Family and Education

b. c.1539, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Wroth and bro. of John and Richard. educ. St. John’s Camb. ‘impubes’ 1552; G. Inn 1559. m. Susan, da. and h. of John Stonard of Loughton, 4s. inc. Robert II. suc. fa. 1573, fa.-in-law 1579. Kntd. 1597.2

Offices Held

J.p. Mdx. from c.1573, j.p.q. Mdx. and Essex from c.1579; commr. sewers for river Lea Oct. 1587; sheriff, Essex 1587-8; commr. musters, Essex by 1587, Mdx. by 1588; riding forester of Waltham forest 1597, walker 1603.3

Biography

Wroth accompanied his father into exile in 1554 and remained abroad, in Italy and Germany, until the accession of Elizabeth. He missed her first Parliament but in 1563 he was returned for St. Albans, where Sir Nicholas Bacon^† was high steward. His next seat, in 1571, was for Bossiney, where the 2nd Earl of Bedford, another zealous protestant, exercised influence: Wroth’s brother Thomas was a servant of Bedford. By 1572 Wroth had sufficient standing in Middlesex to gain a county seat, which he held without a break until his death.

Like other significant parliamentary figures, Wroth began slowly. His early committee work in Parliament was chiefly concerned with local matters: no activity in 1563; a bill for the river Lea (26 May 1571), Middlesex jurors (19, 22 May 1572, 24 Feb. 1576), justices of the Queen’s forests and parks (8 Mar. 1576), actions upon the case to be brought in proper counties (26 Jan. 1581), the preservation of woods (28 Jan. 1581), the paving of Aldgate Street (9 Feb. 1581), pheasants and partridges (18 Feb. 1581, 26 Mar. 1585), hue and cry (4 Feb. 1585), the maintenance of highways and bridges (24 Feb. 1585) and London apprentices (2 Mar., committed to him 23 Mar. 1585). However, one of his first recorded committees (28 May 1571) concerned the subject for which he was to be remembered, namely, the liberties and privileges of the House. Wroth’s first recorded intervention in debate concerned the payment of Middlesex jurors (22 May 1572). As his parliamentary experience increased, so the range of topics covered by his committee work broadened. He was appointed to committees concerning a private bill for Sir Thomas Gresham (20 Feb. 1581), mariners and navigation (17 Mar. 1581), procedure (16 Dec. 1584, 22 Mar. 1585, 8 Mar. 1587), Plymouth harbour (21 Dec. 1584, committed to him 18 Feb. 1585), latitats of the peace in the Queen’s bench (5 Mar. 1585), privilege (4 Nov. 1586), Mary Queen of Scots (4 Nov. 1586), a case of privilege brought by Arthur Hall against the borough of Grantham (2 Dec. 1586), theft of horses and cattle (10 Mar. 1587), fraudulent conveyances (14 Mar. 1587), continuation of statutes (17 Mar. 1587) and extortion by sheriffs (17 Mar. 1587).

Wroth was also named to committees concerning the subsidy on 25 Jan. 1581, 24 Feb. 1585 and 22 Feb. 1587. He was an active supporter of an additional payment to be made towards maintaining the English forces in the Netherlands in 1587, as is clear from the summary report of his speech in the House on 24 Feb.:

Many things well spoken of dangers. Nothing more profitable than to take the Low Countries. If Dunkirk have done us so much harm, what would all the rest do, as Flushing, Brill and Holland etc.? To take the sovereignty of it ... Good to give a large subsidy and that the wills of the good subjects may be tried. That for his own part he would give a hundred pounds by year towards the maintenance of it, these wars.

In the committee that afternoon, Wroth reiterated his view: ‘His meaning was that [the Queen] should accept [the] sovereignty’. Again in the committee which met on 6 Mar. he said ‘that to take the sovereignty he offered a hundred pounds, and that notwithstanding her Majesty would not take the sovereignty, yet he would mend his subsidy’. He continued to make the suggestion that ‘by law’, men rated at ‘£10 upwards, [should] give 2s. in the pound more’ towards the costs in the Netherlands. Not surprisingly, he was one of 20 MPs from the Commons summoned to receive the Queen’s thanks for the subsidy on 18 Mar. 1587.

