MERING, William (1522-82), of Meering, Notts.

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

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553

Family and Education

b. 15 Feb. 1522, 1st s. of John Mering alias Sutton of Meering by Catherine, da. of Humphrey Hercy of Grove. m. c.1546, Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Cave of Stanford, Northants., 3s. 7da. suc. fa. 21 Mar. 1543. Kntd. 19 Oct. 1553.1

Offices Held

Subsidy collector, Notts. 1545; j.p. 1558/59-d., q. 1579; sheriff, Notts. and Derbys. 1560-1; steward, duchy of Lancaster, honor of Tickhill 14 Oct. 1561-77; commr. eccles. causes, province of York c.1568, musters, Notts. 1569.2

Biography

William Mering came of a family settled at Meering since the 12th century. He succeeded his father to an estate including the Nottinghamshire manors of Meering, Sutton-on-Trent and Thorney and the Lincolnshire manor of Kettlethorpe immediately after coming of age and less than six years after the death of his grandfather and namesake, a soldier and courtier who was active in shire administration and well known to Archbishop Cranmer and the 1st Earl of Rutland.3

Mering himself had only been a subsidy collector before his return as knight of the shire to Edward VI’s second Parliament and he must have owed his election to his local connexions. He was a kinsman of his fellow-knight George Lascelles, a servant of the 2nd Earl of Rutland who was lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and who stood well with the Duke of Northumberland, while the sheriff Sir Anthony Neville was a close associate of Mering’s uncle (Sir) John Hercy. Nothing has come to light concerning Mering’s role in the Commons or in the succession crisis of the following summer but he probably shared Lascelles’s Protestant sympathies and, although he was knighted soon after Mary’s coronation, he had to wait until the next reign for his appointment to the Nottinghamshire bench: in 1564 he was judged favourable to the Elizabethan settlement. In 1561 he was granted the stewardship of the duchy of Lancaster honor of Tickhill, an office once solicited in vain by Hercy and doubtless obtained by Mering through the favour of his wife’s uncle Sir Ambrose Cave, chancellor of the duchy.4

Unlike his father, Mering was engaged in few lawsuits but in the year of his death he contrived to offend the 3rd Earl of Rutland. He died on 13 Nov. 1582 and in the following month Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, appealed to Rutland to ‘stand ... good lord’ to his eldest son Thomas Mering, ‘both my kinsman and my servant’, whose inheritance had been much impaired by Mering’s sale of lands between 1566 and 1579. No will has survived and it was not until 11 May 1598 that the administration of Mering’s goods was granted to his daughter Anne Molyneux.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: C. J. Black

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth given in fa.’s i.p.m., Wards 7/1/90 ptd. Notts. IPMs, i (Thoroton Soc. rec. ser. iii), 280-8. Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 13; Vis. Northants. ed. Metcalfe, 12; C142/202/96.
  • 2. E179/159/162; CPR, 1560-3, p. 440; 1563-6, p. 25; 1566-9, pp. 172-3; Somerville, Duchy, i. 529; CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 333.
  • 3. Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, i. 370; LP Hen. VIII, i, iii, ix. The value of Mering’s inheritance as given in the family’s i.p.m.s for three generations (E150/749/17; Wards 7/1/59, 90; C142/202/196) differs from that in his father’s will, Test. Ebor. vi (Surtees Soc. cvi), 136-7.
  • 4. Hatfield 235, f. 73 (M485/60) ptd. Cam. Misc. ix(3), 72-73 where the distinction between favourable and unfavourable justices is not clear.
  • 5. C1/1142/43-45, 1230/28-29, 1246/35-37; 142/202/196; HMC Rutland, i. 137, 146; CP25(2)/193 Easter term 8 Eliz., Hilary term 9 Eliz., 13 Eliz., Easter term 17 Eliz., 194 Hilary term 21 Eliz.; CPR, 1566-9, p. 45; Newark and Southwell act bk. 1598.