Family and Education

Offices Held

Biography

William Danby claimed gentility, so that he presumably belonged to the family long settled in Yorkshire and well connected with the northern aristocracy. Several members of this family were christened William, but of such as can be traced none lived in Westmorland. In the spring of 1554, when Danby first sat in Parliament, the head of the family, Sir Christopher Danby, was one of the knights for Yorkshire. The borough of Appleby was controlled by the earls of Cumberland, and Danby’s return was doubtless the work of the 2nd Earl, who was to remember a William Danby in his will of January 1570. Danby sat in both the Parliaments of 1554 with John Eltoftes, a kinsman of Sir Christopher Danby and a lawyer connected with the earl. Of his part in the House all that is known is that Danby was one of over 100 Members informed against in the King’s bench during Easter term 1555 for quitting it prematurely without leave: a writ of venire facias was issued but no further process against him is recorded. In the absence of a return it is not known whether he sat a third time for Appleby in the Parliament of 1555, and nothing more has come to light about him.2

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

Notes

• 1. Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
• 2. C142/151/29, 173/58, 213/106; 193/31/1, f. 5v; Yorks. Arch. Jnl. x. 491-3; xviii. 384; Northern Hist. i. 51; Thoresby Soc. xxxvii. 1-28; Vis. Yorks. ed. Foster, 202, 263-4, 292; York wills, 15(2), f.177v; LP Hen. VIII, iii, iv, vii, viii, xiv, xv, xix, add.; CPR, 1553, p. 354; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, pp. 278, 387; J. T. Cliffe, Yorks. Gentry, 369; Yorks. Peds. (Harl Soc. xciv), 175; KB27/1176, rex roll 17; 29/188, rot. 48.