FROWICK, Henry, of St. Albans, Herts.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

educ. Lyon’s Inn; L. Inn 1583, called 1591, pens. 1610. m.

Offices Held

Steward of St. Albans 1590-1617; clerk of the papers of the ct. of record 1590; j.p. St. Albans 1601, Herts. by 1604.

Biography

Frowick’s parentage and early life are obscure. There were Frowicks at St. Albans and in other parts of Hertfordshire in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and possibly Sir Henry Frowick of North Mimms and Weld was this Member’s grandfather. If so, then Frowick was a cousin of Humphrey Coningsby II. Frowick came in for St. Albans in 1601 at a by-election, after Francis Bacon elected to sit for Ipswich.

Frowick took his oath as steward of St. Albans on 17 Feb. 1590. The office of clerk of the papers of the court of record had in January been combined with the stewardship, but on 15 July that year ‘for divers good reasons’, the clerkship was taken away from Frowick, who was allowed three days in which to ‘bring in his papers’. He was again at variance with the corporation in 1596, when there was an attempt by the mayor and his brethren to have him removed from his stewardship for illegally fining people without just cause, his victims including the late mayor and serjeant. The corporation, after rescinding these fines, decided that no future fines were to be imposed without the consent of the mayor, and petitioned the Privy Council for licence to remove Frowick. The Council summoned Frowick to reply to the charges in September 1596, then granted him a month’s respite, because

he had presently many businesses of importance, many courts to keep, and especially for that divers of the accusations depend upon causes that are in need of record, so as the records are to be seen and perused by him for his better answer.

Evidently he retained the office. On another, occasion Frowick’s wife claimed precedence over the mayor’s wife. The Garter king of arms, rejecting the claim, thought Frowick ought to ‘support and maintain’ the town’s ‘ancient customs’ instead of ‘fulfilling the private humour of [his] wife’. In 1598 he was one of the signatories who offered the high stewardship of the borough to the Earl of Essex. It was at his suggestion, in 1606, that the corporation resolved to restrict the number of beer and ale brewers in St. Albans: he nominated a John Davies as one of the six appointed brewers. Frowick resigned the stewardship in November 1617.

A. E. Gibbs, St. Albons Recs. 34, 37, 52, 57, 64; C181/12; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 434; Vis Herts. (Harl. Soc. xxii), 45; N. Salmon, Herts. 83; APC, xxvi. 170, 180, 189; C. H. Ashdown, St. Albans (1893), 298-9.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: G.M.C.

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.