HORSLEY, Cuthbert (by 1517-by 1586), of Horsley, Northumb.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1553
Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1517, 1st s. of John Horsley of Scrainwood and Long Horsley. educ. L. Inn 1531, called 1537. m. by 1551, Elizabeth, at least 1s.1

Offices Held

J.p. Northumb. 1538, rem. c.1563; receiver of augmentations, archdeaconry of Richmond and bpric. of Durham 1544-6; escheator 1556-7; agistor, Acklington park, Northumb. for Sir Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland by 1578.2

Biography

Horsley’s father was captain of Bamburgh and twice sheriff of Northumberland during Henry VIIl’s reign, and besides Horsley himself, another member of the family was knight of the shire under Mary. Horsley sat in only the first Elizabethan Parliament, which, together with the omission of his name from the commission of the peace after 1562, suggests that he was a Catholic. Sir John Forster, warden of the middle march, described him in 1564 as ‘skilled in the law’, a qualification lacking in many of the Northumberland gentry, but he was on only one government commission after 1562 (piracy 1565). Nothing is known of his behaviour during the northern rebellion, but his relative, George Horsley, was implicated, being pardoned only in 1576.3

Horsley was a supervisor of the will of Robert, 6th Baron Ogle. The 1st Earl of Northumberland appointed him to arbitrate in a local dispute in 1566, and this is the last reference found to him until his will of 1581, probably proved at Durham. He was dead by 1586.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. Arch. Ael. (ser. 3), iv. 12; vi. 88; (ser. 4), xii. 127; L. Inn Black Bk. i. 247.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, xiii(1), p. 243; xx(1), p. 675; xxi(1), p. 772; CPR, 1548-9, p. 136; 1550-3, pp. 142, 395; 1553 and App. Edw. VI, p. 415; 1557-8, p. 71; Surtees Soc. clxiii. 53.
  • 3. Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 66; APC, vii. 284; C. Sharpe, Mems. of the Rebellion, App. 231, 273 n; CSP Dom. Add. 1566-79, p. 457.
  • 4. Surtees Soc. ii. 203; clxiii. 53; Hist. Northumb. (Northumb. Co. Hist. Comm.), xiv. 212; Pubs. Newcastle-upon-Tyne Recs. Comm. viii. 177; DKR, 38, p. 233.