as cloth-workers, and Sir William Hewitt was Lord Mayor of London in 1559-60. His only daughter and heir Anne married Sir Edward Osborne, the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds. Sir Thomas Hewitt, who married Elizabeth Wrottesley, was son of Henry Hewitt, also a rich merchant of London. Sir Thomas was Sheriff of co. Notts, in 3 Charles I, and left issue.1 Walter Wrottesley lies buried in the chancel of Codsall church, under a handsome altar tomb, of which a photograph is appended. He is shewn in the armour of the period, with his five children in relief-kneeling in the panels of the altar front-under an arch and above the monument are two shields to represent his two wives, first Wrottesley, impaling Lee of Langley, and secondly Wrottesley, impaling Leighton. Between the two shields, on a mural tablet, is the following inscription :-- 66 HERE LIETH WALTER WROTTESLEY OF WROT:ley BY WHO HE HAD ISSUE 2 SONS AND 2 DAUGHters. ARMS OF WALTER WROTTESLEY. Quarterly Or, three piles Sable, a quarter Ermine, for Wrottesley: and Gules, a fess chequey, Or and Azure, between eight billets Argent, for Leigh, of Langley. SIR HUGH WROTTESLEY, 1630-1633. V Walter Wrottesley was succeeded by his eldest son Hugh, who was in possession of his patrimonial estates for so short a period, that the principal events of his life must be looked for in the lifetime of his father. The Inquisition on on his father's death states that he was fifty-five years of age and upwards in 1630, but he must have been nearer sixty, for his matriculation papers at Oxford state that "Hugh Wrottesley, of St. John's College, son of Walter Wrottesley, of Wrottesley, co. Stafford, matriculated 15th April 1586, aged sixteen." 1 "History of Worksop," 1890. His parents were married in 1568, and he was doubtless born, as shown by the matriculation papers, in 1570, for he could hardly have entered the University before he was sixteen years of age. After the death of Elizabeth Lee, his grandmother. Hugh came into possession of Woodford Grange, in Wombourne parish, and this was his place of abode during the greater part of his life. He married his first wife, Margaret Devereux. about the year 1598, and the first part of his married life seems to have been spent in the house of his father-in-law at Castle Bromwich. The Parish Registers of Aston, near Birmingham, record the baptism in 1602 of "Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Rochley, sojorning at Castell Bromwich," and her burial in 1603. And in the same registers there is this entry under 1606, May 6th, "Walter, the sonne of Mr. Hughe Wrochley, of Wrochley, and his heire apparant was baptized at Castle Bromwich." Margaret Devereux, the first wife of Hugh, died in 1615, leaving two sons, Walter and William, and several daughters. Shortly after her death. Hugh married for a second wife Clara, the widow of William Sneyd, of Keele, co. Stafford, and a daughter of Sir Anthony Colclough, of Tintern Abbey, co. Wexford. He does not appear to have had any children by her, for her will names only Master Wrottesley (Walter, her stepson), who would be then fourteen years of age, and Penelope, Mary, Dorothy and Susannah Wrottesley. Amongst her bequests was one of £10 to the Lady Devereux to buy Dorothy Wrottesley a diamond ring. She died in January 1620-21, and was buried at Tettenhall. Her will was proved in the same year in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Sir Hugh was knighted on the 26th August 1617 at Nantwich in Cheshire, during one of the progresses made by James I in the Midland Counties," and in the following year he served the office of Sheriff of the County. In 1625, in the first year of Charles I. he obtained a general pardon under the Great Seal, dated 10th February, for all treasons and felonies, etc., perpetrated before the previous 27th March. Most men of property who had served any office under the Crown in former days, obtained these pardons, for they contained a clause exonerating them from all demands or claims of the Exchequer. Tettenhall Registers. She was buried on the 18th September 1615. The Colcloughs held also considerable property in the north of Staffordshire. Nantwich, 26th August 1617. The same day the King knighted Sir Hugh Wrottesley and Sir William Owen, of Condover, and in the afternoon proceeded on his way to Gerards Bromley, in Staffordshire, with his own retinue and a train of the principal gentry of Cheshire" (Nicholl's "Progresses of Elizabeth and James I”). In 1627 Sir Hugh was appointed by the Earl of Monmouth, the King's Lieutenant of the County, to be one of his Deputies. It is curious to contrast the number of DeputyLieutenants in the reign of Charles I with those of the present day. The total number of Lieutenants in 1627 was six only, consisting of:Sir Walter Aston, Knight of the Bath and Baronet. Sir Thomas