William Chester (mayor)

Sir William Chester (1509–?c.1574) was one of the leading English Merchants of the Staple and Merchant Adventurers of the mid-16th century, five times Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1560-61 and Member of Parliament for the City of London.[1][2] He should not be confused with his contemporary, William Chester, merchant of Bristol, M.P.[3]

Origins and early career

Born about 1509, William Chester was the second son of John Chester, citizen and Draper of London, and his second wife Joan, née Hill,[4] sister of the London citizen and Haberdasher John Hill (died 1516).[5] By his first marriage John Chester had a daughter Alice (Grene), living in 1542 a widow and nun. Joan had previously been married to Richard Welles, Mercer, who died in 1505,[6] and she had a son Anthony Welles, living in 1513. John and Joan Chester had two sons, Nicholas and William. John died in 1513,[7] his annual obit being kept by the Drapers on 26 May at St Thomas of Acon,[8] and by 1515 Joan remarried to Sir John Milbourne,[9] Master of the Drapers' Company in that year,[10] who had been Sheriff of London in 1510 and became Lord Mayor in 1521.[11] There were no children by the marriage of Sir John and Dame Joan Milbourne.

William was educated at Peterhouse College in the University of Cambridge,[12] but did not proceed to a degree. On leaving the University he entered at once into trade as a draper and Merchant of the Staple. He was made free of the Drapers' Company by patrimony in 1529,[13] and in the path set by his stepfather (who died in 1536,[14] his obit being kept on 5 April at the Crutched Friars[15]) he and his brother Nicholas built their position within it, appearing as Freemen Householders of the Company in the Chapterhouse list of 1537.[16] A Warden in 1541, William Chester with Thomas Blower assisted William Roche (then Lord Mayor) in taking possession from Sir Edward North of the mansion of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, which had been purchased by the Drapers for their Company Hall following Cromwell's attainder.[17]

In 1544 the art of refining sugar was first practised in England by Cornelius Bussine and four partners, of whom Chester was one. These adventurers set up two sugar bakeries which continued without rivals for twenty years and brought great profit to the proprietors.[18] Dame Joan Milbourne dying in 1545, she was buried in St Edmund's, Lombard Street, where her son erected a monument in 1563. By his mother's will (of which he was executor and chief beneficiary)[19] Chester received a considerable addition to his fortune. This probably enabled him to weather the storm which befell the English Merchant Adventurers in that year, when the Emperor Charles V placed an embargo on English merchandise. Secretary William Paget, writing from Brussels early in 1545, remarked: 'Some in dede shall wynne by it, who owe more than they have here, but Mr. Warren, Mr. Hill, Chester, and dyvers others a greats nombre are like to have a great swoope by it, having much here, and owing nothing or little'.[20]

The Act for suppression of Chantries having been revived in the first year of Edward's reign, in March 1551 Mr. Chester reported to the Drapers that the repurchase of the lands and benefits of their obitts would amount to £1402.6s. payable to the City's Trustees (Richard Turke, William Blackwell and Augustine Hynde).[21] Closely involved in the refoundation of the Hospitals, and serving as Treasurer of St Thomas' Hospital,[22] he was appointed in 1552 one of twelve persons, led by Sir Martin Bowes and Bishop Ridley, to petition the King on behalf of the City for the grant of Bridewell Palace for the reception of vagrants and mendicants.[23]

Chester was elected an alderman of London for Farringdon Ward Without in January 1552-3.[24] It was however as a Merchant Stapler or Adventurer that he was among those summoned by the Duke of Northumberland to countersign the Letters Patent for the Limitation of the Crown,[25] when the death of King Edward was anticipated.

The Marian period

Chester was elected on 5 August 1553 to his first term as Master of the Company,[26] and (with the alteration of religious policy on the accession of Queen Mary) was for 1554-55 Sheriff of London with David Woodroffe as his colleague,[27] in the mayoralty of Sir John Lyon. In their term the Marian persecutions began in earnest: they were obliged to superintend executions of Reformers, in first place the distinguished divines John Rogers and John Bradford. Chester's humanity towards the sufferers was highly praised by John Foxe and contrasted with Woodroffe's harshness.[28] Before giving Dr Rowland Taylor into the custody of the Sheriff of Essex, Chester intervened to allow him a leave-taking from his wife, and offered her his own house in which to await.[29]

In 1541 Chester had taken as apprentice Lawrence Saunders, a Cambridge graduate, who longed to return to his religious studies. Chester released him from his bond, and during Edward's reign Saunders preached in the Midlands until appointed to All Hallows, Bread Street in 1553.[30] Although warned against taking up his benefice he did so, and preached against the Roman errors. He was arrested on Bonner's orders, imprisoned in London, condemned as a heretic at St Mary Overie, and burnt at Coventry in February 1555.[31] Chester, a governor of Christ's Hospital, also took a sustained interest in the career of Edmund Campion, and sponsored him as a scholar to St John's College, Oxford.[32]

