STAVERTON (STAFFERTON), Christopher (by 1517-57 or later), of Aldenham, Herts. and London.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1517, 2nd s. of Ralph Staverton of Stroud Hall, Bray, Berks. by Agnes, da. of William Rogers of Bradford, Wilts. educ. G. Inn, adm. 1531.1

Offices Held

Biography

Staverton, a younger son in a well connected Berkshire family, probably owed his return for Portsmouth to his relationship to William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton. The relationship, arising out of the marriage of John Norris to a Staverton, was a distant one but the sale in 1554 by Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, of the Hampshire manor of Eversley, part of his inheritance from Southampton, to Staverton’s nephew suggests that it was none the less acknowledged and effective. Bray is not far from Windsor, where Southampton held office, and Staverton’s elder brother Richard was a member of the royal household, of which until 1539 Southampton had been treasurer. Richard Staverton, moreover, was closely associated with Sir Richard Weston (although he does not seem to have been, as claimed in the Staverton pedigrees, Weston’s son-in-law), a friend of Southampton and steward of Bray and Cookham until his death in 1541. Staverton was also related through his mother to Sir Thomas Lisle, the junior knight for Hampshire in 1542.2

In June 1546 a lease to William Honing of Gobions in North Mimms, Hertfordshire, described the manor as then in the tenure of Christopher Staverton, whose cousin Richard Staverton had been Sir Thomas More’s brother-in-law, and by 1550 Staverton was resident at Aldenham, Hertfordshire. Nothing has been found to suggest that he was otherwise a member of the More circle, several of whom sat in Marian Parliaments, nor is there any indication of his religious sympathies although two of his great-nephews were to be seminary priests. In December 1557 land in Romney Marsh held by Christopher Staverton of London, gentleman, was granted to Sir Richard Sackville. No further reference has been found to Staverton.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from education. Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 130-1; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 68-70.
  • 2. VCH Berks. iii. 106; VCH Hants, iv. 34; LP Hen. VIII, x, xi, xvi, xvii; PCC 13 Spert, 19 Populwell.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xxi; CP40/1139, rot. de attorn. 24v; G. Anstruther, Seminary Priests, i. 330; CPR, 1557-8, p. 139.