Sir Thomas Coningsby (9 October 1550 [2] -30 May 1625) was an English soldier and Member of Parliament, notable for his diary of military action in France in 1591, and his feuds over local representation in Herefordshire. [3] [4]
Thomas Coningsby was the son and heir of Humphrey Coningsby, of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Inglefield, judge of the common pleas. His father, a gentleman-treasurer to Queen Elizabeth, was a grandson of Sir Humphrey Coningsby. [3] [4]
In 1571 he was said to be love in with Frances Howard (died 1598), a young woman in the household of Elizabeth I. She and her sister Douglas Howard were rivals for the affections of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Frances Howard later married the Earl of Hertford. [5]
Coningsby visited Italy with Sir Philip Sidney in 1573, and he was intimate with Sidney until Sir Philip's death, although their friendship was severely strained on their Italian journey by an unfounded charge of robbery brought by Sidney against Coningsby. Coningsby went to Normandy in attendance on the Earl of Essex in 1591, and took part in the siege of Rouen, fighting against the forces of the league. He acted as muster-master to the English detachment, was in frequent intercourse with Henry of Navarre before Rouen, and was knighted by Essex on 8 October 1591. Coningsby was High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1582 and 1598 and knight of the shire (MP) for Herefordshire in 1593, 1597 and 1601. [3] [2]
Coningsby had a feud with a neighbouring landowner, Herbert Croft (died 1629) of Croft Castle. [7] Coningsby was called an "Italianate knave" in Leomininster market place. [8] They fought during Hereford assizes in July 1588 and Walter Lewis, a supporter of Croft was killed. [9] Next year Croft brought a large retinue to Hereford to establish his position. [10] In March 1601 Coningsby wrote to Sir Robert Cecil to dispute the appointment of Herbert Croft as Steward of Leominster. His father had been Steward, he had a house at Leominster Priory and another in the town, and an election for the position had been planned. Coningsby expected Cecil to help because his wife, Philippa, was his kinswoman. [11]
Following the Union of the Crowns in 1603, Coningsby was appointed to a committee managing the jointure lands in England of Anne of Denmark, queen consort to James VI and I. He would report on the queen's manors in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, including Kingsland, Marden, Westharness (Leominster), Stockton (Herefs), Stoke (Herefs), Leominster, Ivington and Hope (near Leominster), and Kings Norton. Coningsby and the other councillors were invited to come to court to kiss the queen's hand and receive their instructions when the plague had subsided. [12]
Coningsby surveyed the rents from the royal manors in 1604 and reported to Robert, Lord Sidney, the queen's chamberlain. [13] Coningsby used this as an opportunity to criticise his local rival Herbert Croft. He wrote to Sidney from Hampton Court in "this spacious and fertile Manor of Leominster", noting that his new role in the county was a "a thing very displeasing" to Croft. [14] [15]
Many years earlier, Herbert Croft's father Edward Croft had made a suit to marry Barbara Gamage, but failed, and she had married Robert Sidney instead, which may have been a factor in Coningsby's appointment.
A portrait of his daughter Anne Coningsby, attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, has a later inscription mentioning that she was a maid of honour to the queen. [16] [17] At this time, Coningsby made negotiations for his daughter's marriage to Robert Harley overly difficult, and the plans failed. [18] For this aspect of his character, Coningsby is said to have been the very model of Sir Puntavarlo in Ben Jonson's, Every Man out of His Humour , [19] and in one performance an actor dressed in his clothes. [20]
Coningsby and wife had portraits painted in 1612, possibly by Gheeraerts, and he was depicted with "Crickit the dwarf". [21] [22]
After Anne of Denmark died in 1619 the Leominster manors were given to the Marquess of Buckingham. [23]
In 1614 Coningsby founded a hospital in the suburbs of Hereford for superannuated soldiers and servants called 'Coningsby's Company of Old Servitors', this is now open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from Easter to September and is free to visit and you can learn about Thomas Coningsby and his impact on the site. [24]
On 12 November 1617 he joined the council of Wales under the presidency of William, Lord Compton. An unmarried cousin, Joyce Jeffreys, who was born at Ham Castle at Clifton-upon-Teme, joined the household at Hampton Court in 1617, to be a "perpetual companion" to Phillipa Coningsby. [25]
Thomas Coningsby died on 30 May 1625, [3] aged 74.