Although not named an officer or assistant in King Philip and Queen Mary's 1555 Charter to the Muscovy Company,[33] Chester was of the founding fellowship[34] under Sebastian Cabot as Governor and George Barne, William Garrard, Anthony Hussey[35] and John Southcot (the elder) as Consuls. Chester was a joint owner of the ships Primrose (with Andrew Judde, William Castelin and Anthony Hickman) and John Baptist (with Andrew Judde). He witnessed the exchange of royal gifts with the Russian ambassador in London in 1557, and afterwards with Judd, Hussey, Garrard and Barne sent report of the death of Richard Chancellor to George Killingworth and others in Russia by a mercantile fleet in which both ships sailed.[36]

In 1556 Chester was elected to his second term as Master of his Company, and transferred to the ward of Billingsgate.[37] On 7 February 1556/7 he was knighted, together with Sir Thomas Offley, Lord Mayor, by Queen Mary at Greenwich.[38] This unusual honour for an alderman (especially one being of contrary religion) is said to have been bestowed because he was a merchant of great account in the city of Antwerp, whereby he furnished King Philip with great treasure and sums of money upon his arrival in England.[39] In that year his eldest son William Chester was made free of the Drapers' Company.[40] In December 1557, John Bury, his wife's nephew, dedicated to him a translation of the Parænesis to Demonicus by Isocrates.[41] Following the fall of Calais it fell necessary for Mary to licence Chester and other Merchants of the Staple (including aldermen Judd, Offley, Woodroffe, Leigh and Lodge) to ship to Bruges in Flanders, and to pardon their disregard of the statutes during the previous year.[42]

Chester the Elizabethan

At the onset of Elizabeth's reign Chester, now a very wealthy man, with various others participated in a loan of £30,000 to the Crown and was granted rights to receive interest at ten per cent. With them he received grants of reversions and rents in 1560.[43] He transferred to the ward of Bassishaw in 1559, vacant by the death of alderman John Machell, and embarked upon his third term as Master of the Drapers' Company.[44] Chester and his Wardens brought to Chancery decree a claim concerning a twenty-year-old legacy in the Company's trust of 12,000 gold ducats, provision for the orphaned kin of a Welsh merchant in Seville. The case was still in progress in 1566.[45]

He was appointed a royal commissioner (1559 and 1562) to implement Acts of Parliament for uniformity of prayer,[46] to regulate the grievances of prisoners in the Ludgate,[47] and to restore the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown.[48] For the City he was made a commissioner for purchasing the site of Gresham's Royal Exchange, and contributed £10 towards the fund. In June 1560, with Sir William Garrard and Thomas Lodge (then Sheriff), he was among the principal mourners at the public funeral of Anthony Hussey.[49] Hussey's will (in which he further endowed Edmund Campion) shows his closeness to Chester, before whom his final codicil was declared in 1560, but his executors were Thomas Lodge and Benjamin Gonson.[50]

On 23 July 1560 occurred the funeral of his first wife, Dame Elizabeth Chester, daughter of Thomas Lovett of Astwell Castle, Northamptonshire. By her he had six sons and eight daughters, three of whom died in infancy. It was a very grand ceremony, with a procession of 100 men in new gowns and women likewise, aldermen and heralds with pennons, and singing clerks to St Edmund, Lombard Street, the street and church hung with black cloth and armorials.[51] Thomas Becon gave her funeral sermon. For her monument Chester composed Latin verses of valediction.[52] Amid these solemnities he was elected Lord Mayor (in succession to Sir William Hewett), assuming office towards the close of that year, and on 3 October his sons Thomas and John were admitted to freedom of the Drapers' Company by patrimony.[53] In April 1561 obsequies were resumed when Dame Alice Hewett died and was buried at St Martin Orgar with an immense procession of mourners, heralds, the livery of the Clothworkers, and the aldermen with Chester the Lord Mayor in their midst.[54]

Sir William Chester, Sir Thomas Offley and Sir Thomas Leigh head the list of those incorporated as Merchants of the Staple of England in Elizabeth's Charter of 1561,[55] and John Marshe, Emanuel Lucar, Leigh, Garrard and Chester lead those newly reincorporated to the freedom of the Merchant Adventurers of England in July 1564.[56] The commission upon uniformity of prayer, and for right religious observance and the reinstatement of deprived ministers, was renewed,[57] and Chester was appointed to another to investigate the counterfeiting of currency.[58] In Elizabeth's second parliament, which met on 11 January 1562/3, he sat as one of the representatives of the City of London.[59] In March 1563, with Sir William Garrard, Sir Thomas Offley and Sir Christopher Draper, he represented the aldermanry at David Woodroffe's funeral.[60]

