Family and Education

b. by 1508, 2nd s. of Maurice Blount of Dyrham, Glos. by Elizabeth, da. of Sir Thomas Hungerford^† of Down Ampney, Glos. m. by 1531, 1s. 2da., 1s. illegit. by Joan Monday of Hungerford, Berks.2

Offices Held

Biography

Robert Blount was the younger son of a younger son in a branch of a distinguished and widespread family. His grandfather’s estate at Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire, passed eventually to Robert’s cousin, Margaret, who married Sir John Hussey. His father lived at Dyrham but had a house called Foysters Court in Mangotsfield, held of the King, which he left to his third son, William, for life, with remainder first to his youngest son, Richard, for life and then to Robert ‘so in that they have the King’s grace’s good will’. Sir Anthony Hungerford was to be Richard’s guardian.3

Blount seems to have lived first at Standen Hussey, Wiltshire, but in 1544 he acquired the manor of Eastcourt in Inkpen from John White of Southwick, Hampshire. White, then or later related by marriage to Blount and Thomas Wriothesley, was a minor official in the Household and local administration, holding a succession of posts in Portsmouth: he had bought the manor in 1538 from Wriothesley, to whom Blount was related through the Hungerfords. Wriothesley had procured the return of his ‘servant’ John Fryer for Portsmouth in 1545 and, although no longer lord chancellor, may still have had a hand in the election of 1547 as lord of the manor of Portsea. It is possible, however, that Blount owed his election to a more powerful, albeit remote, kinsman, Admiral Seymour; the link with Seymour would be strengthened if he was the ‘Mr. Blount’ to whom Queen Catherine Parr gave New Year gifts in 1544 and 1545 as a member of her household. Between Blount and his namesake who sat for Ludlow in this Parliament there is no real risk of confusion: that they can hardly have been one and the same is shown by the inclusion of both their names on the list of its Members as revised for the fourth session, that is, after by-elections had eliminated double returns.4

Blount made his will two days before his death, asking to be buried in the church at Inkpen. After remembering the poor, his servants and godchildren, he left his grandson Robert Garrard £10 and his widowed daughter-in-law Jane £30 in cash and an annuity of 40s. He bequeathed to his nephew William Blount lands in Hungerford and to his illegitimate son Richard Blount alias Monday all the property he had bought elsewhere. He made his illegitimate son residuary legatee and, together with his son-in-law John Garrard, an executor of the will: as overseers he appointed Richard Snell of Hampstead Marshall and Christopher Lychpole of Newbury. He died on 9 Sept. 1558, leaving an estate valued for probate at £358. The rights of inheritance of his two daughters, aged 24 and 27 at his death, were later unsuccessfully disputed by Richard Blount alias Monday.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

• 1. Hatfield 207.
• 2. Apparently of age of fa.’s death in 1529, PCC 3 Jankyn. Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 154; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 23-24; C142/122/8; Req.2/60/57; Bodl. Berks. archdeaconry ct. wills 1558.
• 3. PCC 3 Jankyn.
• 4. Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. vi), 210; LP Hen. VIII, xix; VCH Berks. iv. 201; VCH Hants, iii. 162, 178, 192; NRA 11960, preface to Hants RO, Daly mss 5 M50/1650 etc.; R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 128; Vis. Glos. 88; E101/423/12, ff. 8, 12; Hatfield 207.
• 5. Bodl. Berks. archdeaconry ct. wills 1558; C142/122/8; Req.2/60/57; VCH Berks. iv. 201.