John Husee

Last updated

John Husee
HusseyArms.png
Arms of Husee (or Hussey): Barry of six ermine and gules [1]
DiedNovember 1548
Calais
FatherJohn Husee
MotherElizabeth Holt

John Husee (died November 1548) (aliasHussey) was a London merchant, and the business agent in England of Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (d.1542), during Lisle's absence abroad whilst serving as Governor of Calais during the years 1533 to 1540. Lord Lisle's correspondence was seized by the state when he was arrested in May 1540 for treason and heresy, and as a result, 515 letters written by Husee between 1533 and 1540 to Lord and Lady Lisle survive, mainly now preserved amongst the State Papers held at the National Archives. [2] They were transcribed into modern English and in 1981 published, together with all the other Lisle Papers, by Muriel St Clare Byrne in her six-volume work "The Lisle Letters".

Contents

Origins

Husee was the son of John Husee, a Southampton merchant, by his wife Elizabeth Holt, a daughter and co-heiress of John Holt of Hampshire. He had a brother who lived in London, but otherwise little is known of his family. [3]

Husee the elder traded principally in wine, and in 1500 he and several of his fellow merchants in Southampton were accused of corruption in the handling of the customs. The damage to his career was not lasting. He served as Sheriff of Southampton for a term in 1511–12. Shortly thereafter he moved to London, where in January 1516 he was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Vintners, and by November 1517 was one of the junior wardens of the company. In 1525 he was elected as one of the Chamberlains of the City of London. In 1528 he became Master of the Vintners. He was living in 1539, but nothing further is known of him. [3]

Husee hearse-cloth

The Husee hearse-cloth, 1539, Company of Vintners, London HuseeHearseCloth VintnersCompany.jpg
The Husee hearse-cloth, 1539, Company of Vintners, London

A magnificent embroidered hearse-cloth (or coffin cover) given by John Husee senior to the Vintners Company on 14 February 1539 [4] is still held by the company. It was used to cover the coffins of deceased prominent members, and was used for that purpose until 1931. It is made from gold and purple cloth and is decorated with biblical scenes, with vines and the arms of Husee (Barry of six ermine and gules) and the Vintner's Company (Sable, a chevron between three wine-tuns argent) in alternate corners. [5] St Martin, the Patron Saint of Vintners, is shown at each end, dividing his cloak with the beggar and as Bishop of Tours giving alms to a cripple. On the long sides are shown various images of Death personified as a skeleton holding a coffin. [6] His armorials are shown on the hearse-cloth as Barry of six ermine and gules, which are the arms of the ancient family of Husee established at Harting in Sussex in the 12th century. [7]

Career

Husee began his career as his father's apprentice in 1520, and was admitted as a freeman of the Vintners in June 1527. In February of that year he obtained royal letters of protection, and joined the retinue of the Governor of Calais, Sir Robert Wingfield. [3]

Map showing in 1477 the Pale of Calais (in yellow), where Husee spent much of his career VlaanderenArtesie1477.png
Map showing in 1477 the Pale of Calais (in yellow), where Husee spent much of his career

In August 1533 Husee entered the service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy of Calais, Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, an illegitimate son of Edward IV, and in his youth a close companion of Henry VIII. [3] [8] As Grummitt puts it, Husee 'quickly became Lisle's indispensable right-hand man', and 'the consummate Tudor servant'. He carried letters from Calais to England, and kept Lord Lisle informed of political events at court. Much of his time, particularly in the 1530s, was spent in England following Lord Lisle's suits at law. Husee was particularly adept at relations with those in the upper echelons of power, and even at times offered Lord Lisle advice on dealing with King Henry VIII, who evidently liked him. [3]

Husee performed more mundane tasks for the Lord Deputy and his family as well, seeing to the care of Lady Lisle's children by her first marriage when they were in England, finding suitable servants, and purchasing goods in London. [3]

Husee was compensated for his services with a post in the Calais garrison which by 1535 provided him with a daily wage of 8d. In October 1536 he received a grant for life from the Crown as 'searcher of the lordships of Marke and Oye within the Calais pale', which brought him an additional 8d a day. [3]

The holding of the office of Lord Deputy entailed considerable expense, and Lisle wished to give up the post and return to England. Husee made frequent overtures to Cromwell to obtain funds to cover Lisle's expenses, and to obtain leave for Lisle and his family to return home. However, according to Grummitt, Cromwell would not agree until he had secured for himself Lisle's manor of Painswick in Gloucestershire. Lisle conveyed the manor to Cromwell in 1539, who sold it the following year to Sir William Kingston and his wife, Mary. [3] [8] [9]

