Family and Education

s. of John Man of Bolingbroke by Margaret, da. of William Dobbyn of Gedney. m. Audrey, da. of Richard Ogle of Pinchbeck, 2s. 2da.

Offices Held

J.p. Lincs. (Holland and Lindsey) 1559; duchy of Lancaster feodary, Lincs. from 1559; dep. receiver, honour of Bolingbroke 1560.

Biography

Of a number of contemporary namesakes, including a messenger and groom of the chamber and another courtier who served Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary by examining fortifications and provisioning the army, the most likely to have been the MP was the Lincolnshire gentleman whose particulars appear above. Little enough is known of him. In 1554 he was described as citizen and grocer of London, and by 1559 he had returned to his native county to assume a place in the local administration of the duchy of Lancaster. He had few interests outside the county and his friends and relatives were members of local families. John Skinner of Thorpe by Wainfleet, whose deputy as receiver of the honour of Bolingbroke Man was, was a friend and overseer of Man’s will, while Skinner’s son Vincent—a future secretary to Lord Burghley—later married Man’s widow. But through his wife’s family, the Ogles of Pinchbeck, Man was connected with a wider circle. Audrey Man was the niece of Sir Anthony Cooke, the father-in-law of Sir William Cecil, and it was probably to this relationship that Man owed his return to Parliament in 1559 through Edward Herbert I, who at one time or another was associated with Cecil, the 2nd Earl of Bedford, and Sir Ambrose Cave, Man’s superior as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.

Man died in June 1569, a few weeks after making his will. He endowed his younger daughter, Frances, with land in Sutton St. Edmund and Sutton St. James, and made small bequests to two godsons, to his brother, to his brother-in-law Thomas Ogle, and to Adlard Welby, a connexion of his wife’s who later became his daughter’s father-in-law. The disposition of the lands must have been made earlier, for in the will his surviving son Richard received only a seal ring. Man appointed his wife, Audrey, sole executrix, bequeathing to her all his goods and chattels. The supervisors were John Skinner and Man’s brother-in-law, Nicholas Ogle. The will was proved in February 1570 by Vincent Skinner on behalf of the widow.

Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 630, 730-1; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 39; DWB, 348; Read, Cecil, 179, 211, 234; CPR, 1553-4, pp. 36, 445; 1554-5, p. 109; 1563-6, p. 24; Somerville, Duchy, i. 580, 582; CSP Dom. Add. 1566-79, pp. 48-9; PCC 6 Lyon.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Irene Cassidy

Notes