John Astley, Esq.

ASTLEY, John (c.1507-96), of Allington and Maidstone, Kent.

b. c.1507, 1st s. of Thomas Astley of Hill Morton and Melton Constable, Norf. by his 2nd w. Anne Wood, sis.-in-law of Sir James Boleyn†. educ. ?Jesus, Camb. m. (1) ?1545, Catherine Champernown (d. July 1565), s.p.; (2) 13 Oct. 1565, Margaret Lenton alias Grey, illegit. da. of Lord Thomas Grey, 3s. 3da.

Family

By his first wife, Catharine daughter of sir Philip (SIC: more likely John) Champernowne of Devonshire, he had no issue. His second wife was Margaret daughter of Thomas lord Grey, by whom he had sir John Astley, of whom we shall hereafter make mention; Margaret, wife successively of Anthony Neville of Mattersey co. Nottingham, and of sir Godfrey Rodes; Bridget, wife of sir Norton Knatchbull of Mersham in Kent; and Eleanor, wife of Thomas Knatchbull, esq., brother'of sir Norton.

From Wikipedia: His second wife was Margaret, daughter of Thomas Lord Grey (a son of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset),[14][15] by whom he had a son, afterwards Sir John Astley,[16] two other sons, and three daughters.

notes

At Elizabeth’s accession she [Kat Ashley] was created chief gentlewoman of the privy chamber, and on 23 Dec. 1558 her husband received his patent as master of the jewel house and treasurer of the Queen’s jewels and plate. His nominal fee was £50, with an additional so marks as a gentleman of the privy chamber. But the jewel house office carried many perquisites, including a poundage of 5 per cent on all gifts to the Crown in coin, the appointment of goldsmiths and jewellers, and a suite of apartments in the palace where the Queen was residing, with free victuals on a lavish scale.

For the first few years of Elizabeth’s reign Astley remained one of the intimate circle around the Queen. In September 1561 he entertained the court at Enfield during a hunt, and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton noted that he was attentive to Cecil. During the Queen’s visit to Cambridge in 1564, the university gave him an honorary degree. The award may have been more than a gesture to an influential courtier: Astley, as his letters to Ascham show, was a cultured man and a classical scholar.

published works

• The Art of Riding, set foorth in a breefe treatise, with a due interpretation of certeine places alledged out of Xenophon, and Gryson, very expert and excellent horsemen; wherein also the true vse of the hand by the said Grysons rules and precepts is speciallie touched; and how the author of this present worke hath put the same in practise; also what profit men may reape thereby; without the knowledge whereof, all the residue of the art of riding is but vaine. Lastlie, is added a short discourse of the chaine or cauezzan, the trench, and the martingale: written by a gentleman of great skill and long experience in the said art (London: Henrie Denham, 1584)
• (authorship dubious)The Art of Riding, conteining diverse necessary Instruction, Demonstrations, Helps and Corrections, apperteining to Horsemanship, not heretofore expressed by anie other author; written at large in the Italian Toong, by Master Claudio Corte, a man most excellent in this Art. Here brieflie reduced into certeine English * Discourses to the benefit of Gentlemen desirous of such knowledge (London, 1584)

Epistle to Roger Ascham, prefixed to Ascham's The Affairs of Germany in the Reign of the Emperour Charles..., 1552[5]

• ASTLEY, of Hill-morton, Warwickshire The Baronetage of England: Or The History of the English Baronets, and Such Baronets of Scotland, as are of English Families; with Genealogical Tables, and Engravings of Their Coats of Arms, Volume 2 (Google eBook). William Betham Burrell and Bransby, 1802 - Baronetage. Page 72-73
• London marriage licences, 1521-1869 edited by Joseph Foster from excerpts by Colonel Chester. Published 1887 by Bernard Quaritch in London . Page 42. "Ashley, John (Assheley), of City of London, esq. and Margaret Lenton, alias Grays, of co Essex, gen. Lic. , 13 Oct 1565"
• Collins's Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical, and ..., Volume 3. By Arthur Collins, Sir Egerton Brydges. Page 350. Said by some to have been the daughter and heir of Thomas Grey, 3rd son of Sir Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquis. "I suspect this Margaret to have been of the Greys of Barwell, descended from a younger son of Reginald Grey and Joan Astley."
• Complete Baronetage, 1611-1880 (1900-1906), Cokayne, George Edward, (5 volumes. Exeter [England]: W. Pollard, 1900-1906), FHL book 942 D22cg., vol. 2 p. 118. "Daughter & heir of Lord Thomas Grey, brother of Henry, Duke of Suffolk."
• "John Astley" in Athenae Cantabrigienses: 1586-1609 By George John Gray. Page 182-183