Sir Walter Pye, Kt., of the Mynde

Family and Education bap. 16 Dec. 1610, 1st s. of Walter Pye I* and Joan, da. of William Rudhale of Rudhall, Herefs.1 educ. M. Temple, entered 1626; Exeter Coll., Oxf. 1627.2 m. (1) 13 Apr. 1628, Elizabeth (bur. 20 Apr. 1641), da. and h. of John Sanders of Dinton, Bucks., 2s. 2da. (1 d.v.p.) 1 other ch. d.v.p.; (2) 29 Apr. 1646, Mary (d.1699), da. of Sir Timothy Tyrrell of Oakley, Bucks., s.p.3 kntd. 29 June 1630;4 suc. fa. 1635.5 d. 1 Dec. 1659.6

Offices Held

J.p. Herefs. 1631-46, Brec. and Rad. 1643-6;7 member, Council in the Marches by 1633-?;8 commr. repair of St Paul’s cathedral, Herefs. 1633,9 oyer and terminer, Oxf. circ. 1634-42;10 steward, 2nd duke of Buckingham’s manor of Leominster, Herefs. to 1648;11 kpr. of seal, Brecon circ. 1635-at least 1636;12 dep. lt. Bucks. 1642;13 commr. array, Herefs. 1642-3,14 safety (roy.), Brec., Herefs. and Rad. 1643, pressing soldiers (roy.), Herefs. 1643, accounts (roy.) 1644.15

Gent. of the privy chamber by 1641-at least 1643.16

Lt.-col. of horse (roy.) 1642-3, col. of ft. 1643-6.17

Biography Pye was returned for Brecon following the decision of his father, the chief justice of the Brecon circuit, to opt to sit for Herefordshire. He was married a fortnight later, and left no trace of his activities on the records of the third Caroline Parliament. In 1635 he inherited substantial property from his father, but the burden of the purchases already set in train, the expense of his father’s funeral and the cost of providing for his sister’s portions seem to have been to much for the estate to bear and Pye was forced to sell £4,780 worth of land and timber in the late 1630s. Nevertheless he was still one of the wealthiest landowners in Herefordshire at the outbreak of the Civil War.18

He sat for Herefordshire in the Short Parliament and was in Rome in March 1642, where he engaged in political discussions with Cardinal Barberini.19 He returned from the Continent to raise a regiment for the king. He was said to have expended £20,000 in Charles’ cause and in 1646 he was fined £2,316 by Parliament for royalism.20 His children converted to Catholicism but Pye himself seems to have remained loyal to the Church of England and was described ‘equally a friend to the mitre and the Crown’ and ‘a great lover of ministers and consecrated men’.21 He drew up his will on 23 Oct. 1659, but though he then described himself as ‘in perfect health’ he died a few weeks later and was buried in St. Clement Danes, the last of the senior branch of the family to sit in Parliament. His granddaughter brought the estate to her husband, Henry Gorges, who represented Herefordshire as a maverick Tory from 1698 to 1708.22

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629 Author: John. P. Ferris Notes 1. C.J. R[obinson] ‘Mems. of the Fam. of Pye’, Misc. Her. et Gen. v. 132-3; Vis. Herefs. (Harl. Soc. n.s. xv), 81. 2. M. Temple Admiss.; Al. Ox. 3. C.J. Robinson, Hist. of the Mansions and Manors of Herefs. 88; R[obinson] ‘Mems. of the Fam. of Pye’, 133-8; Lipscomb, Bucks. i. 151-2. 4. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 198. 5. Vis. Herefs. 82. 6. R[obinson] ‘Mems. of the Fam. of Pye’, 133. 7. C231/5, p. 63; Docquets of Letters Patent 1642-6 ed. W.H. Black, 52. 8. T. Rymer, Foedera, viii. pt. 4, p. 8. 9. Add. 11051, f. 184. 10. C181/4, f. 168; 181/5, f. 219. 11. CCAM, 531; CJ, vi. 84, 12. HMC 3rd Rep. 258. 13. CJ, ii. 582b. 14. Northants. RO, FH133; C115/71/6511. 15. Docquets of Letters Patent, 48, 49, 102, 110, 191. 16. LC3/1; Northants. RO, FH3775. 17. E. Warburton, Mems. of Prince Rupert and Cavaliers, ii. 69; J. Webb, Memorials of Civil War between King Charles I and Parl. of Eng. as it affected Herefs. i. 360. 18. G.R. Aylmer, King’s Servants, 210; Robinson, Hist. of Mansions and Manors of Herefs. 85. 19. CCSP, i. 227. 20. D. Lloyd, Memoires of the Lives (1668), p. 673; CCC, 1842. 21. Burke, Commoners, i. 350; Lloyd, 673. 22. PROB 11/305, f. 88; R[obinson] ‘Mems. of the Fam. of Pye’, 133; HMC Lords, n.s. ii. 204.