Family and Education

b. c.14 May 1558, 1st s. of Richard Aungier of Cambridge by Rose, da. of William Stewart of Ely. educ. Westminster, Queen’s scholar 1570; Trinity Coll. Camb. 1574; sp. adm. G. Inn 1577, called 1583. m. (1) bef. 1589, Douglas, da. of Hon. Edward Fitzgerald, sis. of Gerald, 14th Earl of Kildare; (2) Anne, da. of Sir George Barne of Woolwich, wid. of Walter Marler; (3) Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Cave, wid. of Sir John Wynne; at least 5s. 3da. suc. fa. 1597. Kntd. 1609; cr. Baron Aungier [I] 1621.1

Offices Held

Steward, manor of Woking 1588, manors in Anglesey, Orwill and Burwill, Flints. 1597; j.p. Surr. from 1592/3; j.p. Guildford 1604-9; ancient, G. Inn 1593, reader 1602; master of the rolls [I] 1609-d.; PC [I] by 1611; jt. ld. keeper [I] Apr.-May 1619.2

Biography

Aungier’s Aungier’s father, a Cambridgeshire landowner and a lawyer, was murdered in his chambers by a younger son and his body found floating down the Thames. Aungier himself married into the Irish nobility and became related to Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln, who in 1589 appointed him executor of her will, leaving him the lease of the rectory and of other property at Woking in Surrey. The will was proved in 1590—after some dissension among interested parties—and Aungier settled in Surrey thereafter. He was assessed for the 1593 subsidy as of East Clandon, at £20 in lands, was appointed to the commission of the peace and may have been adding to his Surrey property as late as 1609. The only ascertained connexion with the duchy of Lancaster borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme for which he sat in the 1589 Parliament is that his father was then retained as counsel by the duchy. On 27 Feb. 1589 he was named to a committee to discuss the progress of the bill for purveyors. It was presumably Aungier’s friendship with (Sir) William More I, who appointed him an overseer of his will, that enabled him to be returned at Haslemere in 1597. In the Parliament of that year he was appointed to the committee of privileges (5 Nov.) and to two others concerning armour and weapons (10 Nov.) and monopolies (10 Nov.).3

When he went to Ireland, already an experienced lawyer whom Francis Bacon could describe as ‘very honest and able’, he displayed great energy in discharging his judicial duties: as a justice of assize he rode on circuit twice a year and earned a reputation for severity. He became a commissioner for the plantation of Ulster in 1616 and of Longford in 1620, where he later built a mansion. He also had a house in Dublin—once a monastery of the White Friars near Dublin Castle—where he died, 8 Oct. 1632. In his will he asked to be buried simply in a chapel near his Dublin home. All his lands, except some in Cambridgeshire reserved for his son George, and his wife’s jointure, were to go to his eldest son Gerald, while to his younger sons Ambrose and Francis he left sums of money. To Gerald, then over 30 years of age, he left his ‘history books and books of discourse’, to Ambrose his ‘divinity books’ and to Francis his law books, and he made bequests to his servants and the poor of the parish where he lived. If his movables were insufficient to meet his debts and legacies, these were to be paid for from the profits of Woking rectory. As executors he appointed his sons Gerald and Ambrose along with his ‘trusty servant’ Ralph Leventhorpe, and he asked the lords of the Privy Council in Ireland to protect his wife and children. He was first buried according to his request, but on 6 Dec. 1632 was re-interred in St. Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.E.M.

Notes

• 1. CP, viii. 118; Vis. Cambs. (Harl. Soc. xli), 18; APC, xxviii. 187; CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 332.
• 2. E315/307/112, 309/66; C66/1421; HMC 7th Rep. 668a; Guildford Mus. ct. bk. 1596, ff. 56 seq.; CSP Ire. 1608-10, p. 580; 1611-14, p. 102; F. E. Ball, Judges in Ireland, i. 332.
• 3. PCC 21 Drury, 70 Wallop; APC, xix. 274; Surr. Arch. Soc. xix. 64; HMC 7th Rep. 669b; T. Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 47; Somerville, Duchy, i. 456; D’Ewes, 440, 552, 553, 555.
• 4. Lansd. 87, f. 224; CSP Ire. 1615-25, pp. 31, 138, 280; APC, 1627-8, p. 323; C142/487/39; PCC 15 Russell; Ball, i. 244-5, 322.