Family and Education

s. of John Wednester of Bromyard.

Offices Held

Servant of the Earl of Essex by 1593; auditor of the prests, foreign accounts and first fruits and tenths prob. by 1594.

Biography

Wednester’s family had probably been in the service of the Devereux family for some time, for their seat lay close to the Devereux estates in Herefordshire, where the 2nd Earl of Essex was born. Wednester received a grant of arms in November 1588. He was returned to Parliament for Reading by the 2nd Earl of Essex, who had been given the nomination of one of the burgesses for the coming Parliament on becoming high steward in January 1593. Wednester’s name does not occur in the journals of the 1593 Parliament, but he may have served on the committee discussing a cloth bill, 15 Mar. That July he took a survey of Essex’s lands but he was soon afterwards residing at Lambeth, within the archbishop of Canterbury’s liberty. Perhaps he had become known to Archbishop Whitgift when that cleric had been bishop of Worcester and vice president in the marches of Wales. At any rate the implication is that by 1594 Wednester had secured the lucrative Exchequer post which he was holding at the time of his death, and to which his successor was appointed on 17 July 1597.

Vis. Herefs. 1569, ed. Weaver, 100; CSP Dom. 1595-7, p. 460; 1598-1601, p. 73; Reading Recs. i. 416; D’Ewes, 501; HMC Bath, v. 256; Genealogist, n.s. xxix. 54; Surr. Arch. Colls. xviii. 194; Lansd. 78, f. 166.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Alan Harding

Notes