WESTON, Henry (1534/35-92), of Sutton Place, Surr.

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

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1554
Nov. 1554
1571

Family and Education

b. 1534/35, s. of Sir Francis Weston by Anne, da. and h. of Sir Christopher Pickering of Killington, Westmld. and Escrick, Yorks.; half-bro. of Henry and Thomas Knyvet. m. (1) 1559, Dorothy, da. of Sir Thomas Arundell of Shaftesbury, Dorset and Wardour Castle, Wilts., 2s. inc. Richard 1da., (2) Elizabeth, da. of Sir Francis Lovell of Harling, Norf., wid. of Henry Repps (d. 1566) of West Walton, Norf., s.p. suc. fa. 17 May 1536, gdfa. 7 Aug. 1541. KB 15 Jan. 1559.1

Offices Held

J.p. Surr. 1558/59-d., Norf. 1577-9 or later, I. of Ely 1577-9, 1583/86; sheriff, Surr. 1568-9; commr. musters 1574.2

Biography

Henry Weston was not yet two years old when his father was executed for alleged intimacy with Queen Anne Boleyn. Twelve days later, on 28 May 1536, his grandfather Sir Richard Weston enfeoffed (Sir) Christopher More and two others of most of his lands, which were immediately regranted to himself and his wife with remainder to Henry Weston. The arrangement was confirmed five years later in Sir Richard Weston’s will, with a proviso against the contingency that Henry Weston’s taint in blood would bar his succession. The young Weston was to be restored in blood by an Act (2 and 3 Edw. VI, no. 45) passed in 1549 while he was still a minor. Since there is no evidence that his wardship had been granted away it may be concluded that he remained in the custody of the court of wards and that the master, William Paulet, Baron St. John, took this young neighbour under his wing. Paulet almost certainly had a hand in the bill restoring Weston in blood, which in the Commons would have been sponsored by Weston’s second stepfather John Vaughan I, and he is likely to have been responsible for the restoration of Petersfield as a parliamentary borough in 1547.3

Although he did not live near Petersfield but at Sutton Place, the house built by his grandfather in Surrey, it was for the Hampshire borough, also acquired by Sir Richard Weston, that Weston was to sit in every Parliament summoned from his 20th year until he became a knight of the shire in 1571. Before he came of age he yielded place to his fellow-Members, his stepfather Vaughan and the local Christopher Rithe, but thereafter he took the senior seat. The ‘Mr. Weston’ to whom a treasons bill was committed on 7 Dec. 1554 was almost certainly Richard Weston, then one of the Members for Lancaster. Henry Weston is said to have been at Calais when on 8 Jan. 1558 it was taken by the French: if this is true, he may not have been released by his captors in time for the opening of the last Parliament of Mary’s reign two weeks later.4

Weston died on 11 Apr. 1592.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from age at grandfather’s ipm, C142/65/30, 66/73, 77, 80, 67/166. Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 8; Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 191; Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch.), i. 196; PCC 19 Populwell, 100 Cope.
  • 2. CSP Dom. 1547-80, p. 485.
  • 3. DNB (Weston, Francis); PCC 13 Spert, 19 Populwell.
  • 4. CJ, i. 39; F. Harrison, Sutton Place, 88; Vis. Surr. 8.
  • 5. C142/235/90.