Family and Education

b. bef. 1655, 1st s. of Andrew Henley. unm. suc. fa. 17 May 1675.1

Offices Held

Biography

Henley was probably only just of age when he succeeded to an estate worth £4,000 p.a. but heavily encumbered with his father’s debts. He paid off few or none of these, but mortgaged the property for £20,000. On 4 Dec. 1678 his sister commenced a Chancery suit against him for the £3,000 portion bequeathed her by their father. No answer survives on the file; probably Henley’s cousin, John Trenchard, who was also the family lawyer, suggested that Parliament would provide a useful refuge. Henley owned considerable property in West Dorset, and in August 1679 he was elected for Bridport in succession to Trenchard’s brother-in-law, John Every. He was presumably attached to the country party, but it seems probable that the references in the second Exclusion Parliament are to his unyle, Sir Robert Henley. The intervention of a second country candidate at Bridport in 1681 thrust Henley to the bottom of the poll, and his petition was never heard. He died on 7 Aug. 1681 and was buried at Eversley. His brother and heir served as sheriff of Dorset after the Revolution, but completed the ruin of the family by an unfortunate homicide. Bramshill was sold to Sir John Cope, and in 1740 the baronetcy became extinct.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: John. P. Ferris

Notes

• 1. C8/262/51.
• 2. C8/293/86, Plymouth City Lib. Roborough mss 292; Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 127; CJ, ix. 707; Eversley reg.