Leigh, Knight and Baronet. Sir Walter Chetwynd, Kt. On the 4th August 1630 a Commission was issued to Robert, Earl of Essex, Walter, Lord Aston, Sir Hugh Wrottesley, Kt., Sir William Bowyer, Kt., and Richard Weston, Esq., "to treat and compound with all those in the Co. of Stafford, who by law are to make fine unto us for not appearing at the time and place by our writs to that purpose appoynted for receiving the Order of Knighthood." The proceedings of this Commission have been printed in volume ii of the Staffordshire Collections. The first Commission being found unwieldy was followed by another, dated 12th February 1630-31, addressed to Sir Hugh Wrottesley, Sir William Bowyer, Thomas Crompton, and Richard Weston, and these four made the compositions and signed the proceedings. After the disputes between Edward I and his Barons, respecting the liability to military service in 1297, it had been finally decided that all those holding as much as £40 in lands or rents were bound to accept Knighthood, or pay a Fine to the King in lieu of it; and this liability had been expressly recognised in Parliament by the Statute de militibus, in the reign of Henry VI. In the seventeenth century the change in the value of money had rendered many of the middle classes liable to compulsory Knighthood under this Statute, and the proceedings of the Committee of 1631 shew that 203 gentlemen and yeomen of the county paid fines varying from £50 to £10 for having failed to appear in pursuance of the King's proclamation, which had been issued at the date of his Coronation. It may be asked, why, if this was the case, all these persons had not taken upon themselves the degree of Knighthood. But the answer to this is, that obligatory Knighthood was no honor, and the fees exacted from those who appeared in answer to the summons were very largely in excess of the Fines inflicted for their non-appearance.2 1 Volume ii, Staffordshire Collections, part ii, page 1. The account contains an admirable preface by the late H. Sydney Grazebrook. The Earl Marshal had a right to a palfrey and saddle, from every one made a Knight at a Coronation, and this was only one of the many fees exacted on these occasions. See Red Book of the Exchequer, by Hubert Hall, p. 759. Hugh's eldest son, Walter, married in 1625, Mary the daughter of Ambrose Grey, of Enville, co. Stafford. Her father was the second son of Lord Grey of Groby, who was the nephew and representative in the male line of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey. On the point of blood and connection, therefore, no fault could be found with the marriage, but it was contracted clandestinely, against the consent of his father, when Walter was under age, and Sir Hugh lost by it a large sum which would have been obtained by the marriage of an eldest son in those days, and which would have enabled him to provide portions for his younger children. In his letters formerly at Wrottesley, Sir Hugh lays great stress on the pecuniary embarrassments of Ambrose, and hints that he had connived at the clandestine marriage in order to save the marriage save the marriage portion of his daughter. Eventually the quarrel was made up, and Sir Hugh took advantage of his relationship to purchase the mortgages on a large portion of the estate of Ambrose. On the 11th May, 9 Charles I (1633) Henry Little, the principal mortgagee, covenants with Sir Hugh that such persons that hold the leases, Statute Merchants, and Escheats of the Manors of Tresle (Trysull), Seisdon, Orton, and Womborne, to his use and appointment, shall hold them for the use and benefit of Sir Hugh, but the purchase was not completed for some years afterwards, for Sir Hugh died on the 28th May following, less than three weeks after the date of the above deed. a The necessity for finding the money for this purchase forced him to renounce his intention of acquiring Baronetcy. His brother-in-law, Sir Walter Devereux, writes to him from London near Essex Gate 1632, that he understands that "somebody had possessed him that Sir Thomas Blother, of the Privy Chamber, offered him to be a Baronet for £300, and that the King would make many for £200 or £300: that the King was reserved: one offered £800 and could not get it, and he thought he had performed the office of brother in getting it for him for £500; if he had not been his brother-in-law and a descendant of a founder of the Garter, he had not got it so low." The Inquisition on Sir Hugh's death was taken at Wolverhampton on the 20th August 9 Charles I (1633), before Zachary Babington and John Birch, Gentlemen deputed for the purpose. The jury stated that long before the death of the Hugh Wrottesley named in the writ, Walter Wrottesley, armiger, the father of Hugh, was seised of the manors of 1 Original Deed formerly at Wrottesley. 2 John Birch was the family lawyer of the Wrottesleys. |