William Tyrwhitt, of Twigsmoor and Kettleby, MP

William Tyrwhitt (died 1591) was an English landowner and politician who sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon in March 1553 but took no further part in public life under Queen Elizabeth I because of his Roman Catholicism, for which he underwent spells of imprisonment.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyrwhitt

In 1576 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Peter Frescheville (died 1582), of Staveley in Derbyshire,[2][1][5] and his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of the MP Sir Gervase Clifton, of Clifton. Her sister Frances was the wife of Sir Gervase Holles and her half-brother was the MP Sir Peter Frescheville.

With Elizabeth, he is recorded as having five sons and four daughters.[1] Four of the sons left no children, but all four daughters married:

1. Robert (died 1617), his heir, in 1594 married Bridget (died 1604), daughter of John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland.[2]
2. Margaret, married Nicholas Rookwood, of Euston, Suffolk.[2]
3. Mary, married first Robert Bradford (died 1596) and secondly Robert Monson, of Northorpe.[2]
4. Ursula, married Sir William Babthorpe, of Babthorpe.[2]
5. Martha, married Edmund Colles, of Leigh in Worcestershire, grandson of the MP Edmund Colles and like her father a recusant.[6]
6. Some records show a fifth daughter Elizabeth, who married Ambrose Rookwood, executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot.[7]

Other sources say his widow Elizabeth married Edward Rookwood (born 1554), of Rookwood.[2]

From TYRWHITT, William (by 1531-91), of Twigmoor and Kettleby, Lincs.

Family and Education

b. by 1531, 1st s. of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt II of Kettleby by Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir Thomas Oxenbridge of Etchingham, Suss. m. settlement 1 Sept. 1576, Elizabeth, da. of Peter Frescheville of Staveley, Notts., 5s. 4da. suc. fa. 16 Nov. 1581.1

notes

"The curious particulars of their daughter, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, the wife of Ambrose Rookwood, and of his execution for sharing in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, are given in the Appendix."

Biography

The identity of the William Tyrwhitt, gentleman, returned for Huntingdon with Thomas Maria Wingfield to Edward VI’s second Parliament is not easy to establish. He must have been a member of the Lincolnshire family, which favoured the baptismal name William equally with Robert, and his election was almost certainly the work of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt I who had settled in Huntingdonshire on marrying Wingfield’s mother. There is a remote possibility that William Tyrwhitt was a son of this Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who predeceased his father and of whom no other trace has been found. It is known, however, that Sir Robert was uncle to at least two Williams and great-uncle to another. Of his nephews, the son of Sir William Tyrwhitt of Scotter was a clerk in holy orders who held the prebend of Brampton in Lincoln cathedral until his death in 1555, and the other was a younger son of Philip Tyrwhitt of Barton upon Humber who received £50 under his father’s will in 1558; the great-nephew was the eldest son of the Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby who was returned to the Parliament of March 1553 for Lincolnshire. It was this great-nephew, then described as ‘William Tyrwhitt esquire, a young gentleman, son and heir apparent of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Lincolnshire, a man of great power in those parts’, who was involved in an action over lands in Lincolnshire said to have been sold to him unlawfully in or before 1552. He may thus be thought to have come of age recently and to have been eligible for the seat at Huntingdon early in 1553, and he is therefore taken to have been the Member. His father stood close to his great-uncle, his uncle Tristram was to be chosen for the town in 1571, and his younger brothers were to be beneficiaries under the great-uncle’s will a year later.2

From his marriage until the death of his father Tyrwhitt lived at Twigmoor. In June 1580 he was suspected of Catholicism and committed to the Tower where he remained until set free 12 months later on bail of £300 and a promise to take instruction ‘in the truth of the gospel’. A complaint by Bishop Cooper of Lincoln about his part in dissuading friends from conforming with the Anglican settlement led to his committal to the Fleet, from where in November 1581 he was released for his father’s funeral. It was discovered that while in the Fleet he had heard mass and this revelation decided an already doubtful Queen against naming him to the Lincolnshire bench upon which his forbears had served since the 14th century. He remained under surveillance for the remaining ten years of his life and although not recommit-ed to prison he was rarely allowed to visit Lincolnshire. It was while there winding up his mother’s affairs that he died on 18 July 1591. By his will made two months earlier he asked to be buried near his father’s grave in Bigbychurch and instructed his executors to sell various lands, including his manor of Fillingham, to provide legacies for his children.3

https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/tt/tyrwhitt2.php#top

• i. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (d 13.11.1581) m. Elizabeth Oxenbridge (bur 25.01.1589/90, dau of Sir Thomas Oxenbridge of Etchingham)
  • a. William Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (bur 08.07.1591) m. Elizabeth Freschville (dau of Peter Freschville of Staveley)
    • (1) Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (d 1617) m. (08.1594) Bridget Manners (d 10.07.1604, dau of John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland)
      • (A) William Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (d 1642) m. Catherine Browne (dau of Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague)
        • (i) Robert Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (b c1618, dsp 1648) m. Elizabeth
        • (ii) Francis Tyrwhitt of Kettleby (b c1633/4, d 1673) m. Elizabeth Lloyd (dau of Robert Lloyd)
          • (a) Catharine Tyrwhitt m. Sir Henry Hunloke, Bart of Wingerworth (d 01.1714)
        • (iii) Mary Tyrwhitt (b c1629)
        • (B)+ other issue - Robert, Rutland, Bridget (bur 25.08.1614)
    • (2) Margaret Tyrwhitt m. Nicholas Rookwood of Euston
    • (3) Mary Tyrwhitt m1. Robert Bradford (d 1596) m2. Robert Monson of Northorpe
    • (4) Ursula or Grace Tyrwhitt m. Sir William Babthorpe of Babthorpe
    • (5)+ other issue - William, Goddard (dsp), Edward (dsp), George (dsp)

      ---

Sources

1. Notes on the Visitations of Lincolnshire, 1634 page 230. "Tirwhit of Kettleby"
2. Notices and remains of the family of Tyrwhitt [signed R.P.T.]. Corrected and ... By Robert Philip Tyrwhitt. Page 33
3. http://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/ftrees/Tyrwhit.pdf
4. Ancestry.com, database and images, England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858 for Willmi Terwhitt, PROB 11: Will Registers 1567-1598, Piece 78: Sainberbe, Quire Numbers 56-94 (1591) < AncestryImage >
5. Tyrwhitt, William, esquire in the UK, Extracted Probate Records, 1269-1975. 1591 Tyrwhitt, William, esquire, Kettleby, Bigbye, Lincoln. [ 17 Jun 1592 , probatum fuit.] 91 Sainberbe
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyrwhitt cites
   1. Dale, M. K. (1982), "Tyrwhitt, William (by 1531-91), of Twigmoor and Kettleby, Lincs.", in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, retrieved 15 November 2017
   2. Lincolnshire pedigrees, retrieved 20 November 2024. < Archive.Org >
   3. An ancestress of Samantha Sheffield (born 1971), wife of David Cameron.
   4. The National Archives PCC 21 Sainberbe, 3 December 1591
   5. If any earlier marriage took place, it was unrecorded and childless.
   6. Mary Anne Everett Green, ed. (1857), Calendar of State Papers Domestic: James I, 1603–1610, vol. 47, London, pp. 524–540, retrieved 3 February 2017 Warrant for a grant to John Carse of the benefit of the recusancy of Edm. Coles of Lye
   7. Nicholls, Mark (January 2008), "Rookwood, Ambrose (c.1578–1606)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 18 November 2017