PORTINGTON, Roger (1544-1605), of Thorpe Salvin, Yorks.

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

b. 1544, 1st s. of Lionel Portington of Barnby-upon-Don by Isabel, da. of Roger Wentworth of South Kirby. educ. M. Temple 1565. m. Mary, da. and h. of Henry Sandford of Thorpe Salvin, s.p. suc. fa. 1559. Kntd. 25 July 1603.

Offices Held

J.p. Yorks. (W. Riding) 1584-7; j.p.q. Notts. 1590-3.

Biography

The Portingtons had held land in the parish of Barnby-upon-Don since the latter half of the fifteenth century, and their main estates still lay in the same parish in the sixteenth century. Portington also owned land in Everton, Nottinghamshire, and burgage land in the parish of Leeds, but he preferred to reside at his wife’s estate of Thorpe Salvin, close to the Nottinghamshire border and to East Retford, for which he was twice returned during the long minority that followed the death of the 4th Earl of Rutland in 1588. In 1597 he served on committees concerned with monopolies (10 Nov.), and horse stealing (16 Nov.).

He made his will 12 Apr. 1605 at Thorpe Salvin, where he was subsequently buried, and it was proved at York 22 May the same year. He believed that he would be saved, but not by any ‘deserving of my own, for that I am conceived and born in sin and sinful do remain during this my miserable pilgrimage’. He multiplied his sins daily and deserved to go to the place of ‘utter darkness’. Nevertheless he committed his sinful soul to God when it left his ‘vile person’. He provided for his sisters Margaret and Elizabeth, two poor gentlewomen, and appointed his wife Mary, who lived until 1635, his sole executrix.

C142/125/56; 289/96; Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ed. Clay, ii. 422; E163/14/8; Lansd. 121, f. 70; Hatfield ms 278; Yorks. Wills, 5/346; D’Ewes, 555, 558; Townshend, Hist. Colls. 106; York prob. reg. 29/606.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes