to Wroughton. The latter kept up his connexion with the Sidneys, serving under Sir Philip in the Low Countries. During the preparations against the Armada, the Earl of Pembroke included his name on the list of those whose help could be relied upon in case of an invasion.

The only reference found to his buying property, in July 1597, shows him joining with a certain John Goad to buy the site of the rectory of Sherston, a few miles west of Malmesbury. The last reference found to him shows that he was living in May 1598, when he received a bequest of £20 under his brother Thomas’s will.

Wilts. Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. cv, cvi), 219-20; Vis Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 125-6; D’Ewes, 565; Glover’s Vis. Yorks.ed. Foster, 351; CSP Ire. 1574-85, pp. 203, 354; HMC Var. iv. 134; pat. roll 39 Eliz. pt. 3; PCC 36 Lewyn.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: N. M. Fuidge