Thomas Coningsby married Philippa, second daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam of Milton, near Peterborough and his wife Agnes Sidney. Philippa was a cousin of Sir Philip Sidney. They had six sons and three daughters. All his sons except one died before him. His children included: [lower-alpha 1]
Coningsby is the author of a diary of the action of the English troops in France in 1591. It proceeds day by day through two periods, 13 August to 6 September, and 3 October to 24 December, when it abruptly terminates. The original manuscript is among the Harleian Manuscripts at the British Library. It was first printed and carefully edited by J. G. Nichols in the first volume of the Camden Society's Miscellanies (1847). Internal evidence alone gives the clue to the authorship. [3]
Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, second son of Sir Henry Sidney, was a statesman of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. He was also a patron of the arts and a poet. His mother, Mary Sidney née Dudley, was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth I and a sister of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, an advisor and favourite of the Queen.
Sir Robert Harley was an English statesman who served as Master of the Mint for Charles I. A devout Puritan, he supported Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Sir Philip Hoby PC was a 16th-century English Ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire and Flanders.
Viscount Hereford is the oldest and only extant viscountcy in the Peerage of England, making the holder the Premier Viscount of England. The title was created in 1550 for Walter Devereux, 10th Baron Ferrers of Chartley.
Earl Coningsby was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1719 for Thomas Coningsby, 1st Baron Coningsby, with remainder to his eldest daughter, Margaret Newton, 1st Viscountess Coningsby, and the heirs male of her body. He was the great-grandson of the soldier and politician Sir Thomas Coningsby. Coningsby had already been created Baron Coningsby, of Clanbrassil, in the Peerage of Ireland in 1693, with normal remainder to heirs male, and Baron Coningsby in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1716, with the similar remainder as for the earldom. On Lord Coningsby's death in 1729 he was succeeded in the Irish barony of 1692 by his grandson Richard Coningsby, the second Baron, the son of one of Coningsby's sons from his first marriage to Barbara Georges. However, Richard died already the same year, when the barony became extinct. Lord Coningsby was succeeded in the English barony and the earldom according to the special remainder by his daughter Margaret Newton, 1st Viscountess Coningsby. She had already in 1716 been made Baroness Coningsby, of Hampton Court in the County of Hereford, and Viscountess Coningsby in her own right. Both titles were in the Peerage of Great Britain. Lady Coningsby was the wife of Sir Michael Newton, 4th Baronet, of Barrs Court and Culverthorpe Hall, Lincolnshire. She had no surviving male issue and the titles became extinct on her death in 1759.
Penelope Rich, Lady Rich, later styled Penelope Blount was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the English queen Anne of Denmark. She was the sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and is traditionally thought to be the inspiration for "Stella" of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence. She was married to Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich and had a public liaison with Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, whom she married in an unlicensed ceremony following her divorce from Rich. She died in 1607.
Sir William FitzWilliam (1526–1599) was an English Lord Justice of Ireland and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland. In 1587, as Governor of Fotheringhay Castle, he supervised the execution of the death sentence on Mary, Queen of Scots. He was the Member of Parliament for Peterborough and represented County Carlow in the Irish House of Commons. He lived at Gainspark, Essex, and Milton Hall.
Groom of the Chamber was a position in the Household of the monarch in early modern England. Other Ancien Régime royal establishments in Europe had comparable officers, often with similar titles. In France, the Duchy of Burgundy, and in England while French was still the language of the court, the title was varlet or valet de chambre. In German, Danish and Russian the term was "Kammerjunker" and in Swedish the similar "Kammarjunkare".
John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton in Rutland, was an English courtier and politician.
Thomas Coningsby, 1st Earl Coningsby PC of Hampton Court Castle, Herefordshire, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times from 1679 until 1716 when he was created a peer and sat in the House of Lords
Sir John Pakington of Aylesbury was a courtier in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. He was a favourite of Elizabeth's who nicknamed him "Lusty Pakington" for his physique and sporting abilities. Away from court he held a number of official positions including Sheriff of Worcestershire in 1595 and in 1607.
This is a list of Sheriffs and, since 1998, High Sheriffs of Herefordshire
Susan Herbert, Countess of Montgomery, was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England and Scotland, Anne of Denmark. She was the youngest daughter of Elizabethan courtier, and poet Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.
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Philippa Coningsby (née Fitzwilliam was an English aristocrat, a daughter of William FitzWilliam of Milton. She married Sir Thomas Coningsby and had 11 children.
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Fitzwilliam Coningsby was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1621 and in 1640. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
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