Family and Education

b. 1573, 1st s. of Vincent Grantham of Goltho and St. Katherine’s, and bro, of Francis. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1589; L. Inn 1592. m. (1) Frances (d.1619), da. of John Puckering, 4s. 3da.; (2) Lucy, da. of William Boughton of Lawford, Warws., wid. of Sir Henry Sacheverell of Radcliffe-on-Soar, Notts., 1da. suc. fa. 1581. Kntd. 1603.

Offices Held

Freeman, Lincoln 1597; j.p.q. Lincs. (Kesteven, Lindsey) from c.1600, sheriff, Lincs. 1600-1.

Biography

Grantham was the heir to a considerable estate and after his father’s death he became the ward of (Sir) Thomas Cecil. He needed no patron to return him to Parliament in 1597, his family having close connexions with Lincoln, and a house there. In both 1600 and 1601 he was named as one of the Lincolnshire gentlemen to furnish a light horse for the Irish service. In the following reigns he was in opposition to the court, and these years of his career are outside the scope of this biography, except for a curious statement he made in the 1628 Parliament:

In 35 Eliz. I was of the Parliament. It was held a rigour to confine recusants to their homes, much less to remote places.

This refers to the Act passed by the 1593 Parliament confining recusants to their own homes. Though Grantham’s statement is categorical, he was not a member of this Parliament, unless he entered at an unknown by-election. In the absence of any evidence it must be concluded that his memory was at fault. His name does not appear in the Elizabethan parliamentary journals but he may have attended committees in 1597 to which the citizens for Lincoln were appointed, concerning the export of sheepskins and pelts (26 Nov.) and land reclamation (3 Dec.).

Grantham died 30 July 1630, having made his will 4 Oct. 1628, asking to be buried in St. Martin’s, Lincoln.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

• 1. Folger V. b. 298.
• 2. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 422-3; Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. lxii), 164; C142/196/7; J. W. F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 115; D’Ewes, 564, 567; APC, xxx. 437; xxxii. 280; Trumbull mss 50, f. 24; PCC 4 St. John.