FORTESCUE, Dudley (d.1604), of Faulkbourne, Essex.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

s. of Henry Fortescue by his 2nd w. m. (1) Mary, da. of Robert Crane of Chilton, Suff., wid. of Robert Strongman, s.p.; (2) Martha, da. of Thomas Turner of Great Thurlow, Suff. by Ann, da. of Sir Clement Heigham, s.p.1

Offices Held

Biography

Of a family long settled at Faulkbourne, Fortescue also held lands near Hockley, Rochford, Witham, and Purleigh. His father, the duchy of Lancaster official, had sat for Sudbury in Elizabeth’s first Parliament, and Fortescue also had connexions in Suffolk, through his mother, with the Waldegraves, and by his own marriages. He was executor to the will of his first wife’s father Robert Crane, for whom he appeared before the Privy Council in 1591, and he was in (disputed) possession of Chilton in 1604. His second wife’s family, the Heighams, were also influential in Suffolk. It was probably through these local connexions rather than through any distant relationship to his fellow-Member, William Fortescue of Buckinghamshire, or the latter’s influential father Sir John Fortescue I, that Dudley Fortescue secured his return to Parliament. On his election in September 1593, 10s. was spent by the borough on a ‘banquet at the Crown’ for him; and in February of the following year he was given the freedom of the borough.2

Fortescue died in 1604, leaving no direct heir.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.H.

Notes

  • 1. Vis. Suff. ed. Metcalfe, 170; Morant, Essex, ii. 117.
  • 2. APC, xxi. 64, 78; W. A. Copinger, Suff. Recs. and Mss, ii. 57, 59; Cal. Sudbury Muns. ed. Stokes and Redstone, 27.
  • 3. C142/284/77, 286/188.