Family and Education

b. 16 July 1510. 1st s. of Sir William Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont by Joan, da. of Sir Richard Empson of Easton Neston, Northants. educ. ?I. Temple. m. (1) 25 Nov. 1532, Elizabeth (d.1543), da. of (Sir) Anthony Babington of Dethick, Derbys. and Kingston-on-Soar, Notts., 1da., (2) 20 Nov. 1544, Winifred, da. and h. of Sir William Thwaites of ‘Mallowtree’ (?Manningtree), Essex, 2s. inc. Henry^† 2da. suc. fa. 29 Aug. 1533. Kntd. 22 Feb. 1547.2

Offices Held

?Butler, I. Temple 1544.

Commr. musters, Derbys. 1546, relief, Derbys. and Notts. 1550, goods of churches and fraternities, Notts. 1553; j.p. Derbys. 1547, Notts. 1547-d.; recorder, Nottingham 1555-d.; sheriff, Notts. and Derbys. 1558-9.3

Biography

George Pierrepont was born when his mother’s father was awaiting the traitor’s death which came to him a month later. This natal misfortune was to have no discernible effect on his career—unless it contributed to his somewhat belated entry into local administration—but it may help to explain the interest which Cromwell took in Pierrepont’s prospective inheritance from his mother. Pierrepont was by then married to Elizabeth Babington, from nearby Kingston-on-Soar. Her father was prominent at the Inner Temple, where Pierrepont almost certainly had his training, as did others of his family, and with Babington’s other son-in-law John Markham he was charged with supervising Babington’s will of February 1534.4

Pierrepont is known to have sat in only one Parliament, that of 1539, but it is possible that he had come in for Nottingham in 1536: his father-in-law seems to have been re-elected by the town on that occasion, and if Nicholas Quarnby (q.v.) was no longer available Babington might well have secured Pierrepont the vacancy. By 1539, with Babington dead, Pierrepont must have relied on his own standing in the town, where he owned property, and the favour of his fellow-Member Sir John Markham, whose son was married to his sister-in-law Catherine Babington. The evidence of contact between Pierrepont and Cromwell is too slight to warrant any suggestion of ministerial support, although Markham was the local champion of government policy. Nothing is known of Pierrepont’s part in the work of the Commons, but his purchase in July 1540 of local monastic property for over £600 may not have been unconnected with his Membership. His earlier acquisition of Cotgrave manor, adjoining Holme Pierrepont, reflected the Babington connexion, for it had formerly belonged to the order of St. John of Jerusalem, of which his wife’s uncle Sir John Babington had been turcopolier and his father-in-law for a time the prior’s steward. In July 1544 Pierrepont bought more monastic land for upwards of £400.5

It is a matter of surprise that, unless Pierrepont was one of the two knights of the shire for Nottinghamshire in 1542—when the sheriff was Sir Henry Sacheverell, whose daughter was married to Pierrepont’s brother-in-law Thomas Babington—he was not to sit again despite his increasing activity in local administration and his appointment to the recordership of Nottingham during the reign of Mary, when his Catholic sympathies would have further fitted him for Membership. He sued out a pardon in 1553 as of Holme Pierrepont, late of Whaley, and contributed £100 to the loan of 1557. In March 1559, while sheriff, he fell ill but he did not die until 21 Mar. 1564. Only a part of his will is preserved in his inquisition post mortem of the following 24 May: he asked to be buried in Holme Pierrepont church and appointed as executor his friend and neighbour (Sir) Gervase Clifton who later married his widow. His elder son Henry Pierrepont, then aged 17, was to sit in the Parliament of 1572, despite his Catholicism.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

• 1. C60/352, m. 18.
• 2. Date of birth given in HMC 9th Rep. pt. 2, p. 375. Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 50-51 (where Pierrepont’s father is wrongly given as Sir Nicholas), 56; Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, 176; Mill Stephenson, Mon. Brasses, 244; Strype, Eccles. Memorials, ii (2), 328.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, xxi; CPR, 1547-8, pp. 82, 88; 1550-3, pp. 141, 393; 1553, pp. 352, 357, 415; 1553-4, p. 22; 1560-3, p. 440; 1563-6, pp. 25, 38; Nottingham Bor. Recs. iv. 115, 117, 417.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, vii; Cal. I.T. Recs. i. 43, 48, 52, 100, 139, 140, 146; PCC 39 Hogen.
• 5. LP Hen. VIII, xiv, xv, xix; T. Bailey, Annals Notts. (1853) 478.
• 6. Strype, iii(1), 277; iii(2), 78; CPR, 1553-4, p. 422; C142/140/153.