Sir Edward Gage, of Firle

Sir Edward Gage - married Elizabeth, daughter of John Parker and Joan, daughter of Sir Richard Sackville. Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Queen Mary. As High Sheriff during the Marian persecutions he had the task of burning the Lewes martyrs 1555-1557.

From The History and Antiquities of Hengrave, in Suffolk By John Gage. Page 235.

Sir Edward Gage, of Firle, the eldest son and heir, was at the accession of Queen Mary made Knight of the Bath, and had the royal licence to keep thirty retainers in his service. In the fifth of this reign he was sheriff of the counties of Surrey and Sussex; and, dyingn on the twenty-seventh of December, 1568, was interred in the chapel of West Firle. On an altar tomb of marble, placed within an arched recess in the north wall, are the effigies in brass of this Knight and his wife; and above them are three brass plates, one having the arms of Gage, quarterly with St. Clere; another those of Gage impaling Parker, of Ratton, quarterly, 1st. and 4th. azure, fretty and a fess or, for Parker; 2d. and 3d. quarterly, 1st. and 4th. sable, a chevron between three butterflies argent, Papillon; 2d. and 3d. argent, a bend between six mart lets gules.

will

On the seventeenth of December, 1566, he made his will, directing that his body should be buried in the parish church of Firle, and that twopenny dole should be distributed to such poor people as might resort to his burial—that his executors should cause several sums of money to be given to the poor householders of many adjoining parishes, and that they should provide a decent stone to lay on his good father and mother, with the pictures of them and all their children, with these holy words engraven on brass: “ Credo quod redemptor meus vivit, et in novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum, et in carne mea videbo salvatorem meum." Likewise that they should provide a decent grave stone to lay on him and his wife, all his sons to be kneeling behind him, and all his daughters behind her, with the same holy words to be engraven on brass. He gave to his well-beloved wife, Elizabeth, dwelling in his mansion house at Firle, so long as she remained his widow, and left her the charge of bringing up all her children except his heir apparent; and for the better maintenance of her, and for the bringing up and finding maintenance for his children, he left her various lands, all his jewels, and three chains of gold she had usually worn; bequeathing to each of his daughters Margery, Lucy, and Margaret, five hundred marks on the day of their marriage, and to his daughter Philippa, in consideration of her being the eldest, and for other reasons, five hundred pounds; also ten pounds yearly to each of his daughters for their maintenance till they received their portions; and the like annuity of ten pounds to his sons Anthony, Thomas, George; Edward, Richard, John, the younger, and Robert Gage, the payment whereof he directed to be made out of the rents of his manors and lands in Heighten, Firle, Hosiers, Hollendale, Compton, Excett, Fryston, Lamporte, and Egington, or elsewhere, in the county of Sussex ....

• The roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London: Continued to 1993. Page 294-295.  "Gage."
• http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00232129&tree=LEO
  • Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, London, 1938.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gage_(Tudor_politician)_
  • Gage, John (1822). The History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk. London. pp. 231–5.
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=munns1&id...
  • Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, London, 1938. p1058