LAWLEY, Edward (1586-1623), of Much Wenlock, Salop and St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
Available from Cambridge University Press

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

bap. 9 Jan. 1586, o.s. of Thomas Lawley† of Wenlock and Wilbrighton, Staffs. and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Richard Newport† of High Ercall, Salop.1 educ. Brasenose, Oxf. 1604, aged 17; I. Temple 1606.2 m. 7 Feb. 1613, Susan (d. 19/23 Dec. 1623), da. of Thomas Fisher of London, 1da.3 kntd. 9 Nov. 1619;4 suc. fa. 1622. d. 23 May 1623.5

Offices Held

Freeman, Much Wenlock liberty 1603/4.6

Biography

Lawley’s grandfather, a merchant of the Staple, acquired an electoral interest at Wenlock with his purchase of the site and demesnes of the dissolved Priory in 1545. Lawley’s own admission as a freeman of Wenlock in 1603/4 suggests that his father intended to have him returned to the forthcoming Parliament as one of the borough’s MPs, but in the event two of his uncles sat in the Commons. Meanwhile he was admitted to Brasenose, where he probably studied under his half-brother George Lawley.7 He sat in the parliaments of 1614 and 1621, but left no mark on the records of either session.

Lawley succeeded his father in 1622, but expired just over a year later, leaving an under-age daughter, Ursula, as his heiress. In his will, written the day before his death, he appointed his wife, his cousin Walter Acton and the Wenlock resident Robert Thorne as his executors, giving them custody of his Shropshire lands during the 11 years his daughter was to be in wardship. This plan unravelled with the death of his widow at the end of the year, after which her executor, Henry Mytton*, spirited Ursula away to Leicestershire. Briefly married to a Lincolnshire man, Sir Roger Bertie, Ursula mortgaged Wenlock manor to her uncle Thomas Lawley* in 1639. Her Bertie descendants ultimately sold the estate in 1714.8

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Author: Simon Healy

Notes

  • 1. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (o.s.), xi. 8; Vis. Salop (Harl. soc. xxix), 313.
  • 2. Al. Ox.; I. Temple Admiss.
  • 3. C142/401/105; Vis. Salop, 313; Vis. Mdx. (Harl. Soc. lxv), 30; PROB 11/142, f. 502.
  • 4. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 175.
  • 5. C142/393/142; 142/401/105.
  • 6. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), vi. 273.
  • 7. Ibid.; VCH Salop, x. 416; Vis. Salop, 313-14; Al. Ox. (Edward, George Lawley).
  • 8. PROB 11/142, ff. 80, 502; C142/401/105; C2/Chas.I/L7/62, 2/Chas.I/L22/43; VCH Salop, x. 416.