Husee's service to the Lisles was brought to an end by Lord Lisle's arrest on treason charges on 19 May 1540. Lisle was accused of communicating with Cardinal Reginald Pole, and spent the next two years in the Tower of London. [8] After his master's ruin, Husee continued to hold his position in the Calais garrison, and in that capacity took part in 1544 in the English siege of Boulogne. [3]

Little is known of Husee's private life. There is no evidence that he married. He died at Calais in November 1548. [3]

The Lisle Papers are held by the National Archives. [10] They were published as the Lisle Letters in 1981. Husee is 'the most fully documented of all the writers of this correspondence. His letters are a joy and a revelation to read. He was completely loyal to the Lisles, a friend as much as an agent, and a very wise one in the appalling world of the Tudor court'. [11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.1, p. 352
  2. ↑ Byrne, 1981, vol.1, p. 351: 398 in the 18 volumes of the "Lisle Papers" (held at the National Archives under SP.3, mainly in vols. 4,5,11 & 12; 116 in the State Papers of Henry VIII (SP.1); 1 uncalendared letter amongst the Cottonian Manuscripts at the British Museum (Byrne, vol.1, p. 102, note 1))
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Grummitt 2006.
  4. ↑ Byrne, vol.1, p. 354: 1539; Vintner's Company website
  5. ↑ Byrne, vol.1, p. 354
  6. ↑ ; At the Vintners’ Hall, 24 February 2012 Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  7. ↑ Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.1, p. 352. Date of gift of hearse-cloth stated by Byrne as 1539
  8. 1 2 3 Grummitt 2004.
  9. ↑ 'Painswick: Manors and other estates', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 11: Bisley and Longtree Hundreds (1976), pp. 65–70 Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  10. ↑ Lisle Papers, National Archives Retrieved 27 June 2103.
  11. ↑ Plumb, J.H., 'Henry VIII Was The Man To See', New York Times, 14 June 1981 Retrieved 27 June 2013.

Related Research Articles

Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, KG was an illegitimate son of the English king Edward IV, half-brother-in-law of Henry VII, and an uncle of Henry VIII, at whose court he was a prominent figure and by whom he was appointed Lord Deputy of Calais (1533–40). The survival of a large collection of his correspondence in the Lisle Letters makes his life one of the best documented of his era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle</span>

Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire was a Cornish administrator and alleged conspirator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys</span> English diplomat

William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, KG, of The Vyne in the parish of Sherborne St John, Hampshire, was an English diplomat and was a favourite of King Henry VIII, whom he served as Lord Chamberlain. In the 1520s he built a palatial Tudor-style mansion at "The Vyne", which survives in a reduced and classicised form as a possession of the National Trust.

Robert Radcliffe, 10th Baron Fitzwalter, 1st Earl of Sussex, KG, KB, PC, also spelt Radclyffe, Ratcliffe, Ratcliff, etc., was a prominent courtier and soldier during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII who served as Chamberlain of the Exchequer and Lord Great Chamberlain.

Anne Basset was an English lady-in-waiting of the Tudor period, reputed to have been the mistress of King Henry VIII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Basset (1462–1528)</span>

Sir John Basset, of Tehidy in Cornwall and of Umberleigh in Devon was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1497, 1517 and 1522 and Sheriff of Devon in 1524. Although himself an important figure in the West Country gentry, he is chiefly remembered for his connection with the life of his second wife and widow Honor Grenville, who moved into the highest society when she remarried to Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle KG, an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, and an important figure at the court of King Henry VIII, his nephew.

Katharine Basset was an English gentlewoman who served at the court of King Henry VIII, namely in the household of Queen Anne of Cleves, and was briefly jailed for speaking against him. Three of her letters to her mother Honor Grenville survive in the Lisle Papers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honor Grenville, Viscountess Lisle</span> Cornish lady

Honor Grenville, Viscountess Lisle was a Cornish lady whose domestic life from 1533 to 1540 during the reign of King Henry VIII is exceptionally well-recorded, due to the survival of the Lisle Papers in the National Archives, the state archives of the UK.