Suitably enough for a future defender of the liberties and privileges of the House, Wroth was named to the first standing committee on privilege ever appointed by the House of Commons on 7 Feb. 1589, and in this connexion he was considering the Puleston privilege case on 12 Feb. 1589. He was put in charge of three bills during this Parliament, concerning benefit of clergy (21 Feb.), Dover pier (10 Mar.) and fish (13 Mar.). On 25 Feb. Wroth moved

for better attendance to be continued and used by the Members of the House ... that none after the House is set do depart before the rising of the same ... unless he do first ask leave of Mr. Speaker, upon pain that everyone hereafter doing the contrary do pay for every time six pence to the use of the poor.

His motion was immediately ‘assented unto by the whole House’. Wroth’s other committee work in this Parliament concerned the subsidy (11 Feb.), disorders in purveyors (15, 27 Feb., 18 Mar.), writs of covenant (25 Feb.), captains and soldiers (26 Feb.), gauging of casks (4 Mar.), hue and cry (17 Mar.), continuation of statutes (20 Mar.), husbandry and tillage (25 Mar.) and a declaration of war with Spain (29 Mar.).4

Wroth’s first concern at the beginning of the 1593 Parliament was that a standing committee should be appointed to watch over both privileges and returns (26 Feb.). On three major issues during this Parliament, Wroth spoke out against arbitrary government action. In particular he reminded the House that it was under no obligation to agree to the government device of a conference with the Lords. On 1 Mar. the Lords informed a Commons committee of which Wroth was a member (appointed 26 Feb.), that they would not accept the grant of two subsidies proposed by the Commons, but would insist upon three. They requested a conference on the matter, and were supported in this by Sir Robert Cecil in his report to the Commons on 2 Mar. Francis Bacon, amongst others, took exception to the Lords dictating the terms of the subsidy, and opposed a conference. The question was still being debated the following morning (3 Mar.), when Cecil reiterated his opinion that there should be a conference with the Lords. This time the opposition was led by Wroth, who maintained that it ‘would be much prejudicial to the ancient liberties and privileges of this House and the authority of the same’. His side carried the day, and he was one of a delegation appointed to convey the Commons’ refusal to the Lords.

On 26 Feb. 1593, the first full day of the Parliament’s business, James Morice spoke of the abuses in the court of high commission, in particular the ex officio oath, and handed the Speaker two bills to be read. These bills were bound to incur official displeasure, being a direct attack on Whitgift’s ecclesiastical hierarchy, and Queen and government had already shown themselves in no mood to brook criticism by imprisoning Peter Wentworth, MP for Northampton, a few days before the Parliament began. There was heated debate in the House that day as to whether Morice’s bills should be read, but the Speaker asked for time to peruse them and wished to keep them until the next day, protesting ‘I will be faithful and will keep it with all secrecy’. Significantly, the House felt impelled to clarify whether the bills were to be given to the Speaker alone, or to the Privy Councillors and the Speaker, and ‘upon a motion made by Mr. Wroth, it was agreed the Speaker only should keep it’.

James Morice was sequestered from the House a few days later and by 10 Mar. a total of seven MPs had been either imprisoned or banned from the House. That day Wroth moved that they might be readmitted

in respect that some countries might complain of the tax of these many subsidies, their knights and burgesses never consenting unto them nor being present at the grant; and because an instrument, taking away some of its strings, cannot give its pleasant sound.

Wroth’s motion was immediately opposed by the Privy Councillors present who suggested that ‘for us to press her Majesty with this suit we should but hinder them whose good we seek’. They recommended leaving the matter to the Queen’s ‘gracious disposition’. Despite the unprecedented gravity of this affront to the liberties of MPs, Wroth received no backing from the rest of the House. As the anonymous diarist put it: ‘Hereupon the motion ceased from further speech’.

In the course of this Parliament, the government revived the draconian 1581 anti-Catholic bill, but during the debate on its second reading (28 Feb.) it was objected that the proposed legislation could hit puritans as hard as Catholics. Wroth’s contribution to the debate was as usual on the side of moderation.

The law hath no proviso for leases, no remedy is appointed, as by the distress or otherwise, how the guardian is to come by the money appointed to him for the custody of the child of a recusant ... And the recusant not to forfeit ten pound a month for the keeping of his wife; otherwise for keeping of servants’ recusants.

This first bill came to nothing, but the government persisted and before long a new anti-recusant bill was before the Commons. Like the first it was ostensibly directed against the Catholics, but the anonymous diarist called it ‘the bill of recusants meant for Brownists’, and commented ‘the proceeding of this bill was in a strange course, and I think extraordinary, therefore I will note it’. From his description of events the government attempted to force the bill through the Commons with as little debate as possible. ‘Upon Saturday the bill was read the first time. Upon Monday (2 Apr.) very late in the day and after 11 of the clock, the bill was offered to be read.’ Wroth, mindful of the danger to the puritans, saw through this manoeuvre and objected.

Mr. Wroth said, the day was spent, it was a bill of great importance and would require much speaking to, and therefore wished to have it deferred till better leisure and longer time might be spent in it.

His motion produced an outright confrontation:

The bill was pressed much to be read, many of the House rose and would not hear it read. The Privy Council and many others sat. So a question was made, if it should be read, and it was denied by a No.

When the bill, which had originated in the Lords, eventually reached committee stage in the Commons, it was torn to pieces there. The government, reluctant to let the bill die in the Commons, proposed a conference of the two Houses to discuss the bill, but Wroth argued against a conference, by means of a precedent, and stood by the Commons’ right to dash a bill, even if it proceeded from the Lords.

A precedent was shown by Mr. Wroth that the last Parliament the Lords sent down a bill which being disliked in our House, they demanded for a conference with us. But this House utterly disliking of the bill would not agree thereunto, but, for answer to the Lords, made a collection of all their objections against the bill and sent it up by the hands of two knights, who had only authority to deliver those objections drawn against it and not to reply with any defence for the reason of our so doing.

However, in the face of great pressure from the government, the House failed to avail themselves of Wroth’s precedent and agreed to a conference with the Lords.

Several bills were committed to Wroth during this Parliament, among them one against the stealing of oxen. He was put in charge of this bill on 5 Mar. 1593 and reported it on 10 Mar., but the anonymous diarist reports that on 25 Mar. the bill ‘being put to the question for engrossing, was dashed, to Mr. Wroth’s grief’. Other bills committed to him in 1593 were bills on fish (5 Mar.), the assize of bread (5 Mar., reported by him 15 Mar.), casks (24 Mar., reported 31 Mar.), the continuation of statutes (28 Mar., 4 Apr.), Colchester harbour (29 Mar.), brewers (3 Apr., reported 4 Apr.) and the restraint of enclosures in or near the cities of London and Westminster (6 Apr.). Other 1593 committees concerned cloth (9 Mar.), the deprivation of Bishop Bonner (9 Mar.), jurors (10 Mar.), the poor (12 Mar.), three private bills (16 Mar., 28 Mar.), alien retailers (23 Mar.), the assize of fuel (26 Mar.), weirs (18 Mar.), spinners and weavers (3 Apr.), the assize of timber (5 Apr.), cordage (6 Apr.) and coopers (7 Apr.).

On Saturday 31 Mar. 1593 a proviso concerning the ‘punishing of bastard getters’ was discussed in the House during the debate on the bill for continuation of statutes. The proviso gave j.p.s the power to have offenders whipped, but this proviso was ‘misliked’ for the following reasons:

... first the punishment thought slavish and not to be inflicted upon a liberal man. Secondly the malice of a justice of peace feared, that upon ill-will might give this correction to one not offending, if he were accused by a whore. Thirdly, the case might chance upon gentlemen, or men of quality, whom it were not fit to put to such a shame.

There was such argument over the proviso that a committee was appointed there and then to ‘go up presently to the chamber and agree how to have it’, but the committee could not come to a decision either. At this point it was suggested—apparently by Wroth—that the statute should stand as it was ‘without addition or alteration’. The anonymous diarist commented: ‘Mr. Wroth showed great cunning to reduce it to this, otherwise I fear the Act would have passed shamefully’. Wroth’s motion carried the day:

... two questions were made. First as many as would have the new proviso, added to the new bill, put out, say aye, and it was affirmed, aye ... the second question, as many as will have the old law to be explained, say, aye, as many as will not have it explained, say, no. The House was divided upon this question, but we of the no got it 28 voices.5

