Sir George Blount, MP

b. 1512/13, 1st s. of (Sir) John Blount of Kinlet by Catherine, da. and coh. of Sir Hugh Peshall of Knightley; bro. of Henry and William. m. 30 Mar. 1533, Constance, da. of Sir John Talbot of Albrighton, Salop, 1s. d.v.p. 1da. suc. fa. 27 Feb. 1531, mother 1 Feb. 1541. Kntd. 13 May 1544.1

Will (1581) is available from National Archives. Sir George disinherited his wife Constance (née Talbot) and daughter Sarah, possibly on the grounds of religious differences (Sir George favoured the Catholic cause). Instead, he left his property to his nephew Roland Lacon and some of his close friends. Note that Sarah and Thomas Wyllys's son Thomas was born in 1582, after Sir George died. Otherwise Thomas might have inherited something from his grandfather.

Offices Held

Steward, lordships of Bewdley, Worcs. and Cleobury Mortimer, Salop 1531-d.; gent. pens. 1540; parker, Bewdley by 1547; j.p. Salop 1547-58, q.1564-d., Worcs. 1547-58, q. by 1564, rem. 1575, rest. 1577, Staffs. 1562, q. 1564, rem. 1574, rest. 1577, commr. chantries, Salop, Staffs. 1548, Salop 1553, relief Salop, Worcs. 1550, goods of churches and fraternities Salop 1553, musters Worcs. 1570; sheriff, Staffs. 1552-3, 1572-3, Salop 1563-4.2

Biography The prestige of the Blount family had been enhanced by George Blount’s father, a member of the royal household from Henry VIII’s accession, and by his sister, Elizabeth, who bore the King his son the Duke of Richmond. Sir John Blount’s marriage had brought with it lands in Staffordshire, and both father and son were to be sheriffs of that county as well as Shropshire.3

On his father’s death in 1531 George Blount was immediately appointed to the stewardship of Bewdley and Cleobury Mortimer which his father and grandfather had held, and if he had been a year or two older he might have replaced his father as a Shropshire County member in the Commons. Although we do not know who was by-elected, it cannot have been Blount, for in that case the situation which arose in the spring of 1536 could not have occurred. At that election the King asked for the return of the previous Members; if Blount had been one of them his re-election would have been a foregone conclusion, yet not only was he not elected, but his mother had campaigned (albeit unsuccessfully) for him, which she need not have done for a sitting Member. That there was a seat to be competed for at all in 1536 is to be explained only by the supposition that whoever had replaced John Blount in the previous Parliament had himself died, or been incapacitated, towards its close, for Blount’s fellow-Member in 1529 Sir Thomas Cornwall had survived the Parliament and was almost certainly re-elected in deference to the King’s wish. The younger Blount’s prospect of filling the vacancy may have appeared good: in 1535 his sister married John Talbot of Albrighton, whom Cromwell appears to have had in mind earlier as the replacement, and in the same year the Duke of Richmond paid a visit to Shrewsbury. Blount’s mother was indeed to claim, in her account of the election to Cromwell, that the ‘worshipful’ of the shire were in favour of him and that it was only the sheriff’s decision to hold the election at Shrewsbury, where there was plague, which enabled the townsmen to stage a riot on behalf of his rival Trentham (probably Richard Trentham) who carried the day.4

