Family and Education

b. by 1524.1

Offices Held

Bailiff, Hammes and Sangatte 15 Oct. 1545-58.2

Biography

William Horne was probably related to a family settled in Kent since the 15th century and sprung from a wealthy merchant stapler: this family’s property passed in 1531 to Reginald Peckham and in 1540 to George Harper. Since a number of its cadets bore his christian name it has not proved possible to identify Horne among them, but he may have been the second son of Henry Horne, a London grocer who died in 1544, and have himself become a grocer, married twice and died in 1592 leaving two sons and three daughters by his first wife. He was certainly the merchant of the staple who played a notable role in the company’s vicissitudes following the fall of Calais.3

Horne was already in the service of the crown, although in what capacity has not been discovered, when the Privy Council employed him, with Edward Grimston^† and Anthony Aucher, at Calais and Portsmouth, mainly in connexion with troops, money, munitions and fortifications. In October 1545 he was given office at Calais, where he presumably made his home. At an election held on 18 Mar. 1554 he was returned by the deputy and his council as their Member in the second Marian Parliament, his fellow-Member being John Aster. Although both deputy and council were Protestant, Horne may have been conservative in religion because he belonged to the same circle as the Fowler family: in 1556 Thomas Fowler bequeathed him 40s. Nothing is known of his part in the Commons.4

When the French recaptured Calais in 1558 Horne returned to England, where he endeavoured to keep the staple alive pending the hoped-for recovery of the town. Perhaps as an insurance against failure he went into the land market: in July 1563 he paid £4,932 for property in and around London, in Herefordshire and in Wales. His purchase in April 1571 of a 21-year lease of part of Chute forest, Hampshire, is the last certain reference found to Horne.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference.
• 2. LP Hen. VIII, xx; Rep. R. Comm. of 1552 (Archs. of Brit. Hist. and Cult. iii), 166.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, i, v, xvi; Leland, Itin. ed. Smith, ii. 4; C142/75/6; PCC 14 Pynnyng, 51 Harrington.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, xix; APC, i. 196-7, 212; PCC 10 Ketchyn.
• 5. CPR, 1560-3, pp. 588-91; 1569-72, p. 168.