GREY, William I (by 1521-74), of Enville, Staffs. and the Inner Temple, 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

Family and Education

b. by 1521, ?3rd s. of Sir Edward Grey, and bro. of Thomas I. educ. I. Temple. unm.1

Offices Held

Biography

Enville, although in Staffordshire, is only eight miles from Bridgnorth, where Sir Edward Grey was made a freeman soon after his marriage into the leading family of Horde. The fact that Grey’s admission preceded the election to the Parliament of 1510 has been thought to imply that he was returned on that occasion, but this suggestion lacks proof.2

William Grey was a lawyer who inherited his father’s lease of the manor and lordship of Morfe. His election to the Parliament of 1542 was presumably the work of his uncle Richard Horde, the recorder of Bridgnorth: Horde’s name heads the list of electors on the indenture and precedes that of William Gatacre, who was one of Grey’s cousins. Grey was joined in the Commons by his brother-in-law Richard Mytton; another brother-in-law, the attorney-general William Whorwood, who in 1545 was to name him an executor, was a signatory to 11 Acts passed during the Parliament, but on Grey’s part in the House neither the records nor the chronicle written by his fellow-Member Edward Hall I throw any light.3

By a will made on 2 Feb. 1572 Grey asked to be buried next to his brother Richard’s grave in the choir of Enville church ‘without any pomp or great solemnity’. After remembering the poor and providing for his servants he divided his estate between his lawyer-cousins George Bromley and William Gatacre whom he named executors. He left the contents of his chamber at the Inner Temple to Bromley, a horse each to Thomas Horde and Ralph Sheldon, and 40s. to Margaret Molyneux ‘sometime wife of’ George Wood. Two days after his death on 7 Apr. 1574 his goods at Enville were valued for probate at £49, and his will was proved at Lichfield before the end of the month.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Harding

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Erdeswick, Staffs. 380; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 252.
  • 2. Bridgnorth ms 9/1, f. 37; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), v. 42.
  • 3. PCC 6 Jankyn, 30 Pynnyng; C219/18B/70.
  • 4. Lichfield consist. ct. wills. ser. 4/24.