Family and Education

b. 1559, s. of Nicholas Smyth of London. educ. St. Paul’s; Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1575; I. Temple 1580. m. by Aug. 1587, Katherine, da. of William Gardiner of Bermondsey, wid. of John Stephen of Stepkyn, 4s.

Offices Held

Receiver of the revenue in the Exchequer for Mdx., Herts., Essex and London 1595-at least 1606.

Biography

Son of the Nicholas Smyth whose accounts as receiver under Edward VI and Mary appear in the Lansdowne manuscripts, Smyth received £50 p.a. and 1% of his receipts when he was appointed receiver in his turn. He presumably obtained the appointment through Michael Hickes or the Cecils. Both his Elizabethan parliamentary seats were obtained through Cecil influence.

Smyth’s relations with his notorious father-in-law were not always amicable, but there was apparently no permanent breach, for on Gardiner’s death in 1597, Smyth was executor of his will. He died on 4 Nov. 1622.

Vis. London (Harl. Soc. i), 87; CSP Dom.1595-7, p. 10; 1603-10, pp. 326, 345; Lansd. 68, f. 175; 106, f. 1; 118, ff. 56, 60; APC, xv. 190; PCC 1 Cobham; Sales of Wards (Som. Rec. Soc. lxvii), 201.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Irene Cassidy

Notes