Whether Blount tried again for the county in 1539 we do not know, but if so he was again passed over, although he could have sat for Wenlock whose Members are unknown. He may have been successful in 1542, when the names of the Shropshire knights are lost, but during the second session in 1543 he obtained a proviso in the Act of Union with Wales (34 and 35 Hen. VIII, c.26) safeguarding his two stewardships; in 1545 and again in 1547 he took the first place. By then he had grown both in age and stature. A gentleman pensioner since 1540, he had been knighted at Leith by the Earl of Hertford in 1544 when captaining a ship in the admiral’s fleet against Scotland. The admiral was John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, whom Blount was to serve in later campaigns, notably in the summer of 1549 when, after being summoned to join Dudley, now Earl of Warwick, on the Scottish border with 200 footmen, he was diverted to the expedition against the Norfolk rebels, of which he was made muster master. At the funeral of Henry VIII he carried the banner of St. Edmund. His religious attitude in later life suggests that he cannot have welcomed the doctrinal changes of the following reign, but his career in local administration involved him in their consequences: to his membership of the benches of Shropshire and Worcestershire he added service on the commissions for chantries and church goods. Like his patron he may have favoured any changes which enriched the laity. That he continued to stand well with Dudley is suggested by his receipt in July 1550 of lands in Shropshire forfeited by Thomas, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, his possible appointment to the council in the marches during Dudley’s presidency, and most clearly by his shrievalty of Staffordshire in the last year of the reign. Whether in this last capacity Blount was excluded from the Parliament of March 1553 is by no means certain. He was still sheriff six months later when Mary called her first Parliament, to which he was returned for Bridgnorth, a borough outside the jurisdiction of his shrievalty but within his sphere of influence: if he had sat in the previous Parliament, it was not for Bridgnorth or any other Shropshire borough, for the names of all their Members are known, but he could have done so for one of the many boroughs where this is not the case. What does seem to be clear is that on both occasions he used his position as sheriff to influence the choice of the knights for Staffordshire and thereby annoyed Henry, Lord Stafford, who had expected to see his son Henry Stafford returned.5

What part, if any, Blount played in the succession crisis of 1553 is not known: as sheriff it would have been his duty to proclaim the new Queen, but he may not have been there to do so. That he retained a personal attachment to the family of his fallen patron is shown by his appointment, with (Sir) Henry Sidney, as a trustee of the Duchess of Northumberland’s will. It may also have been a connexion with former friends in the Dudley entourage who had fled abroad which led him to join in the opposition to a government bill in 1555, but this gesture apart Blount appears to have done nothing either within or outside Parliament suggestive of discontent with the new regime. A Member of all but one of Mary’s Parliaments, he neither ‘stood for the true religion’ in the first of them nor ‘seceded’ from the third. His only recorded summons before the Privy Council was for some irregularity in his stewardship of Wyre forest, near Bewdley.6

Under Elizabeth, Blount’s Catholicism proved no handicap, perhaps because of the Queen’s generosity towards the relatives of her father’s mistresses. His wife, however, became an encumbrance, and during the 1570s he chose to live apart from her. A quarrel with his daughter over her marriage led to his disinheriting her in favour of a nephew, Roland Lacon. Blount died on 20 July 1581, and his daughter’s efforts to reverse the settlement of his property were unsuccessful.7

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558 Author: Alan Harding Notes 1. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s and mother’s i.p.ms., C142/52/15, 16; 63/10. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 54; Vis. Worcs. (Harl. Soc. xxvii), 18, 19, 136. 2. LP Hen. VIII, v, xxi; The Gen. n.s. xxx. 21; CPR, 1547-8, p. 157; 1548-9, p. 137; 1550-3, p. 393; 1553, pp. 338-9, 418. 3. PCC 30 Alenger; CPR, 1553-4, p. 440. 4. LP Hen. VIII, vii. 56, x; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. iii. 255-6. 5. LP Hen. VIII, x, xix, xxi; CPR, 1548-9, p. 31; 1554-5, p. 210; SP15/3/49; E351/221; H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i. 350; Strype, Eccles. Memorials, ii(2), 301; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 15, 42; Cath. Rec. Soc. xxii. 79; EHR, lxxviii. 227. 6. CPR, 1554-5, p. 122; Guildford mus. Loseley 1331/2; APC, v. 101, 104, 279, 306-7, 377. 7. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), viii. 125-7; PCC 28 Darcy; C142/197/65.

From: http://www.discovershropshire.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/the...

Sir George Blount

Kinlet Church has a number of fine monuments; perhaps the best of these is the tomb of Sir George Blount who died in 1581. The Four Parishes Heritage Group has recently been investigating his life. Blount was one of the more colourful local characters. The local tradition (which I first heard from my grandfather) relates how after his death, his ghost came to haunt Kinlet Hall, riding his horse through the hall and over the banqueting table. Eventually his predecessors tired of interruptions to their dinner parties and a priest shrank his spirit and trapped it in a bottle, which was laid to rest in Kinlet Church. As usual, the truth is somewhat more interesting.

George was born in around 1513. His father, John, was a soldier, MP and frequent visitor to the court of King Henry VIII. His aunt, Elizabeth, was a frequent visitor to the bedchamber of Henry and bore him a son, Henry, Duke of Richmond. Thus George moved in high circles from his earliest years. On the death of his father in 1531, he inherited estates in Staffordshire (from his mother) as well as Kinlet, Cleobury and Bewdley. George grew to maturity in interesting times. King Henry was beginning his quarrel with the Pope that would lead to the formation of the Church of England. Within a few years the country would be in a religious forment, with alternatively Protestant and Roman Catholics imprisoned and killed depending on which faction held the upper hand. It was also a time of great opportunity for the politically astute, with much former church property being confiscated and then sold to speculators. Although direct evidence is lacking, George probably embraced the cause of the Protestant reformation. He had business contacts with one John Harford of Coventry, a zealous reformer, and this may have influenced him. Perhaps more importantly, he established himself in the service of John Dudley, a firm Protestant. The Dudley family, with their base at Dudley Castle, were the pre-eminent family in the West Midlands; John was an up and coming star at the Court. He was also a gifted soldier, effectively establishing the foundations of the Royal Navy. Blount, from the most landlocked county in the country, became a ship’s captain in Dudley’s force and was knighted for his services at Leith in Scotland in 1544, following a successful invasion of Scotland. Dudley was equally effective on land and Blount also fought with distinction alongside him, whether on the continent against the French or at home, suppressing rebellions. He also first entered parliament during these years, as MP for Shropshire and also served as a justice of the peace. After the death of Henry VIII, Dudley’s influence reached its height. He was effectively chief minister for the young king Edward VI and, after Edwards premature death, he engineered a coup that made his daughter-in-law, Jane Grey, Queen. However, Dudley fatally over-stretched himself and Edward’s sister, Mary, seized the throne back within a few days. Dudley was executed.

The politically astute George avoided any comeback from the downfall of his one-time patron. He was at this time sheriff of Staffordshire and was probably sufficient remote from the event to be able to play for time and back the winner. His reward was to become the MP for Bridgnorth, whilst he continued as a JP. He also successfully negotiated the dramatically changed religious climate as Mary sought to reintroduce Roman Catholicism. In 1558 the country underwent another abrupt turn as Mary died and Queen Elizabeth reintroduced the Protestant reformation, albeit in a less doctrinaire form than in the reign of Edward VI. Ever adaptable, George continued to serve as an MP and as a JP in Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire. It is tempting to dismiss George as an opportunist, willing to nail his colours to whatever flag was being flown at court. This was not a dishonourable position. Many in the 16th Century took the view that their first duty was to support their monarch in his or her religious views. It may however, also be simply wrong. George lived a long life; as a young man he may have held radical religious views. He would not be the first to become more conservative as he aged. In 1577 he was considered to be a Roman Catholic sympathiser, although his loyalty to Queen Elizabeth was not doubted.

So what of the legend of the turbulent ghost? This may reflect a genuine memory of a man, who whilst loyal to whoever was his sovereign, had a short fuse. He was involved in a number of law suits, getting into trouble with the townsfolk of Bewdley for the way he excluded them from the Wyre Forest and from a William Else, a Kinlet man who claimed that Blount did not pay his wages whilst on campaign in France. He private life was probably considered a scandal; he threw his wife out in the 1570s and disinherited his daughter. His Kinlet estates went to his nephew, Roland Lacon, again a man of distinctly Roman Catholic views. Old age did not appear to mellow George.

The bottle with the alleged spirit of George remained in Kinlet church until around 1900. One intrepid antiquarian eventually opened it; it turned out to contain photographic developer. Sir George would have enjoyed the joke.