Family and Education

s. of William Horsey by Elinor, da. of William Peryam. m. (1) Jan. 1592, Elizabeth (d.1607), da. of Griffith Hampden of Great Hampden, 2s. 3da.; (2) c.Oct. 1609, Isabella, da. of Edward Brockett of Wheathampstead, Herts.; (?3) Elizabeth, da. of John North. Kntd. 23 July 1603.

Offices Held

Servant of the Muscovy Co. in Russia 1572-c.1585; esquire of the body 1580; receiver of Crown lands in nine counties 19 June 1604-d; j.p. Bucks. from c.1601, sheriff 1611-12.1

Biography

After Horsey had been in Russia for some years, Ivan the Terrible sent him to England with letters to Queen Elizabeth, with whom he had three or four interviews through the intercession of Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham and his ‘especial noble friend and kinsman’ (Sir) Edward Horsey. Before he returned to Russia the Queen gave him her portrait and made him an esquire of the body. By 1585 when he was again sent to England, Ivan had been succeeded by Theodore, Horsey was on bad terms with the English ambassador, Sir Jerome Bowes, and his relations with the Muscovy Company had deteriorated. Still, due to the support of Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham, matters were patched up, and Horsey returned once more to Russia with nine ships loaded with cargo partly supplied by Walsingham and other ‘adventurers’ o utside the Muscovy Company. When he came again to England in 1587, charges of fraud were pressed against him, and he fled to the Continent, then overland to Russia. Having lost favour at both courts and with the Muscovy Company, he was recalled by the Queen, though he was allowed one more trip in 1591 to settle his affairs. Late in 1591 he returned finally to England in disgrace, the Czar asking Elizabeth never to permit him to come to Russia again.2

He now married into a Buckinghamshire gentry family, and settled down to the life of a country gentleman, serving on commissions with, as he said, ‘my best endeavours’, acting as j.p. and sheriff and helping to organise ‘the preaching of the Gospel through the whole county by most worthy, learned, godly and holy divines’. He also ‘served above thirty years continuance in Parliament’, though how he obtained his Cornish borough seats in the Elizabethan period is not clear. His earlier friends at court, Sir Edward Horsey, Walsingham and Leicester, were all dead by 1593. He may have owed his seat at Saltash to Sir Walter Ralegh. (Sir) William Peryam, who was his patron at Bossiney in 1601, may have served him at Camelford in 1597. Horsey was named to two parliamentary committees in 1593, poor relief (12 Mar.) and disloyal subjects (4 Apr.); three in 1597, privileges and returns (5 Nov.), Langport Eastover (10 Nov.) and monopolies (10 Nov.); and one in 1601, privileges and returns (31 Oct.). The burgesses for Saltash were appointed to a committee on salted fish (5 Mar. 1593).3

Horsey recalled in 1621 that an unidentified Member died in the House in 1593, the day after he had been persuaded to abstain from voting for the Sabbath-day bill. Horsey died in January 1626 and was buried at Great Kimbell.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Roger Virgoe

Notes

This biography is based upon Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bond (Hak. Soc. 1856).

• 1. CSP For. 1585-6, pp. 54, 268; Vivian, Vis. Devon, 603; London Mar. Lic. 1521-1869, ed. Foster, 711; PCC 8 Hele; T. S. Willan, Early Hist. Muscovy Co. 199-200; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 121.
• 2. CSP For. 1585-6, pp. 54, 268, 404; 1586-8, pp. 221-2; 1588 (Jan.-June), p. 94; 1588 (July-Dec.), p. 352; 1589 (Jan.-July) p. 247; 1591, pp. 30 41.
• 3. VCH Bucks. ii. 291; D’Ewes, 487, 499, 517, 552, 555, 622; Townshend, Hist. Colls. 103.
• 4. PCC 8 Hele; Nicholas, 1621 Procs. and Debates, i. 52.