WOGAN (HOGAN, OGAN, OWGAN), John (c.1480-1557), of Wiston, Pemb.

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. c.1480, 1st s. of Sir John Wogan of Wiston by Anne, da. of Sir Thomas Vaughan. m. Jane, da. and h. of William Philip ap Gwilym of Stone Hall, 4s. 12da. suc. fa. 1483, Kntd. c.1547.1

Offices Held

Gent. usher by 1513-30 or later; bailiff errant, lordship of Haverfordwest Dec. 1520; jt. rhaglaw (or constable), Card. 18 Aug. 1524; bailiff, Rowse, Pemb. 24 Jan. 1525; commr. for division of shires 1536, relief, Card., Carm., Mon. and Pemb. 1550, goods of churches and fraternities, Card. and Pemb. 1553, subsidy, Pemb. 1555; sheriff, Card. 1541-2, Pemb. 1542-3, 1553-4; burgess, Cardigan, Card. in 1553; j.p. Glos., Herefs., Salop and Worcs. 1554, Card. 1555.2

Biography

John Wogan, of the Wiston branch of the old Pembrokeshire family of that name, was the son and grandson of namesakes who had died for the Lancastrian cause. First met with in the royal service in 1513, when as a gentleman usher he served as a captain in the French campaign, he had in December 1510 been granted a life annuity of £2 by the borough of Haverfordwest. When, many years later, Wogan sued in the court of requests for two-and-a-half years’ arrears of this annuity, the borough contended that it had been granted on condition that he lived there and gave counsel, which he had done for only three years before moving elsewhere. The complaint, if true, implies that from 1513 Wogan resided mainly at court, where he is glimpsed at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 and at Eltham in 1526, and that the local offices granted to him by the crown had not brought him home. He doubtless spent more time there after the Union, when he served three terms as sheriff and was charged with a variety of other duties in his own shire and its neighbours.3

Wogan was first returned for Pembrokeshire by a sheriff who was his brother-in-law. Whether he enjoyed a similar advantage at his re-election in the autumn of 1553 does not appear, but he was to be pricked sheriff again while sitting in this Parliament and in the course of the next year he twice returned his son-in-law Arnold Butler. Of Wogan’s part in the Commons nothing is known save that in Mary’s first Parliament he did not oppose the restoration of Catholicism. He made his will on 20 Aug. 1557. He asked to be buried at Wiston. The fact that he called his wife Anne may mean that he had married again; he made her sole executrix and left her all his goods. The will was witnessed by his sons-in-law Arnold Butler and Thomas Cathern (mistranscribed in the register as Laugherne) and was proved on 8 Nov. 1557. Wogan had died four days after making it, leaving his grandson, another John Wogan, heir to large estates in Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from that of mother, HP, ed. Wedgwood, 1439-1509 (Biogs.) 902, and from father’s death. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 107-8; CPR, 1476-85, pp. 387, 412; W. Wales Hist. Recs. vi. 196, 199-200.
  • 2. DWB (Wogan fams.); LP Hen. VIII, i, iii, iv, xv; G. Owen, Taylors Cussion, ii. 34d; CPR, 1553, pp. 360, 364, 404, 418-19; 1553-4, pp. 19, 20, 23, 25; C60/370; 219/21/215; SP11/5/6.
  • 3. Req.2/10/238.
  • 4. PCC 45 Wrastley; C142/113/3, 114/19.