CREED, Henry (by 1519-71 or later), of London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1553
Nov. 1554
1555
1558

Family and Education

b. by 1519, yr. s. of Richard Creed of Wilton, Wilts. by Margaret.2

Offices Held

Biography

Henry Creed is the only native of Wilton known to have sat for the borough during this period. Under his father’s will of 1520 he and his unmarried brothers each received a house in the town, together with £20 and a silver cup. Of the brothers only John settled at Wilton, but the others seem to have retained their local connexion. On the death of his eldest brother Anthony, or of Anthony’s heirs, most of the property at Wilton passed to Henry Creed. It included the mill which was forcibly entered by a gang led by Christopher Willoughby on 14 Sept. 1545 and three weeks later destroyed. After (Sir) William Herbert, to whom the mill was to revert, had failed to procure him compensation, Creed brought an action against Willoughby in the Star Chamber, with what result is unknown.3

On 9 Dec. 1544 Creed applied for the freedom of the city of London. Two days later the corporation received a letter on his behalf from (Sir) Anthony Denny, and on 22 Jan. 1545 it was agreed to admit him, for Denny’s sake, on payment of £20. This Creed declined on the ground that the usual fine for admission was £6 13s.4d., whereupon the corporation resolved that on his next application ‘he shall pay five marks more for the same’. On 1 Mar. 1547 he made another approach, this time through (Sir) William Paget, which was countered by a recital of Creed’s earlier obstinacy, but at Paget’s ‘especial request and desire’ he was admitted on the following 21 Apr. on payment of £10. About the same time he was admitted to the Mercers’ Company by redemption.4

The reluctance to admit Creed may have sprung from knowledge of the man. Two years later a dispute with his agent Richard Boston about payment of wages brought the pair before Robert Broke, and for contempt towards the recorder Creed was briefly committed to ward on 2 Apr. 1549. Boston then appealed to the lord mayor, who awarded him £32 of the £42 4s.2d. he claimed. Creed refused to pay and went to Chancery, where he declared that Boston had embezzled his goods while he was at Danzig. Boston replied that he had served as Creed’s factor for two years ‘with great diligence as well in course of merchandise as in other weighty affairs, as well here in England as in the countries of Portugal, Spain and Danzig’; he denied inexperience and described Creed as ‘an ignorant person’ who had been glad to retain him. How it all ended is not revealed, but Creed did not let it interfere with his business; between May 1549 and April 1550 he was often at Antwerp, and he was to go there again during the winter of 1551-2.5

Creed sat for Wilton in all but one of Mary’s Parliaments. After the first of them, to which he was returned with another Londoner, Nicholas Chowne, his fellow-Member was always William Clerke, one of Herbert’s servants, but he probably owed his election as much to his local standing as to Herbert, by then Earl of Pembroke and lord of the borough. He opposed the restoration of Catholicism in 1553 but gave no other indication of dissent: it was perhaps his stand in 1553 which cost him his seat at the next election and dissuaded him from further protest. He did not sit in Parliament under Elizabeth, but he continued with both his trade and his litigation. In 1563 he and two kinsmen were in the court of requests over their title to property at Barford St. Martin, near Wilton, and in 1571 one Austin Stuckley was pardoned for failing to answer Creed’s suit against him for debt. This is the last reference found to Creed.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

  • 1. The indenture (C219/23/150) is torn; full name supplied from Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from father’s will and his having at least one younger brother, PCC 25 Ayloffe.
  • 3. PCC 25 Ayloffe; E179/197/243; St.Ch.2/23/227.
  • 4. City of London RO, Guildhall, rep. 11, ff. 155, 155v, 161, 336, 345; List of mercers (T/S, Mercers’ Hall), 99.
  • 5. City of London RO, rep. 12(1), ff. 68v, 142; C1/1209/60-61; O. de Smidt, De Engelse Natie te Antwerpen, ii. 444.
  • 6. Bodl. e Museo 17; Req.2/85/24; CPR, 1569-72, p. 324.