The Lisle Papers are the correspondence received in Calais between 1533 and 1540 by Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (c.1480-1542), Lord Deputy of Calais, an illegitimate son of King Edward IV and an uncle of King Henry VIII, and by his wife, Honor Plantagenet, Viscountess Lisle, from several servants, courtiers, royal officials, friends, children and other relatives. They are an important source of information on domestic life in the Tudor age and of life at the court of Henry VIII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Pollard (sheriff)</span>

Sir Hugh Pollard lord of the manor of King's Nympton in Devon, was Sheriff of Devon in 1535/6 and in 1545 was appointed Recorder of Barnstaple in Devon.

Elizabeth Grey, 6th Baroness Lisle was an English noblewoman during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Courtenay (1477–1535)</span>

Sir William Courtenay"The Great", of Powderham in Devon, was a leading member of the Devon gentry and a courtier of King Henry VIII having been from September 1512 one of the king's Esquires of the Body. He served as Sheriff of Devon three times: from February to November 1522, 1525/26, and 1533/34. He was elected Knight of the Shire for Devon in 1529.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Pollard (MP)</span> 16th-century English politician

Sir Richard Pollard, was Member of Parliament for Taunton in 1536, and for Devon in 1540 and 1542. He played a major role in assisting Thomas Cromwell in administering the Dissolution of the monasteries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Rolle</span> Member of the Parliament of England

George Rolle of Stevenstone in the parish of St Giles in the Wood near Great Torrington in Devon, was the founder of the wealthy, influential and widespread Rolle family of Devon, which according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 in the person of Hon. Mark Rolle, the adoptive heir of John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle, had become by that year the largest landowner in Devon with about 55,000 acres. He was a Dorset-born London lawyer who in 1507 became Keeper of the Records of the Court of Common Pleas and was elected as a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1542 and 1545. He became the steward of Dunkeswell Abbey in Devon, and following the Dissolution of the Monasteries he purchased much ex-monastic land in Devon. Not only was he the founder of his own great Devonshire landowning dynasty but he was also an ancestor of others almost as great, including the Acland baronets of Killerton, the Wrey Baronets of Tawstock and the Trefusis family of Trefusis in Cornwall now of Heanton Satchville, Huish, later Baron Clinton, heirs both of Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and of Rolle of Stevenstone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Tailboys, 2nd Baron Tailboys of Kyme</span>

George Tailboys was the eldest son of Elizabeth Blount and Gilbert Tailboys, 1st Baron Tailboys of Kyme. Through his mother he was the half brother of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, who was the only illegitimate offspring acknowledged by Henry VIII, King of England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Grenville (died 1513)</span> Sheriff of Cornwall

Sir Thomas Grenville II, K.B.,, lord of the manors of Stowe in Kilkhampton, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon, Sheriff of Cornwall in 1481 and 1486. During the Wars of the Roses, he was a Lancastrian supporter who had taken part in the conspiracy against Richard III, organised by the Duke of Buckingham. On the accession of King Henry VII (1485–1509) to the throne, Sir Thomas was appointed one of the Esquires of the Body to Henry VII. On 14 November 1501 upon the marriage of Prince Arthur to Katherine of Aragon, he was created a Knight of the Bath. He served on the Commission of the Peace for Devon from 1510 to his death in circa 1513.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Lisle</span> English nobleman (died 1492)

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Lisle was an English nobleman who was created Viscount Lisle in 1483, in recognition of his wife's descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Coffin (1456–1523)</span>

Richard Coffin (1456–1523) of Alwington and Heanton Punchardon in North Devon, was a Sheriff of Devon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Basset (1518–1541)</span>

John Basset (1518–1541) was a young English gentleman from Devon, a member of the old Basset family, and heir to a substantial inheritance. His short life is well documented in the Lisle Papers. He studied law at Lincoln's Inn and at the age of 20, at the start of a promising career, entered the household of Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, but died suddenly aged only 23, albeit having married and produced a son and heir, born posthumously. His stepfather and father-in-law was Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (d.1542), Lord Deputy of Calais 1533–1540, a bastard son of King Edward IV and thus uncle of King Henry VIII, whose arrest with that of his mother in 1540 at Calais for heresy and treason, was a major, potentially catastrophic, event in his life. He died a year after the arrests, from an unknown illness, but his siblings all went on to have successful careers, especially his younger brother James, mostly as royal courtiers, apparently unaffected by the crisis.

William Popley ., was an English mercer and land owner, whose association with Thomas Cromwell, enabled him to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the dissolution of the monasteries to secure extensive landed estates.

References

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.