Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury (1503 – 28 July 1540), created Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury in 1536, was the son and heir of Sir Edward Hungerford, and his first wife, Jane de la Zouche. He was born in 1503 at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, England.[1]
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Walter was nineteen years old at his father's death in 1522, and soon afterwards appears as squire of the body to Henry VIII. In 1529 he was granted permission to alienate part of his large estates. On 20 August 1532 John, Lord Hussey of Sleaford, whose daughter was Hungerford's third wife, wrote to Sir Thomas Cromwell stating that Hungerford wished to be introduced to him.[2] A little later Hussey informed Cromwell that Hungerford desired to be sheriff of Wiltshire, a desire which was gratified in 1533. Hungerford proved useful to Cromwell in Wiltshire,[3] and in June 1535 Cromwell made a memorandum that Hungerford ought to be rewarded for his well-doing.[4] On 8 June 1536 he was summoned to parliament as Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury.[5]
In 1540 he, together with his chaplain, a Wiltshire clergyman, named William Bird, who was suspected of sympathising with the pilgrims of grace of the north of England, was attainted by act of parliament.[6] Hungerford was charged with employing Bird in his house as chaplain, knowing him to be a traitor; with ordering another chaplain, Hugh Wood, and one Dr. Maudlin to practise conjuring to determine the king's length of life, and his chances of victory over the northern rebels; and finally with committing unnatural offences,[5] and so becoming the first person executed under the Buggery Act of 1533.
He was beheaded at Tyburn on 28 July 1540, along with his patron Cromwell. Hungerford is stated before his execution to have "seemed so unquiet that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise."[7]
Walter Hungerford, was the only child of Sir Edward Hungerford (d. 1522). Edward, son and heir of Sir Walter Hungerford (d. 1516), accompanied Sir Walter to Scotland in 1503; served in the English army in France in 1513, when he was knighted at battle of Tournai; was sheriff for Wiltshire in 1517, and for Somerset and Dorset in 1518. In 1520 he attended Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; died on 24 January 1522, and left his surviving wife sole executrix.[8]
Walter's mother was his father's first wife, Jane, daughter of John, Lord Zouche of Haryngworth. His father's second wife was Agnes, widow of John Cotell. She had (it afterwards appeared) strangled her first husband at Farleigh Castle on 26 July 1518, with the aid of William Mathewe and William Inges, yeomen of Heytesbury, Wiltshire, and seems to have married Sir Edward almost immediately after burning the body. Not until Sir Edward's death were proceedings taken against her and her accomplices for the murder. She and Mathewe were then convicted and were hanged at Tyburn on 20 February 1524;[9] she seems to have been buried in the Grey Friars' Church in London.[10] An interesting inventory of Lady Hungerford's goods, taken after her trial, is printed in "Archæologia", xxxviii. 353 sq.[11]
Lord Hungerford married thrice: (1) to Susan, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey; (2) in 1527, to Alice, daughter of William, Lord Sandys; and (3), in October 1532, to Elizabeth, daughter of John, lord Hussey. His treatment of his third wife was remarkable for its brutality. In an appeal for protection which she addressed to Cromwell about 1536,[12] she asserted that he kept her incarcerated at Farleigh for three or four years, made some fruitless attempts to divorce her, and endeavoured on several occasions to poison her.[13] After his execution, she became the wife of Sir Robert Throckmorton.[5]
Hungerford left two sons,[14] and two daughters, all apparently by his third wife. The eldest Sir Walter Hungerford (1532–1596), was known as "the Knight of Farley" and the younger, Sir Edward, a gentleman-pensioner to Queen Elizabeth I, was twice married, but died without issue in 1607. He left to his widow (d. 1653) a life interest in the estates, with remainder to his great-nephew, Sir Edward (1596–1648), son of Sir Anthony Hungerford of Black Bourton, Oxfordshire.[5]