Wroth’s committee work in the 1597 Parliament was extensive, but, apart from his reporting various bills, only one intervention has been recorded in his name (date unknown) concerning a pardon for those who had alienated their capital lands. A good number of bills were committed to him during this Parliament. His committees covered the following topics: privileges and returns (5 Nov.); maltsters (delivered to him 9 Nov., reported by him 12 Nov.); Langport Eastover (10 Nov.); monopolies (10 Nov.); continuation of statutes (committed to him 11 Nov.); reformation of abuses in marriage licences (14 Nov.); horse stealing (16 Nov.); forestallers (16 Nov.); Warwick hospital (18 Nov.); the relief of the poor and the punishment of rogues (5, 19 Nov., 11 bills on the subject committed to him 22 Nov., one bill committed to him 24 Nov., one bill committed to him 19 Dec., and 12 on 27 Jan. 1598); Arthur Hatch (22 Nov.); a charter for Great Yarmouth (23 Nov.); bills for Sir John Spencer and Robert Cotton (committed to him, 25 Nov.); draining Norfolk fens (committed to him, 25 Nov.); mariners and navigation (16 Nov.); Staines bridge (1 Dec.); lessees and patentees (3, 20 Dec.), cloth (8 Dec.); a bridge over the river Wye (12 Dec.); tillage (13 Dec.); malt (12 Jan. 1598); the increase of people for the defence of the realm (12 Jan.); charitable uses (14 Jan.); double payment of debts (14 Jan.); the bishopric of Norwich (16 Jan.); benefit of clergy (18 Jan.) and wine casks (3 Feb.).6

By 1601 Wroth was one of the most experienced Members of the House of Commons. As he himself said (2 Dec. 1601): ‘I have been of this House these 40 years’ (actually 38). Nevertheless he was as active as ever, sitting on over 30 committees and speaking on most of the important issues of the session. One of his most notable contributions to the 1601 debates concerned monopolies. On 20 Nov. ‘he wished a commitment in which a course might be devised how her Majesty might know our special griefs’. The following day when government spokesmen were attempting to explain away their inaction on monopolies, Wroth would have none of their excuses:

I would but note, Mr. Solicitor, that you were charged to take care in Hilary term last. Why not before? There was time enough ever since the last Parliament. I speak it, and I speak it boldly: these patentees are worse than ever they were. And I have heard a gentleman affirm in this House, that there is a clause of reversion in these patents. If so, what needed this stir by quo warranto and I know not what? when it is but to send for the patents and cause a redelivery.

There have been divers patents granted since the last Parliament. These are now in being, viz. the patents for currants, iron, powder, cards, horns, ox shin-bones, train oil, cloth, ashes, bottles, glasses, bags, gloves, aniseed, vinegar, sea-coal, steel, aqua-vitae, brushes, pots, salt, saltpetre, lead, oil, leather, callamint stone, oil of blubber, smoked pilchards, and divers others.

This list prompted Mr. Hakewill’s remark, ‘is not bread there? ... No, but if order be not taken for these, bread will be there before the next Parliament.’

A considerable number of bills going through the 1601 Parliament were designed to extend the powers of j.p.s, a policy which met with outspoken opposition from Edward Glascock, who thought that this would increase the already prevalent corruption among magistrates. Wroth and he clashed on this subject during debates on the bills concerning blasphemous swearing and church attendance. On 6 Nov. Wroth had been added to a committee considering the bill for the better keeping of the Sabbath, but that bill had been rejected, and on 13 Nov. he introduced a new bill on the subject

the effect whereof is, for the better gathering of one shilling for every absence ... and the statute is limited to endure the Queen’s reign (which was greatly whispered at, and observed in the House).

Wroth was put in charge of a committee on the bill (18 Nov.), but on 20 Nov. it was defeated by 140 votes to 137. However, another puritan, Sir Francis Hastings, determined to get legislation through on this point, introduced his own bill on 27 Nov., which was given its second reading on 2 Dec. As it happened, Glascock had delivered his most stinging attack on j.p.s the day before (1 Dec.), and Wroth, a member of the Middlesex bench for 28 years, availed himself of the debate on church attendance to reply:

I think the office of a justice of the peace is too good for him that exclaims against it, and I think he will never have the honour to have it. It were good ... that he were enjoined to tell who they were he spoke so meanly of: otherwise honest men will be loth to serve the Queen, when they shall be slandered without proof.

He wished Glascock to answer for his speech before the bar of the House, but his motion was rejected. There was much opposition to Hastings’ bill on 12 Dec., during the debates on its third reading, but Wroth (a member of the committee appointed 2 Dec.), had a compromise proviso ‘ready engrossed’ which he hoped might save the bill.

... that if any man came eight times a year to the church and said the usual divine service twice every Sunday and holy day in his house with his whole family, that should be sufficient dispensation.

However, his proviso was ‘utterly misliked’ by the House,

... yet divers which were desirous to overthrow the bill, went forth with the proviso because they would have it joined with the bill to overthrow it.

