Family and Education

Yr. s. of Sir Richard Blount of Mapledurham, Oxon. by Elizabeth, da. of Sir Richard Lyster; bro. of Michael. educ. ?Balliol, educ. Oxf., BA 1573. m. Mary, da. of William West, 1st Baron Delaware, 1s. 6da.1

Offices Held

J.p. Suss. from c.1583, q. by 1594.

Biography

Blount was considerably younger than his elder brother Michael, and may have been a minor when he inherited Dedisham under his father’s will in 1564. He may have been the Richard Blount who graduated at Oxford in 1573, but he did not go to an inn of court, and remained a minor country gentleman. In his sole Parliament—to which he was presumably returned through the influence of the West family, neighbours of the Wallops, stewards of Lymington—Blount became involved in the attempt by Peter Wentworth to introduce a bill on the succession question. Possibly he was brought into the group behind this move by his kinsman Oliver St. John II. But, wondering whether their meeting was ‘within the danger of any law’, and having sounded his brother-in-law Thomas West II on the subject, he refused to get further involved. When the conspiracy was eventually revealed, he escaped punishment, merely being bound over not to leave London or Westminster without licence.2

Blount apparently played no further part in national affairs, though he remained active in Sussex and was called a ‘good justice’ in the 1587 reports on the justices of the peace. In 1611 he was granted protection for a year to enable him to sell land to pay his creditors. He still retained Dedisham at his death on 30 Apr. 1628, but his son had predeceased him, and his daughters and coheirs sold the property on their mother’s death in 1630.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Roger Virgoe

Notes

• 1. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 56; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 59; J. Comber, Co. Genealogies, Horsham Centre, 21-2; D. G. C. Elwes and C. J. Robinson, Castles, Mansions and Manors of W. Suss. 204. Some of these pedigrees incorrectly give this Richard a son and make the son the husband of Mary West.
• 2. PCC 25 Stevenson; 26 Tirwhite; Neale, Parlts. ii. 257-61; Harl. 6846, f. 75.
• 3. Lansd. 53, f. 160; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 78; C142/550/85; Elwes and Robinson, 204; PCC 58 Meade.