Arthur Stourton

Last updated

Arthur Stourton or Sturton (died 1558) was an English courtier, keeper of royal jewels and robes, and Member of Parliament with Robert Southwell for the Westminster constituency in 1553.

Contents

Family background

Arthur Stourton was a son of William Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton and Elizabeth Dudley, daughter of Edmund Dudley. He married Anne Macwilliam, a sister of Henry Macwilliam. His main estate was at Moignes Court in Dorset. [1] [2]

Royal jewels and robes

Stourton was joint keeper of jewels and robes at Westminster Palace with Andrew Dudley. [3] He had the safekeeping of some of Dudley's jewels, and items issued to Dudley for his wedding. [4]

Cloth of gold vestments and copes

According to the historian John Strype and Henry Machyn's Diary, Stourton received vestments and copes of cloth of gold collected from churches by commissioners, appointed after the Reformation, in the reign of Edward VI (said to be a scheme of the Duke of Northumberland), and he redistributed them back to the parishes in the reign of Mary I of England. [5] [6] [7] Northumberland called Stourton his nephew. [8]

Records survive of some cloth of gold delivered to Stourton from churches in Surrey and other counties, [9] [10] Stourton received vestments from Canterbury in May 1553. The vestments, like some church plate, were thought to be surplus to church requirements by the Edwardian reformers. The cloth of gold or silver and tissue fabrics were regarded like surplus "jewels" by the commission, and so these materials were not sold in the parishes but sent to Stourton at the Royal Wardrobe. [11] [12]

In the autumn of 1553, policy changed under Mary I, and some of collected materials were returned. [13] Stourton was paid by the parishioners of St Mary Woolnoth after searching for their two tabernacles in diverse parishes. [14] In May 1556, by the order of Philip and Mary, the process of confiscation was reversed. [15] Stourton returned vestments to churches including St Mary-at-Hill in London. [16] Henry Machyn had a personal interest in the proceedings as parish clerk of Holy Trinity the Less, [17] [18] and wrote that "Trinity parish had not their cope of cloth of gold again". [19]

Jewels and Mary's wardrobe

He made an inventory of jewels associated with Lady Jane Grey or with Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, [20] and delivered cloth and jewels to Lady Jane Grey at the Tower of London on 10 and 14 July 1553. [21] [22] [23] [24]

Stourton supplied velvet from the wardrobe for Mary's coronation. [25] He sent cloths to Peterborough Cathedral to adorn the tomb of Catherine of Aragon. [26]

Stourton made inventories of jewels in the royal wardrobe. [27] One list, copied from his registers after his decease, includes notes of items issued to the gentlewomen of Mary I of England for her use, including to Susan Clarencieux and Frideswide Strelley. Mary gave a length of black silver tinsel cloth to Lady Jerningham for her daughter Mary's wedding to Thomas Southwell in 1558. [28] A letter from the Loseley manuscripts collection from Henry Jerningham to Thomas Cawarden mentions a possible delivery of wardrobe stuff for revels at "Sturtuntes hand". [29]

Death

Stourton died in February 1558 and was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields. [30] [31] His executors, William Stourton and Edmund Felton, transferred apparel in his custody to George Brediman, his successor in the royal wardrobe. [32]

George Brediman issued copes and vestments from the wardrobe to Kat Ashley, chief gentlewoman of the bedchamber to Elizabeth I in December 1560. By the same warrant, fabrics were requested for "masking garments" to be sent to Thomas Benger, Master of the Revels. [33]

Marriage and children

Stourton's children included: [34]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary I of England</span> Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 to 1558

Mary I, also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain and the Habsburg dominions as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Katherine Grey</span> English noblewoman

Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford was a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke</span> English noble (1538–1601)

Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, KG, KB was an English peer and politician. He was the nephew of Catherine Parr and brother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey through his first wife.

