Family and Education

b. by 1512, 1st s. of John Huntley of Standish by Alice, da. and coh. of Edmund Langley of Siddington. m. by 1542, Catherine, da. of Sir John Walshe of Little Sodbury, 6s. 3da.1

Offices Held

Groom of the chamber extraordinary by 1533; j.p. Glos. 1554-d.; escheator, 1555-6; sheriff, 1562-3.2

Biography

George Huntley’s father was a gentleman usher of the chamber to Henry VIII and the son himself became a groom of the chamber. John Huntley may have had some influence with Cromwell for in 1538 he appealed to the minister against his stepson Anthony Eversdon, a priest, asking him to ‘cause an Act to be made in the next Parliament that priests shall not inherit land, or at least, shall not alienate lands’ and adding that the King had promised the joint keepership of certain parks in Thornbury hundred to himself and his son. He offered Cromwell £40 ‘towards the furnishing of your cellar’ for his help in both matters, but George Huntley was not granted the reversion of the keepership until July 1541.3

Although the evidence of Huntley’s activities during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI is scanty, it seems that he had a number of influential friends and relatives. His uncle had married into the Hungerford family, one of whom held the lordship of a Cricklade manor. His fellow-Member at Cricklade (where Huntley’s name is written in the indenture over an erasure and in a different hand from that of the document) was Sir Nicholas Poyntz, with whom he had served against the northern rebellion and in the Scottish wars of 1542-4. Huntley lived ‘scarce 40 paces’ from Ozleworth, one of Poyntz’s manors, and Poyntz acknowledged a debt to Huntley in his will. Both Members opposed a government bill under the leadership of Sir Anthony Kingston, a knight of the shire for Gloucestershire.4

Huntley spent the rest of his life at Frocester, which he had purchased in 1554 for £806. Although he did not sit a second time in Parliament he was active in county administration, serving on a number of commissions. In 1564 Bishop Cheyney reminded the Privy Council that Huntley and another former sheriff should again be placed on the commission of the peace. In the same year he bought the manor of Woodchester and two advowsons for £671. Ten years later the vicar of Frocester recorded the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Huntley’s home, declaring that ‘with great humanity’ she had consented to spend a night there on the way to Berkeley Castle.5

In a will of 5 Nov. 1580 Huntley left his goods to Catherine, his wife and executrix, and after her to George Huntley, the son of his eldest son John. He died on 31 Dec. 1580 and the will was proved on 7 Jan. 1581.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Wards 7/20/167; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 93; LP Hen. VIII, xiii, xvii; PCC 1 Darcy.
• 2. LP Hen. VIII, ii; CPR, 1553-4, p. 19; 1554-5, p. 111; 1560-3, pp. 121, 168; 1569-72, p. 224.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, xii, xiii, xv, xvi.
• 4. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans. xiii, 4; Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 185; iii. 307; C219/24/181; LP Hen. VIII, xi, xvii; PCC 22 Wrastley; Guildford mus. Loseley 1331/2; D. M. Loades, Two Tudor Conspiracies, 210-11.
• 5. CPR, 1553-4, p. 342; 1563-6, p. 153; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 637; APC, viii. 31, 401; xi. 156; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 58; Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. Trans. xlv. 1, 2; R. Bigland, Observations on Marriages, 13.
• 6. PCC 1 Darcy; Wards 7/20/167.