WYRLEY (WORLEY), Mark (c.1500-55 or later), of Lichfield, Staffs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553
Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. c.1500, 2nd s. of Cornelius Wyrley of Handsworth by Clare, da. and h. of John Sheldon of Rowley Regis.1

Offices Held

Bailiff, Lichfield by, 1541, 1548-9; commr. chantries 1553.2

Biography

Mark Wyrley may have had legal training, for when in 1538 his master John Vernon was pricked sheriff of Staffordshire Wyrley was appointed his under sheriff; whether this was overruled by Cromwell’s alternative recommendation is not known. By January 1541, when he brought a charge of riot and assault at Lichfield into the Star Chamber, Wyrley was one of the bailiffs of the city, and on Lichfield’s receipt of its first charter in July 1548 he was named one of the bailiffs until the following year. No other ex-bailiff was to sit for Lichfield until 1584, so that Wyrley must have owed his two elections less to that qualification than to his personal standing and connexions. Nothing has been found to link him with William Lord Paget, who usually wielded patronage there but whose temporary eclipse may have weakened his hold when Wyrley was first elected. The most likely source of support is indicated by Wyrley’s fellow-Member on that occasion: William Fitzherbert’s sister-in-law was the wife of Henry Vernon who was to sit for the city in the spring of 1554. Although as a Member of Mary’s third Parliament Wyrley absented himself before the dissolution and was summoned to appear in the King’s bench, he was not proceeded against further as were Henry Vernon, then one of the knights for Derbyshire, and Matthew Cradock, returned for Stafford. This could mean either that he was not regarded as contumacious or that he did not long survive the initial summons, which is the last reference found to him. His omission from the subsidy list for Lichfield in 1559 gives some colour to the second possibility.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

  • 1. Elder brother died 24 Feb. 1562 aged 63. J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), i. 332; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. iii(2), 154.
  • 2. Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), 1913, pp. 137-8; 1915, p. 403.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xiii; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), 1913, pp. 137-8; CPR, 1547-8, p. 386; KB29/188 rot. 48; E179/177/137, 178/168.