HENEAGE, George (by 1522-95), of Hainton, Lincs.

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

Family and Education

b. by 1522, 1st s. of John Heneage of Benniworth by Anne, da. and h. of John Cope of Deanshanger and Helmdon, Northants. m. (1) by 1561, Elizabeth (d.7 Dec. 1583), da. of (Sir) Richard Southwell of Wood Rising, Norf., s.p.; (2) Olive, da. of Edward or Thomas Bretton of Felmingham, Norf., wid. of Thomas Herne of London, s.p. suc. fa. 21 July 1557. Kntd. 1583.2

Offices Held

V.-adm. Lincs. c.1536-49; commr. sewers, Cambs., Hunts., Isle of Ely, Lincs., Northants., Notts. 1555; j.p. Lincs. (Lindsey) 1569-d., q. by 1579; sheriff, Lincs. 1576-7; steward, manor of Louth, Lincs. by 1564-d.3

Biography

Little is known of George Heneage’s early career after his successful beginnings in Edmund Bonner’s service. The post of vice-admiral of Lincolnshire in which he followed his father about 1536 was probably a sinecure. In 1539 he was in Paris with Bonner, then ambassador to the French court: in July he received £7 for taking letters from Henry VIII to the ‘court of France’ and in the following May a similar sum for delivering letters.4

Heneage clearly owed his return for Orford to the Parliament of 1547 to the patronage of Sir William Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby of Parham, who was married to his cousin. He was not reelected at Orford in the spring of 1553 and is not known to have sat elsewhere, but in the autumn he was returned to Mary’s first Parliament for Grimsby, for which his father and grandfather had sat in at least three Parliaments. He joined another cousin Thomas Heneage, a Member for Stamford, in opposition to the initial measures for the restoration of Catholicism. Unlike his cousin, he neither sat again nor played any part in affairs outside his county save that in 1569 he served against the northern rebels.5

By his will of 15 Sept. 1594 Heneage, after making provision for his second wife, left his lands, silver and plate to his brother William in tail male. He named his wife executrix and Sir Thomas Heneage and the 2nd Baron Willoughby of Parham overseers. He died on 16 Oct. 1595 and, as he had requested, was buried at Hainton.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

  • 1. Hatfield 207.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., C142/113/63; Lincoln Rec. Soc. xxxi. 161. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 480-2; Vis. Lincs. ed. Metcalfe, 40-41; Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 54-55.
  • 3. EHR, xxiii. 746; CPR, 1554-5, p. 109; 1563-6, pp. 40, 107; 1569-72, pp. 221, 222, 225; SP12/104, 121, 145; Lincs. Peds. 483.
  • 4. LP Hen. VIII, xiv, xv; G. M. V. Alexander, ‘The life and career of Edmund Bonner, Bp. of London until his deprivation in 1549’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1960), 188-237.
  • 5. Bodl. e. Museo 17; Lansd. 13(9), f. 48.
  • 6. PCC 12, 13 Drake; Pevsner and Harris, Lincs. 262.