William Hawtrey, MP

NOTE: This account is slightly different from the Hawtrey pedigree as given by the Heraldic Visitation of Buckinghamshire. Priority should be give to the modern researcher who has actually researched his life, who was aware of the Visitation.

Family and Education b. c.1520, 1st s. of Thomas Hawtrey of Chequers, and bro. of Michael. m. (1) Mary (d. in childbirth 10 Dec. 1555), ?s.p.; (2) Agnes, da. of William Walpole of Norfolk, wid. of Hugh Losse, ?2s. 1da.; (3) Feb. 1574, Jane (d.1594), da. and coh. of James Bury of Hampton Poyle, Oxon., wid. of Ambrose Dormer (d.1566), s.p. suc. fa. 1544, mother 1551.1

Offices Held

J.p.q. Bucks. from c.1554; sheriff, Beds. and Bucks. 1559-60, Oxon. 1577-8, ?Bucks. 1583-4.

Biography Hawtrey owned considerable land in Buckinghamshire, some inherited, some purchased, and speculated in monastic and chantry property outside his own county, as, for instance, at Ashwell, Hertfordshire and Harrold, Bedfordshire. His third wife brought him the manor of Hampton Poyle, Oxfordshire, and he was presumably living in that county during his term as sheriff, 1577-8.

Classified as ‘indifferent’ in the bishops’ letters of 1564, Hawtrey was appointed to the succession committee on 31 Oct. 1566, but did not sit in Parliament after it became obligatory to take the oath of supremacy. His loyalty, however, cannot have been questioned. He was appointed custodian of Lady Mary Grey, 1565-7, and was listed among those to remain in office when the commission of the peace was purged in 1587. In September 1586 he was instructed to attend Mary Stuart if she should enter Buckinghamshire on the way to Fotheringay. His name does not appear on the list for the Armada loan for Buckinghamshire. He died in the first half of 1597. His legacies—a schedule has survived dated 10 May that year—included £500 to his granddaughter Mary Hawtrey, and a bushel of wheat and 10 groats in money to every poor household in the parish of Ellesborough.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: N. M. Fuidge Notes 1. C142/73/4, 102/5; PCC 72 Dixy, 22 Grymes; G. Lipscomb, Bucks. ii. 186-7, 192; Vis. Bucks. (Harl. Soc. lviii), 173. There is doubt whether children are by 1st or 2nd w. All three had the same mother. 2. E150/39/6; C142/73/4; VCH Bucks. ii. 269, 304, 333-4; iii. 25, 408; CPR, 1554-5, pp. 56, 233; 1563-6, p. 157; Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 31; LP Hen. VIII, xxi(2), p. 214; APC, v. 92, 323; vii. 252-3; C3/83/4; 117/31; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 257; D’Ewes, 126-7; Lansd. 49, ff. 171-2; 53, f. 186; 103, ff. 62-3; PCC 72 Dixy, 38 Cobham; C142/243/75.