He was an investor in the 1562-63[61] and 1563[62] trading adventures to Guinea, led by the factor Robert Baker, and also in the 1564-65 expedition,[63] all of which were for mercantile trade returning to England. In these ventures he was associated with Sir William Garrard, Sir Thomas Lodge, Anthony Hickman, Lionel Duckett and others, but he is not named by Richard Hakluyt as being among the promoters of the voyages involving human trafficking from Guinea to the West Indies in the same years.[64] The Guinea mercantile trading voyages met with various misfortunes. With Martin Bowes and William Garrard Chester led a royal commission to inquire into the petition of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor, at the time of his bankruptcy.[65] Anthony Jenkinson obtained for Garrard, Lodge, Chester and others safe conduct and privileges for trading by Obdowlocan of Tabaristan in 1563. Their names recur in the grant of privileges by the Shah of Persia, communicated by Arthur Edwards from Astrakhan in 1566 and 1567 to Garrard and Chester as Governors of the Muscovy Company, then receiving its new Charter.[66] Queen Elizabeth spoke of Chester in a dispatch of 27 September 1571 as one of her greatest and best merchants trading with the Shah.

His last move as alderman, from 1566 to 1573, was to the Langbourn ward,[67] in which stood his house in Lombard Street close by the George Inn.[68] On 2 May 1567 the Senate of the University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary M.A. degree. His fourth and fifth terms as Master of the Drapers were consecutive, in 1567-68 and 1568-69.[69] In November 1567, at St Lawrence Pountney, he married his second wife Joan, daughter of John Turner of London, and widow of William Beswicke (died 1567[70]), alderman and Draper (a Warden in Chester's Mastership of 1559). This union affirmed their Offley kinship, since Joan's daughter Agnes had married William Offley and Chester's daughter Jane was wife of Richard Offley, Merchant Taylors, both half-brothers of Sir Thomas.[71]

In 1571 he was appointed to the special commission of oyer and terminer for the trial for high treason of John Felton, who had published the Papal bull of Regnans in Excelsis against Queen Elizabeth.[72] Dame Joan died in 1572 and was buried on 23 December in St Lawrence's church beside her first husband. Chester became a Fellow-commoner of his college, and subscribed to a petition to amend the university statutes on 6 May 1572. Soon afterwards he retired from business and resigned from the aldermanry. He devoted his last years to the pursuit of classical and theological learning at the University of Cambridge.[73]

The date of his death is not known. A litigation noted in the King's Remembrancer, Barons' depositions, dated in the Hilary term of 16 Elizabeth (1574) refers to 'the goods of Sir William Chester deceased, late alderman of the city of London.'[74] (Nicholas Mewes, who became free in 1576, had served William Chester junior: William Wilmer, who had served with one William Chester, completed his term that year with Ambrose Saunders,[75] brother of the martyr Lawrence.) His mansion in Lombard Street, which he had leased to Richard Offley, was later sold to Sir George Barne (who died in 1593) by William Chester, his son and heir.[76] In 1595 a grant of Administration of Sir William's estate was made to his son John Chester.[77] Sir William Chester died at Cambridge, but was buried in London in his vault in St. Edmund's, Lombard Street.

Family

The children of Sir William Chester and his first wife, Elizabeth Lovett, are shown as follows.[78] They had sons:

and daughters:

