William Coningsby Explained

Sir William Coningsby (– September 1540) was an English Member of Parliament and a Justice of the King's Bench.

Biography

William Coningsby was born by 1483, the son of Sir Humphrey Coningsby of Aldenham, Hertfordshire. He was educated at Eton,and King's College, Cambridge, becoming a Fellow of that college. He was Lent Reader at the Inner Temple in 1519, Treasurer of the same Inn, 1525–6, Reader again in 1526 and one of the Governors of the Inner Temple in 1533–4, and 1538–9. He was one of the Commissioners appointed to hear causes in Chancery in relief of Cardinal Wolsey, in 1529.

Coningsby was Recorder of Lynn from 1524 until his death in September 1540 and appointed a serjeant-at-law and Justice of the King's Bench in 1540. In 1536 he was elected to represent King's Lynn in Parliament.[1]

Coningsby was one of the governors of the Inner Temple in 1533–40, 1536–7, and 1538–9. In 1539-40 he was arraigned in the Starchamber and sent to the Tower for advising Sir John Shelton to make a will upon a secret trust, in contravention of the Statute of Uses (27 Hen. 8. c. 10). He was released after ten days’ confinement, but lost the offices of prothonotary of the king's bench and attorney of the duels of Lancaster, which he then held. On 5 July of the same year he was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the king's bench, and was knighted; but as his name is not included in the writ of summons to parliament in the next year, it would seem that he died or retired soon after his appointment. Coningsby was also recorder of Lynn in Norfolk, in which county his seat, Eaton Hell, near Wallington, was situate.

Family

Coningsby had married Beatrice, the daughter of Thomas Thoresby of Lynn and the widow of William Trew. They had a son, Christopher and four daughters.[2] His daughter Margaret (c. 1522–1598) married Sir Robert Alington, the son of Sir Giles Alington, of Horseheath, High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire.[3] She married secondly Thomas Pledger in Bottisham in that county.

His son Christopher Coningsby (1516[4] – 15 September 1547[5]) of Wallington, [6] Esq. was slain in the first of Edward VI at the battle of Muscleborough in Scotland.[7] His wife was Anne, daughter of Sir Roger Woodhouse of Kimberley. After her husband's death, Anne remarried to Sir Thomas Ragland.[8] By his wife Christopher Coningsby had three daughters and coheiresses. Elizabeth married Francis Gawdy, Esq., Anne married Alexander Balam of Elme in Cambridgeshire, and Amy married Thomas Clarke of Avington in Northamptonshire.[9]

References

Attribution

Notes and References

  1. Web site: CONINGSBY, William (by 1483-1540), of the Inner Temple, London and Lynn, Norf. . History of Parliament Online . 2012-04-14.
  2. DNB
  3. Web site: ALINGTON, Giles (1499-1586), of Horseheath, Cambs. - History of Parliament Online. www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  4. Book: Eller, George. Memorials: Archaeological and Ecclesiastical of the West Winch Manors from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period. 1861. Thew & Son. 126–127. en.
  5. Book: Eller, George. Memorials: Archaeological and Ecclesiastical of the West Winch Manors from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period. 1861. Thew & Son. 128. en.
  6. Web site: GAWDY, Francis (d.1605), of Wallington and Shouldham, Norf. History of Parliament Online . 2023-10-05 . www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  7. Web site: Clackclose Hundred and Half: Wallington British History Online . 2023-10-05 . www.british-history.ac.uk . Thomas Gawsell, (son of John,) and Catherine his wife, convey their manors of Wallington and Thorpland to William Conningsby, Esq. (one of the justices of the King's Bench, in the 32d of the said King,) son of Sir Humphrey, who was made justice of the King's Bench, May 21, in the first of Henry VIII. descended from Roger de Coningsby, lord of Conings by in Lincolnshire, in the reign of King John. Sir Humphrey was son of Thomas Coningsby, Esq. second son of Thomas Coningsby, Esq. of New Solers in Shropshire, who lived in the reign of Edward IV. William Coningsby, Esq. aforesaid (who first settled here) was father of Christopher Coningsby, Esq. who was slain in the first of Edward VI. at the battle of Muscleborough in Scotland, and left by his wife Ann, daughter of Sir Roger Woodhouse of Kimberley, 3 daughters and coheirs; Elizabeth, the eldest, was married to Francis Gawdy, Esq. who in her right became lord of this place, and Thorpland; he was the 3d son of Thomas Gawdy, Esq. of Harleston in Norfolk, by his 3d wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, or (as some say) Oliver Shyres; in the 30th of Elizabeth, he was serjeant at law, and Queen's serjeant, May 17, 1582, and in the 20th of the said Queen, bought of Sir Thomas Mildmay, the manor of Sybeton in this town; in 1589, he was made a judge of the King's Bench, and August 25, 1605, chief justice of the Common Pleas, being then a knight: he died of an apoplexy at Serjeant's Inn, London, before he had sate a year in the station, and was buried in the neighbouring church of Rungton.—Sir Henry Spilman says, that having this manor, &c. in right of his wife, he induced her to acknowledge a fine thereof, on which she became a distracted woman, and continued so, to the day of her death, and was to him for many years a perpetual affliction; he had by her an only daughter and heir, Elizabeth, married to Sir William Hatton, who died also without issue male, and left a daughter and heir, Frances, brought up with her grandfather the judge, and was secretly married, against his will, to Sir Robert Rich, (afterwards Earl of Warwick,) son of Robert Earl of Warwick. The judge being shortly after made Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, (at a dear rate, as was reported,) was suddenly stricken with an apoplexy, and died without issue male, ere he had continued in his place one whole Michaelmas term, and having made his appropriate parish church a hay-house, or a dog-kennel, his dead corps being brought from London to Wallington, could for many days find no place of burial, but growing very offensive, he was at last conveyed to the church of Rungton, and buried there without any ceremony, and lyeth yet uncovered (if the visitors have not reformed it,) with so small a matter as a few paving stones. And indeed no stone or memorial was there ever for him, and if it was not for this account it would not have been known, that he was there buried..
  8. Web site: RAGLAND, Sir Thomas, of Carnllwyd, Glam. Roughton Holme, Norf. and Walworth, Surr. History of Parliament Online . 2023-10-05 . www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  9. Book: The Visitation of Norfolk in the year 1563, taken by William Harvey, Clarenceux King of Arms: Volume 1. Dashwood. G.H.. Norwich. 50.

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