In the event, despite the joint efforts of Wroth and Hastings, the bill was defeated, 106-105.

On 10 Dec. Wroth himself spoke against extending the functions of j.p.s, but for quite different reasons from those of Glascock. The bill under discussion concerned alehouses, and one of the provisions vested the granting of licences in the local j.p.s. Wroth’s objection was the following:

... what pain and charge this will be to a poor man, to go with some of his neighbours 20 or 30 miles for a licence: and what a monstrous trouble to all the justices, I refer it to your considerations.

In the previous Parliament Wroth had played a vital part in the deliberations leading to the Acts for the relief of the poor and for the punishment of rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars. On 5 Nov. 1601 he moved for a committee ‘to amend the statute for the relief of the poor and building of houses of correction made the last Parliament’. Nearly a month later (4 Dec.), Wroth introduced a new bill which was read twice and committed, and on 14 Dec. he reported on the committee’s amendments and on a proviso which had been added, and the bill was ordered to be engrossed.

He made two contributions to the debates on the subsidy, both characteristic. On 7 Nov. he

moved that £4 lands might pay full subsidy, and £6 goods might pay full subsidy unto her Majesty.

However, notwithstanding his readiness to pay a good subsidy, he was always careful of the privileges of the House. On 9 Nov. he moved that the fourth and exceptional subsidy granted by the House

might be drawn in a bill by itself, to which should be annexed a preamble of the great necessity, the willingness of the subject and that it might be no precedent.

This motion, however, ‘could not be yielded unto’. Several times in this Parliament he drew the attention of MPs to points of procedure (8, 10 Dec.) and on one occasion (1 Dec.) lectured the Speaker himself:

Mr. Speaker, the use hath been that the general bills should be first read and then the private, and they that carry them to give some brief commendations of them.

Wroth’s committee work during this Parliament concerned the following subjects: privileges and returns (31 Oct.), private bills (2, 14, 23, 28 Nov., 3 Dec.), horses (3 Nov.), the suppression of alehouses (5 Nov.), the better setting of watches (7 Nov.), reform of the court of Exchequer (9, 25 Nov.), blasphemous swearing (10 Nov.), the abbreviation of Michaelmas term (11 Nov.), monopolies (17 Nov.), St. Bartholomew’s hospital (17 Nov.), clothworkers (18 Nov.), abuses in painting (24 Nov.), draining the fens (1 Dec., reported by him 4 Dec.), Kentish Town high street (committed to him, 2 Dec.), the clerk of the market (2 Dec.), Dunkirk pirates (3 Dec.), the regulation of local government in London (4 Dec.), the assize of fuel (7 Dec.), the Belgrave privilege case (8 Dec.), increase of ships (9 Dec.), and the continuation of statutes (10 Dec.). Wroth spoke on a privilege case on 7 Nov., and also in the debate on the transport of iron ordnance (10 Dec.) when he informed the House that

a ship is now upon the river ready to go away, laden with thirty-six pieces of ordnance.

In his last three Elizabethan Parliaments (1593, 1597, 1601), Wroth was appointed to make a collection for the poor. In addition to the committees mentioned above, to which he was named, Wroth might also have attended the following committees by virtue of his position as knight of the shire for Middlesex: a legal committee (9 Mar. 1593), enclosures (5 Nov. 1597), armour and weapons (8 Nov.), penal laws (8 Nov.), the subsidy (15 Nov.), the main business committee (3 Nov. 1601), monopolies (23 Nov.) and feltmakers (26 Nov.).7

The details of Wroth’s work in the 1604 Parliament lie outside the scope of this biography but it is appropriate to notice that it was he who made the first speech in James’s first House of Commons, when he moved for immediate discussion of wardship as a ‘burden and servitude’ to the King’s subjects; suggested consideration of the abuses of purveyance and monopolies; and demanded discussion of dispensations in penal statutes. He was a puritan, though not an extremist of the mould of Wentworth or James Morice; he left the rhetoric to others. He was as sensitive to abuses in the state as to the dangers of recusancy, but his interventions were practical rather than spectacular, and he remained in good odour with the government. His patriotic protestantism made him an obvious choice as a commissioner in Elizabethan and Jacobean treason cases, and he served in that capacity at the trials of William Parry, Babington and Guy Fawkes. He was a juryman at the trial of (Sir) Walter Ralegh. He continued to be active in his later years, in both the military and civil aspects of local government. In 1588 he was one of three men in charge of the Middlesex trained bands, and in the years following the defeat of the Armada he continued to be responsible for mustering the militia both there and in Essex.

