POTTS, Nicholas (1546-1623), of Chalgrave, Beds.

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

bap. 20 Apr. 1546, s. of Ralph Potts of Chalgrave. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1560, MA 1565; G. Inn 1567, called by 1577, Autumn reader 1593, bencher 1594. m. Elizabeth, at least 8s. 3da.

Offices Held

J.p. Beds. from c.1591, q. by 1593.

Biography

Few details about Potts have survived. To be returned for Bedford he must presumably have been on good terms with the St. Johns of Bletsoe, but no connexion has been found. Chalgrave, where Potts lived and in 1579 bought the advowson, was some distance from Bedford, but perhaps he did legal work for the borough. The only office in the county which he is known to have held was that of ‘seneschal’ (?steward) to Sir Christopher Hoddesdon, lord of the manor of Leighton Buzzard. He died in Jan. or Feb. 1623, and was buried at Chalgrave, ‘a member of the true ancient apostolic and Catholic church’, hoping to live with ‘all the holy company of angels and archangels and blessed saints of heaven’.1

There is one reference to his activity in the Parliament of 1584, when he spoke on the bill for woods destroyed by iron mills, saying that while Marcus Crassus would never speak after Hortensius, he himself was speaking after many Crassi and Hortensii.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. F. A. Blaydes, Gen. Bed. 71, 73, 363; G. Inn Pens. Bk. i. 28, 100, 101, 104, 106, 193; VCH Beds. iii. 348; PCC 20 Swann.
  • 2. Lansd. 43, anon. jnl, f. 172.