Family and Education

b. 1513, 1st s. of Sir John Blount^† of Kinlet by Catherine, da. and coh. of Sir Hugh Peshall of Knightley; bro. of Henry^† and William^†. m. 1533, Constance, da. of Sir John Talbot of Grafton, Lincs., 1s. d.v.p. 1da. suc. fa. 1531. Kntd. 1544.1

Offices Held

Steward of Bewdley, Worcs. and Cleobury Mortimer, Salop 1531; gent. pens. 1540; j.p. Salop 1547-58, q. by 1564; Worcs. 1547, q. by 1564, rem. 1575, rest. 1577; Staffs. from 1562, q. by 1564, rem. by 1574, rest. 1577; sheriff, Staffs. 1552-3, 1572-3; Salop 1563-4; commr. musters, Worcs. by 1576.2

Biography

By 1558, after service in the army and at court, Blount had settled to the life of a country gentleman, dividing his time between the lands in Shropshire that made up the ancient Blount inheritance, and the estates in Staffordshire that had come to him from his mother. His landed wealth, local influence and steady loyalty to Elizabeth’s government, were evidently sufficient to offset his Catholic religious views. He had voted against a major government bill in 1555 but obviously not on religious grounds. In 1564 the bishop of Hereford described him as ‘neuter in religion’, and the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield as ‘an adversary to religion and no favourer thereof, neither in deed nor word’. In 1577 he was returned as a recusant, worth, it was considered, ‘in offices and lands £200 by the year; in goods £200’. Nevertheless, though removed for some time from the Shropshire commission of the peace, he remained intermittently a justice in the three counties—Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire—where he had lands and stewardships. In 1565 he was one of those asked by the Privy Council to supervise the ‘good assessing of the subsidy in Shropshire’.3

He had already had extensive parliamentary experience before 1558 and he found a seat in every Parliament of Elizabeth’s reign until his death. When he was not representing the county he took a seat at Bridgnorth, near his own property, or at Wenlock, where the Lawley family were influential. Thomas Lawley was the ward of Blount’s relative Thomas. In the Parliament of 1571 Blount sat on a committee to consider the subsidy and the reform of abuses in the Exchequer (7 Apr.) and on another (25 May) to confer with the Lords about Wales.4

He had evidently separated from his wife before 26 Oct. 1575, when he received a letter from the Privy Council ordering him to appear with certain of his wife’s friends to hear the settlement drawn up for them by the bishop and dean of Worcester. Two years later he disinherited his daughter and made his nephew Roland Lacson his heir.

In the preamble to his will, made 30 Dec. 1580, Blount hoped for ‘rest in perpetual joy and felicity with the blessed company of God’s faithful people and holy angels’. Lacon received the manors of Farlow, Herefordshire, and Cleeve, Shropshire, and lands at Alveley, Shropshire, on condition that he made some provision for the poor of Bridgnorth. After minor bequests to friends and servants, Blount appointed Lacon, Richard Steventon, John Lee, Humphrey Draper and Francis Chimall his executors, and as his overseer Sir Thomas Bromley, to whom he left £20 and a gelding. Shortly before his death on 20 July 1581, Blount confirmed his grants to Lacon. His daughter unsuccessfully contested the settlement.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

• 1. C142/52/16, 63/10; Vis. Worcs. (Harl. Soc. xxvii), 18, 19, 136; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 54; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), viii. 125.
• 2. LP Hen. VIII, v. p. 181; xxi(2), p. 156; Genealogist, xxx. 21; Lansd. 56, f. 168 seq.
• 3. Guildford Mus. Loseley 1331/2; Cam. Misc. ix(3), pp. 15, 42; Cath. Rec. Soc. xxii. 79.
• 4. CJ, i. 83, 92.
• 5. APC, ix. 36; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser 3), viii. 125-7; PCC 28 Darcy; C142/197/65.