John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley, commonly known as Lord Quondam, was an English nobleman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk</span> English nobleman

Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, was an English courtier and nobleman of the Tudor period. He was the father of Lady Jane Grey, known as "the Nine Days' Queen".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos</span> 16th-century English politician and peer (1492–1557)

John Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos was an English courtier, Member of Parliament and later peer. His last name is also sometimes spelt Brugge or Bruges. He was a prominent figure at the English court during the reigns of Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI and of Queen Mary I.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas White (merchant)</span> English merchant (1492–1567)

Sir Thomas White was an English cloth merchant, Lord Mayor of London in 1553, and a civic benefactor and founder of St John's College, Oxford and Merchant Taylors' School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Jane Grey</span> Claimant to the English throne in 1553

Lady Jane Grey, also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage and as the "Nine Days' Queen", was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from 10 to 19 July 1553.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Stourton, 8th Baron Stourton</span>

Charles Stourton, 8th Baron Stourton was an English peer who was executed for murder.

Events from the 1550s in England. This decade marks the beginning of the Elizabethan era.

Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland was an English courtier. She was the wife of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and mother of Guildford Dudley and Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Having grown up with her future husband, who was her father's ward, she married at about age 16. They had 13 children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Dudley</span> English soldier, courtier, and diplomat, born 1507

Sir Andrew Dudley, KG was an English soldier, courtier, and diplomat. A younger brother of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, he served in Henry VIII's navy and obtained court offices under Edward VI. In 1547–1548 he acted as admiral of the fleet and participated in the War of the Rough Wooing in Scotland, where he commanded the English garrison of Broughty Castle. He was appointed captain of the fortress of Guînes in the Pale of Calais in late 1551. There he got involved in a dispute with the Lord Deputy of Calais, which ended only when both men were replaced in October 1552.

Henry Dudley was an English soldier and an elder brother of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Their father was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who led the English government from 1550 to 1553 under Edward VI and unsuccessfully tried to establish Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death in July 1553. For his participation in this venture Henry Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London and condemned to death, but pardoned.

Mary Finch or Fynche (1508-1557) was an English courtier of Mary I of England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewels of Mary I of England</span> Jewels belonging to Mary I of England

An inventory of the jewels of Mary I of England, known as Princess Mary or the Lady Mary in the years 1542 to 1546, was kept by her lady in waiting Mary Finch. The manuscript is now held by the British Library. It was published by Frederic Madden in 1831. Some pieces are listed twice. Two surviving drawings feature a ribbon with the inscription, "MI LADI PRINSIS". The British Library also has an inventory of the jewels she inherited on coming to the throne in 1553.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Barne (died 1558)</span>

Sir George Barne was an English businessman in the City of London who was active in developing new trading links with Russia, West Africa and North America, far outside what had been traditional English trading patterns. Created a knight in 1553, he served as Sheriff of London and Lord Mayor of London. He was the father of Sir George Barne and grandfather of Sir William Barne. Nicholas Culverwell was probably a nephew.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wedding of Mary I of England and Philip of Spain</span> Marriage of Mary I of England and the future Philip II of Spain

Mary I of England (1516–1558) and Philip of Spain married at Winchester Cathedral on Wednesday 25 July 1554.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coronation of Mary I of England</span>

The coronation of Mary I as Queen of England and Ireland took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Sunday 1 October 1553. This was the first coronation of a queen regnant in England, a female ruler in her own right. The ceremony was therefore transformed. Ritual and costume were interlinked. Contemporary records insist the proceedings were performed "according to the precedents", but mostly these were provisions made previously for queens consort.

Simon Henton or Heinton was a Dominican provincial in England and a biblical commentator. Most of his works are lost.

Frideswide Strelley, was an English courtier. She served as chamberer to Queen Mary I from 1536 onward.

