Family and Education

b. by 1523, s. of one Partridge by Anne. m. lic. 21 Nov. 1547, Alice, da. of one Merry (or Goodere) of Hatfield, Herts., wid. of James Nedeham (d. 22 Sept. 1544) of Little Wymondley, Herts.1

Offices Held

?Member, household of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond by 1536; member, household of Prince Edward by 1544; equerry of the stable to Princess Elizabeth by 1547, in the Household by 1550-65 or later.2

Biography

Several gentle families named Partridge are to be found during the 16th century in counties stretching from East Anglia to the west country, but Henry Partridge cannot be placed in any of them. His mother, seemingly a widow by 1544, when she was the lessee of a house in the parish of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, London, had a life annuity from Henry VIII which in 1557 she exchanged for one in survivorship with her son. This acknowledgment, and Partridge’s own record of service, suggest that either he or his father had been the ‘Harry Patriche’ who was a member of the Duke of Richmond’s household. His return with Christopher Sackville to Mary’s last Parliament took place on the day after he had been granted by the crown a lease of Frostendon manor, Suffolk. Neither he nor Sackville had any known link with Heytesbury, but both were colleagues in the Household of Henry Wheeler, a gentleman of the privy chamber who was lord of the manor, and the sheriff who returned them, Sir Walter Hungerford, was a gentleman pensioner. Nothing is known about Partridge’s role in the Commons. In 1565 he was granted the reversion of a lease of lands in Crayford, Kent, and it was as ‘an old servant’ of Elizabeth that 12 years later he complained to the Privy Council of molestation by one John Drake. The Council’s order for an investigation is the last reference found to Partridge.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: R. L. Davids

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first certain reference. CPR, 1557-8, p. 122; Mar. Lic. Fac. Off. (Harl. Soc. xxiv), 11; Vis. Herts. (Harl. Soc. xxii), 16, 77; J. Harvey, Eng. Med. Architects, 189-92; The King’s Works, iii. 406; PCC 21 Pynnyng.
• 2. LP Hen. VIII, xi; E179/69/48;LC2/2/52, 4/20; APC, iii. 158; ix. 281; Lansd. 3(89), f. 198; 156(28), f. 98.
• 3. C219/25/133; LP Hen. VIII, xi, xii, xix; CPR, 1557-8, pp. 122, 141; 1563-6, pp. 339-40; APC, ix. 281.