WILLIAMS, Henry (1524/26-51), of Alderton, Northants.

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. 1524/26, 1st s. of Sir John Williams, Lord Williams of Thame, by Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Thomas Bledlow of Bledlow, Bucks. m. Anne, da. of Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford, s.p.2

Offices Held

Biography

Henry Williams undoubtedly owed his knighthood of the shire for Northamptonshire in 1547 to the influence of his father who was present at the election: the father owned or was steward of several manors in the southern part of the county, and himself sat in this Parliament for Oxfordshire. When returned, the son was young and inexperienced; he may have been the Henry Williams of the stable who served in the army against France in 1544 but he had played no part in civil affairs, so that it was doubtless his father who as ‘Mr. Williams’ had several bills committed to him. In August 1548 Henry Williams and his younger brother Francis were in Padua, but he may have returned to England in time for the second session of the Parliament as in October he was named an overseer of the will of Robert Burdett. He died of the sweating sickness and was buried in London on 20 Aug. 1551, ‘with banners of arms, coats of armour and four dozen escutcheons’. His brother’s death in the same epidemic left their father without a male heir. An epitaph on Henry Williams was written by Thomas Norton (q.v.). It is not known who replaced him in the House.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. M. Thorpe

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from election and date of parents’ marriage. Dugdale, Warws. 394.
  • 3. C219/19/70; LP Hen. VIII, xix; CJ, 1, 2, 14; Cam. Misc. x(2), 8; Lichfield consist, ct. wills 1549, f. 5; Machyn’s Diary (Cam. Soc. xlii), 8; Strype, Eccles. Memorials, ii (1), 494.