As a j.p. in these counties, Wroth sometimes received instructions on subjects with which he had become familiar in the Commons, such as securing the peace from the depredations of discharged soldiers, London apprentices, and controlling new building in London, the growth of which was alarming the Privy Council. The despairing tone of an official letter to him of 23 Feb. 1596 on this subject suggests that the government realised the extent of the difficulties.8

Wroth’s career in Parliament and local government bears witness to the devotion with which he served the state; his contemporaries believed he served God with equal fervour. Roger Morice thought him

a most zealous and excellent person; a great suppressor of vice, and a vigorous promoter of further reformation in the Church [and] of practical godliness,

and he was able to secure the restoration of the puritan Richard Rogers to his priestly functions after he had been suspended by Whitgift.9

Wroth was a friend of Michael Hickes, whom he frequently entertained at Loughton from 1597. Wroth always pressed ‘Saint Michael’ to bring as many friends and relatives as possible, tempting them with such delicacies as ‘very good oysters’. The merry company spent much time at outdoor sports, particularly bowls and hunting.10

Wroth died 27 Jan. 1606 and was buried at Enfield the following day. He left estates in five counties, his possessions in the Roding valley alone extended over an unbroken length of three miles. Property in Essex and Wiltshire and £700 went to each of Wroth’s three younger sons. The rest of the lands went to the heir and executor, Robert. Money was to be distributed among the poor of Enfield and of three Essex parishes.11

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Authors: A.G.R.S. / M.A.P.

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. C142/171/97; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 132.
• 3. Egerton 2345; SP12/145; Lansd. 53, f. 168; 83, f. 216; APC, xv. 11; xvi. 144; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 10.
• 4. D’Ewes, 189, 212, 213, 250, 255, 288, 289, 294, 299, 307, 340, 345, 346, 353, 355, 356, 362, 363, 371, 372, 373, 393, 394, 407, 409, 413, 414, 415, 416, 429, 431, 432, 433, 437, 439, 440, 442, 444, 446, 448, 449, 450, 453, 454; CJ, i. 93, 96, 97, 108, 112, 120, 124, 128, 135; Townshend, Hist. Colls. 26, 27, 28; Trinity, Dublin, Thos. Cromwell’s jnl. f. 36; Harl. 7188, anon. jnl. ff. 90-101; Lansd. 43, anon. jnl. f. 173.
• 5. D’Ewes, 471, 474, 476, 477, 481, 485, 486, 487, 488, 495, 496, 497, 499, 501, 502, 507, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 516, 518, 519; Cott. Titus F. ii. anon. jnl. ff. 33, 59, 80, 81, 91, 92; Townshend, 61, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77.
• 6. D’Ewes, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 562, 563, 564, 566, 569, 571, 572, 575, 578, 579, 580, 581, 582, 589, 592; Bull. IHR, xii. 20, 22; Townshend, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 117, 119.
• 7. D’Ewes, 622, 624, 626, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633, 635, 637, 641, 642, 646, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 654, 658, 660, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 673, 674, 676, 677, 683, 685, 687; Townshend, 190, 196, 198, 203, 210, 235, 236, 238, 270, 276, 279, 284, 286, 296, 304, 305, 307, 333.
• 8. CJ, i. 150-1; DNB; VCH Mdx. ii. 35; APC, xvi. 144, 202, 219; xviii. 55-6; xix. 189, 350; xx. 63-5, 218-19, 326-7; xxi. 367-8; xxiv. 159-60; xxv. 22, 42-3, 230-1, 437-9; xxvi. 386; xxvii. 313-14; xxviii. 359; xxix. 140-2; xxx. 41, 156; CSP Dom. 1591-4, p. 200.
• 9. Essex Arch. Soc. Trans. n.s. viii. 151; Two Eliz. Puritan Diaries, ed. Knappen, 29.
• 10. Lansd. 86, f. 79; 87, ff. 218, 220; 88, ff. 59, 75, 89, 187; 89, f. 36.
• 11. DNB; C142/294/87, 171/97; Essex. Arch. Soc. Trans. n.s. viii. 148, 150; VCH Essex, iv. 30, 77, 118-19; PRO Index 6800; Morant, Essex, i. 304; PCC 9 Stafford.