Family and Education

m. Joan, at least 2s. 4da.

Offices Held

Mayor, Chipping Wycombe 1558-9, 1574-5, alderman 1565, 1578.

Biography

Keele may have been the ‘Mr. Kerle’ who spoke 7 June 1572 on a private case about disputes over two manors. He sat on two parliamentary committees concerning wool (13, 23 Feb. 1581). Otherwise almost all the information found about him is derived from his will, made in September 1586 and proved in the following December. His Wycombe property, with furnaces and vats at Frogmore, was left to his wife and his son Sebastian, who, as sole executor, was asked to pay all outstanding debts ‘and not in any wise to see goodwife Church to lose any penny, whom I have greatly hindered, though the debt be not much’. The other son, Ambrose, was to be the residuary legatee, with a special bequest of £20, and three daughters, Agnes, Margaret and Frances, were each left £40. To another daughter, Jane, possibly illegitimate, Keele bequeathed 40s. ‘to be paid to her own hands for her pains in my sickness’. The preamble to the will refers to the ‘very many and grievous sins’ for which the testator hoped to be forgiven through Christ’s passion, ‘and to remain with Him in His kingdom for ever’.

First Wycombe Ledger Bk. ed. Greaves (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xi), 81, 84, 95; Trinity, Dublin, Thos. Cromwell’s jnl.; CJ, i. 125, 129; D’Ewes, 295, 300; PCC 66 Windsor.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes