Family and Education

1st s. of John Hanmer of Hanmer by Jane, da. of Sir John Salusbury^† of Lleweni, Denb. m. (1) Anne Talbot, 1da.; (2) Katherine, da. of Thomas Mostyn of Mostyn, 3s. 2da. Kntd. 1603; suc. fa. 1604.1

Offices Held

J.p. Flints. from c.1591, sheriff 1606 (?Feb.-Nov.); member, council in the marches of Wales 1617.2

Biography

Like most Flintshire houses which rose to county eminence, the Hanmers were under the patronage of the Stanleys: in 1585, Thomas Hanmer went in the train of the 4th Earl of Derby on his mission to France to invest Henri III with the Garter. He was also linked by marriage with other leading Flintshire families, especially the Mostyns and Pulestons. To the Flintshire lands inherited from his father, Hanmer added Denbighshire properties acquired through his mother. He successfully vindicated his title to the maternal property against other members of the Salusbury family in 1599. In 1600 he was associated with his father in an attempt to establish (allegedly by violence) a claim to lands in Overton and Ellesmere, abutting on his patrimony in Maelor Saesneg. He was at odds with a branch of his own family over the tithes of Hanmer itself, as well as over possession of lands widely scattered through Flintshire, claimed by the Hanmers of The Fenns under a grant of 1562. In this latter quarrel, he had the support of the Mostyns. His name is not mentioned in the extant parliamentary journals, but as knight for Flintshire in 1593 he may have attended the subsidy committee (26 Feb.) and a legal committee (9 Mar.).3

Hanmer’s will, dated 11 Apr. 1619, and proved 21 June 1620, named his eldest son John executor and principal heir, and made bequests to a large number of relatives and servants. Hanmer’s coach—a rare luxury among North Wales families at that time—was left to his wife. A debt of £100 due to him from one Arthur Bagnall was transferred to a servant at Mold, with an injunction to his heir not to allow ‘his alliance with the said Mr. Bagnall’ to deflect him from this duty. His funeral, Hanmer stressed, should be private and without ‘vain solemnity’. The overseers of the will were Sir Roger Mostyn, Sir Thomas Brereton, John Jeffreys, George Puleston, and Hugh Bromley.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

• 1. J. Hanmer, Par. and Fam. of Hanmer , 70-1; L. N. V. L. Mostyn and T. A. Glenn, Mostyns of Mostyn , 107.
• 2. Cal. Wynn Pprs. p. 130.
• 3. Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 214; HMC Kenyon, 428; NLW, Deeds and Documents, i. 324-5; iii. 42; Exchequer, ed. E. G. Jones (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law. ser. iv), 194-5, 204; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (same ser. xiii), 400-2; Exchequer Jas. I, ed. T. I. J. Jones (same ser. xv), 201; D’Ewes, 474, 496.
• 4. PCC 67 Soame; Flints. Hist. Soc. Pub. xiv. 31.