William Wightman, MP

Not the same as William Wightman of Wyken

WIGHTMAN, William (by 1517-80), of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Mdx.

Family and Education

b. bef. 1517, 1st s. of Richard Wightman, capper, of Coventry, Warws. by Elizabeth, da. of Humphrey Purcell of Wolverhampton, Staffs. m.Audrey, da. of [?Thomas] Dering, 5da.1

Offices Held Clerk to Sir Anthony Browne by 1547-8; sec. to Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley by Sept. 1548-9; teller of the change of coin Tower mint 31 Jan. 1551-d.; jt. (with John Perte); receiver ct. augmentations, S. Wales by 1551, sole 1552-4; receiver, Exchequer, Wales 1554-d.; j.p.q. Mdx. 1569-d.3

Biography William Wightman’s youth and early career lay in Coventry, where his father, a capper by trade, was a civic official who rose to be sheriff in 1552-3. The first glimpse of Wightman comes in 1538 when he was appointed with three others to enforce a decree against fouling the city’s ditch. In the following decade he entered the service of Sir Anthony Browne, and it was doubtless to Browne as lord of Midhurst that he owed his seat in the first Edwardian Parliament—and perhaps in 1545, for which Parliament the borough’s return is lost; his marriage into the Dering family, if it had been celebrated or arranged by the autumn of 1547, may have helped as Nicholas Dering had earlier sat for the borough. Browne died in the spring of 1548 (having mentioned Wightman in his will) but within a few months Wightman secured a post in the household of the young King’s uncle, Admiral Seymour. It was Wightman who suggested that the dispute between the admiral and his brother the Protector over the ownership of Catherine Parr’s jewels should be referred to Parliament. On 17 Jan. 1549 Seymour was committed to the Tower for intriguing against his brother, and Wightman too was arrested. Under examination he protested that he had tried to dissuade Seymour, ‘but it prevailed nothing ... for if he had once conceived opinion by his own persuasions, neither lawyer nor other could turn him’. Wightman escaped his master’s fate but had difficulty in countering the statements ‘cursedly invented and maliciously uttered’ by Seymour until in May he threw himself upon the Protector’s mercy and was cleared. He probably missed most of the second session (1548-9) of the Parliament of 1547, although his testimony in the House during the passage of Seymour’s attainder would have been acceptable. He soon found a new patron in Seymour’s brother-in-law (Sir) William Herbert I, with whose house the rest of his career was to be linked.4

In 1550 Herbert served as chief commissioner for the mints and the standard of gold, and almost certainly secured the tellership at the Tower for Wightman. There followed a receivership in South Wales when Herbert became Earl of Pembroke, and on the earl’s appointment as commander of the expedition against France in 1557 he made Wightman treasurer of the army ‘having special trust and confidence in the wisdom and fidelity of you, with your experience of matters of account’. It was chiefly as a nominee of Pembroke and his son the 2nd earl that Wightman sat in Parliament from 1553; Wilton, where in the spring of 1553 his name was inserted on the indenture in a different hand, was Pembroke’s home, Poole yielded to his authority as vice-admiral in Dorset, Carmarthen knew him as constable of its castle, and Ludgershall lay some 15 miles from Wilton. To supplement this pervasive patronage Wightman had connexions of his own, as at Carmarthen where he enjoyed both official standing and the friendship of Thomas Phaer.5

In 1552 Wightman had acquired property in Harrow where he made his home; he leased land in several counties, mostly in Wales, but he continued to live at Harrow until his death and it was there that he was buried on 1 Feb. 1580.6

Wightman died in January 1580, and was buried in St. Mary’s, Harrow, on 1 Feb. By his will, made 20 Dec. 1578, he bequeathed to his wife a close at Coventry and freeholds at Harrow, and to his wife and eldest daughter his leaseholds at Harrow: this daughter, Frances, was newly married to Robert Streynsham, a former secretary of the 1st Earl of Pembroke, and clerk of the peace for Wiltshire in 1580-1. He also made bequests to two sons-in-law, John Pryce and Humphrey Wynces, and to his ‘daughter Vaughan’ and ‘little niece Ann Vaughan’. The list of debts appended to it yields a total of £614, of which £199 was owing to the Queen, to be paid at a rate of £50 a year, and £20 to ‘Mr. Moulton the auditor’; on the other side, Robert Streynsham owed Wightman £800, and Thomas and David Williams over £200. Wightman’s widow survived him 16 years.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603 Author: S. T. Bindoff Notes 1. Mdx. Peds. 34; Coventry Leet Bk. ii. 728, 735-812; Lysons, Environs, ii. 571. 2. CPR, 1550-3, p. 108; APC, iv. 193; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 152; HMC Foljambe, 4-5. 3. Craig, The Mint, 121; Lansd. 4, f. 218; 9, f. 30; 47, f. 176 seq.; CPR, 1558-60, p. 433; 1566-9, p. 188; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 257, 259, 267, 502; Exchequer, ed. E. G. Jones (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. iv), 84, 87, 99, 115, 309; HMC Hatfield, ii. 134-5; PCC 9 Arundel; CJ, i. 24. 4. Reg. St. Mary’s, Harrow, i. 101; PCC 9 Arundel, 59 Lewyn; Mins. Proc. Sess. (Wilts. Arch. Soc. recs. br. iv), pp. xix-xx.

References

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/142438597/william-wightman had errors (not his children)