Robert Strelley Explained

Robert Strelley (by 1518 – 23 January 1554), of Great Bowden, Leicestershire, was an English politician, soldier, and courtier to Mary I of England.^[1] He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Leicestershire in October 1553.^[2]

Strelley fought with Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk at the siege of Montreuil in 1544, and in Scotland, probably at the battle of Pinkie. He was with Mary I at Kenninghall, where Mary made him a member of her Privy Council,^[3] and at Framlingham Castle in July 1553, where she mustered an army of supporters. Robert Wingfield listed him, as a man "whose family was not obscure", in a catalogue of Mary's supporters.^{[4] [5] [6]}

Robert Strelley served as a Chamberlain of the Exchequer from 1553 until his death the following year.^[7] In 1548, he married Frideswide Knight, a descendant of Thomas de la Haye of Spaldington, Yorkshire, but left no children.^[8] Edward VI gave the couple property and a fee-farm rent income from the lands of Egglestone Abbey.^[9]

Strelley came from an extended family, and was a son either of Sir Nicholas Strelley of Linby or Sir Nicholas Strelley of Strelley.^[10] His will mentions a brother, also called Robert Strelley, who was a goldsmith in London, and two more brothers, John Strelley of London and Robert Strelley of Tirlington, a sister Joan Porter, a nephew William Saville, and a niece Elizabeth Stubbs. His property passed initially to his wife, Frideswide Strelley, and then by entail to the various relations named in the will.^[11]

Notes and References

1. John Harwood Hill, History of Market Harborough (Leicester, 1875), p. 5.
2. Web site: STRELLEY, Robert (by 1518-54), of Great Bowden, Leics. - History of Parliament Online. www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
3. Dale Hoak, 'Mary I's Privy Council', Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 96, 114.
4. George W. Marshall, Genealogist, 4 (London, 1880), p. 193, citation of grant or augmentation of arms to Robert Strelley.
5. [Anna Whitelock]
6. Anna Whitelock & Diarmaid MacCulloch, 'Princess Mary's Household and the Succession Crisis, July 1553', The Historical Journal, 50:2 (June 2007), p. 277: Diarmaid MacCulloch, 'Vita Mariae Reginae of Robert Wingfield', Camden Miscellany, XXVIII (London, 1987), pp. 204, 252: Dale Hoak, 'Mary I's Privy Council', Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 96.
7. [David Loades]
8. Sarah Duncan, 'Frideswide Knight Strelley', in Carole Levin, Anna Riehl Bertolet, Jo Eldridge Carney, A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen (Routledge, 2017), p. 483.
9. Christpher Clarkson, The History of Richmond, in the County of York (Richmond, 1814), p. 209: Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward VI, 1548–1549 (London, 1924), p. 127.
10. House of Commons, 1509-1558, p. 398.
11. Charles Kerry, 'Notes to the Pedigree of the Strelleys', Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, XIV (January 1892), pp. 85–87