References

  1. ↑ 'STOURTON, Arthur (by 1525-58)', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
  2. ↑ The history of the noble house of Stourton, 1, p. 315
  3. ↑ "STOURTON, Arthur (by 1525-58), of Westminster", The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
  4. ↑ Royall Tyler, Calendar State Papers Spain, 11 (London, 1916), p. 185 fn. 4.
  5. ↑ Eamon Duffy, Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations (Bloomsbury, 2012), pp. 126, 128: Charles Botolph Joseph, Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton, The history of the noble house of Stourton, 1 (London, 1899), p. 314
  6. ↑ John Gough Nichols, Diary of Henry Machyn (London: Camden Society, 1848), pp. 165–166, 363
  7. ↑ John Strype, Ecclesiastical memorials, 3 (London, 1721), p. 444
  8. ↑ Henry Octavius Coxe, Catalogues codicum MSS qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus, 1 (Oxford, 1852), p. 118, printed in Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey with a Memoir of Her Life (London, 1831), p. cxxix
  9. ↑ H. B. Walters, "Inventories of Worcestershire Church Goods", Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 17 (1940), p. 12: J. Robert Daniel-Tyssen, "Inventories of the churches in Surrey", Surrey Archaeological Collections, 4 (1869), pp. 139, 141
  10. ↑ HMC 7th Report: Molyneux (London, 1879), p. 608.
  11. ↑ Rev. Canon Scott Robertson, "Queen Mary's responsibility for parish church goods seized by King Edward's commissioners", Archaeologia Cantiana, 14 (1882), pp. 314–315, 317, 322
  12. ↑ William Douglas Hamilton, A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors by Charles Wriothesley, 2 (London: Camden Society, 1877), pp. 83–84.
  13. ↑ Eamon Duffy, Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations (Bloomsbury, 2012), pp. 127–128.
  14. ↑ Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989): Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of S. Mary Woolnoth (London, 1886), p. xx.
  15. ↑ Rev. Canon Scott Robertson, "Queen Mary's responsibility for parish church goods seized by King Edward's commissioners", Archaeologia Cantiana, 14 (1882), pp. 321–322.
  16. ↑ James Peller Malcolm, Londinium redivivum, 4 (London, 1807), p. 424.
  17. ↑ Adam Smyth, Autobiography in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2010), p. 202.
  18. ↑ Ian Mortimer, "Tudor Chronicler or Sixteenth-Century Diarist? Henry Machyn and the Nature of His Manuscript", The Sixteenth Century Journal, 33:4 (Winter 2002), pp. 981-998.
  19. ↑ Andrew Gordon, Writing Early Modern London: Memory, Text and Community (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 44: John Gough Nichols, Diary of Henry Machyn (London: Camden Society, 1848), p. 166
  20. ↑ Elizabeth Goldring et al., John Nichols's The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 1 (Oxford, 2014), pp. 54–56.
  21. ↑ Henry Octavius Coxe, Catalogues codicum MSS qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus, 1 (Oxford, 1852), p. 117 nos. 3, 4
  22. ↑ Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey with a Memoir of Her Life (London, 1825), pp. cxxix*–cxlii.
  23. ↑ John Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, 3: (London, 1804), p. 670: George Howard, Lady Jane Grey And Her Times (London 1822), p. 257
  24. ↑ Eric Ives, Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery (Blackwell, 2009), p. 188: Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Tudor Princesses Including Lady Jane Gray and Her Sisters (London, 1868), pp. 153–155.
  25. ↑ Henry Octavius Coxe, Catalogues codicum MSS qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus, 1 (Oxford, 1852), p. 117
  26. ↑ Henry Octavius Coxe, Catalogues codicum MSS qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus, 1 (Oxford, 1852), p. 118.
  27. ↑ HMC Calendar of the manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury, 1 (London, 1883), pp. 127–132
  28. ↑ HMC Calendar of the manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury, 1 (London, 1883), p. 130.
  29. ↑ Albert Feuillerat, Documents Relating to the Revels at Court in the Time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary (Louvain, 1914), pp. 245, 304 fn. 27
  30. ↑ The history of the noble house of Stourton, 1, p. 314
  31. ↑ The history of the noble house of Stourton, 2, p. 1071
  32. ↑ Albert Feuillerat, Documents Relating to the Revels at Court in the Time of King Edward VI and Queen Mary, p. 304 fn. 27: Index to the Additional Manuscripts: With Those of the Egerton Collection, p. 59 (British Library Add. 5751).
  33. ↑ Craven Ord, "Copies of Five Curious Writs of Privy Seal", Archaeologia, vol. 16 (London, 1812), pp. 92–93
  34. ↑ John Paul Rylands, The Visitation of the County of Dorset: Taken in the Year 1623 (London, 1885), p. 86.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.