Notes

  1. ↑ W.J.J., 'Chester, Sir William (c.1509-c.95), of Lombard Street, London', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (Boydell and Brewer 1981). History of Parliament online
  2. ↑ J.D. Alsop, 'Chester, Sir William (c.1509–1595?), mayor of London', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. That supersedes the article by C. Welch in the Old D.N.B., which contains some inaccuracies.
  3. ↑ M.K. Dale, 'Chester, William (bef.1489-1558), of Bristol, Glos.', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, (Boydell and Brewer 1982). History of Parliament online.
  4. ↑ 'Chester', in J.J. Howard and G.J. Armytage, The Visitation of London in the Year 1568, Harleian Society Vol. I (1869), p. 1.
  5. ↑ Will of John Hill, Haberdasher of London (P.C.C. 1516). Hill had one child, Anne or Agnes Corbet.
  6. ↑ Will of Richard Welles of London (P.C.C. 1505).
  7. ↑ Will of John Chester, Draper of London (P.C.C. 1513).
  8. ↑ W. Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 2 vols (Author, London 1834), I, p. 452.
  9. ↑ The remarriage date is shown by an indenture of 1515/16 establishing a Fellowship at St Catherine's College, Cambridge.
  10. ↑ The seventh (and second surviving) volume of the Drapers' Wardens Account Books commences (after a lapse of six years) in the Mastership of John Milbourne. Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, p. 403, note.
  11. ↑ R.E.C. Waters, Genealogical memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley, Their Ancestors and Descendants, 2 vols (Robson and Sons, London 1878), I, pp. 23-25.
  12. ↑ J. Venn and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: Part 1: From the earliest times to 1751, I (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 330.
  13. ↑ Records of London's Livery Companies Online, Apprentices and Freemen 1400-1900 (ROLLCO).
  14. ↑ Will of Sir John Mylbourne, Alderman of City of London (P.C.C. 1536).
  15. ↑ Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, p. 451.
  16. ↑ Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, p. 392.
  17. ↑ Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, pp. 470-73, at p. 473.
  18. ↑ John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (1720), V.xv, 'The Temporal Government': Refiners of Sugar, p. 244. (HRI Online/University of Sheffield).
  19. ↑ Will of Dame Jane Milbourne, Widow of London (P.C.C. 1545).
  20. ↑ J.W. Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, 2 vols (Robert Jennings, London 1839), I, pp. 48-49, citing State Papers (Foreign), German Correspondence 3 March 1544/5.
  21. ↑ Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, pp. 415-16.
  22. ↑ S.V. Morgan and W. Lempriere, John Howes' MS., 1582, Proceedings in the First Erection of the Three Royal Hospitals of Christ, Bridewell and St. Thomas the Apostle (London 1904), at pp. 30, 33, 41, 46.
  23. ↑ W. Waddington, Considerations on the original and proper objects of the Royal Hospital of Bridewell: also the charters of the royal hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem (London 1798), see abstract in 'Review of new publications, no. 23', Gentleman's Magazine Vol. 83 Part 1 (January 1798), pp. 55-57.
  24. ↑ A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 34, and note 48. Some relationships described in this work are unreliable.
  25. ↑ 'Letters Patent for the Limitation of the Crowne' from the transcript of Ralph Starkey in MS Harl. 35, fol. 364: J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary, Camden Society Vol. XLVIII (1850), pp. 91-100, at p. 100.
  26. ↑ Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies, I, pp. 422-23, note, citing Court Books fols. 543-44.
  27. ↑ Beavan, The Aldermen of London, II, p. 34.
  28. ↑ John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online, 1583 edition, Book 11, p. 1648.
  29. ↑ John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online, 1570 edition, Book 11, p. 1739.
  30. ↑ J.H. Irving, Lawrence Saunders, the Martyr, and His Friends (Pickering and Inglis, Glasgow 1903), p. 14 & passim.
  31. ↑ John Foxe's The Acts and Monuments Online, 1570 edition, Book 11, page 1703.
  32. ↑ G. Kilroy, Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life (Routledge, 2016), pp. 18-27, passim.
  33. ↑ E. Goldsmid (ed.), The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, collected by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher, Vol. III, North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries, Part II: The Muscovy Company and the North-Eastern Passage (E. & G. Goldsmid, Edinburgh 1886), pp. 101-112.
  34. ↑ Calendar of Patent Rolls: Philip & Mary II: 1554-1555 (HMSO 1936/Kraus, Lendeln 1970), pp. 56-59 Ex Libris Rosetta pdf pp. 61-65.
  35. ↑ R.J.W. Swales, 'Hussey, Anthony (1496/97-1560), of London', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558 (Boydell & Brewer 1982), History of Parliament online. See also 'Hussey, Anthony' in T.F. Mayer and C.B. Walters, The Correspondence of Reginald Pole. 4: A biographical companion: the British Isles, St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Ashgate Publishing, 2008), p. 291-93.
  36. ↑ E. Goldsmid (ed.), The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, collected by Richard Hakluyt, Preacher, Vol. III: North-Eastern Europe and Adjacent Countries, Part II: The Muscovy Company and the North-Eastern Passage (E. & G. Goldsmid, Edinburgh 1886), p. 151, and pp. 165-76.
  37. ↑ Beavan, Aldermen of London, II, p. 34.
  38. ↑ J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, Camden Society (London 1848), Original Series Vol. XLII, p. 125.
  39. ↑ G.C. Bower (ed.), 'A Manuscript relating to the family of Offley', in H.W. Forsyth Harwood (ed.), The Genealogist (Quarterly), New Series XIX (London and Exeter 1903), pp. 2-11, 83-88, 149-53, at p. 86.
  40. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  41. ↑ John Bury (translator), The Godly aduertisement or good counsell of the famous orator Isocrates, intitled Parænesis to Demonicus wherto is annexed Cato in olde Englysh meter (In fletestreate, at the signe of the Rose Garland, by William Coplande, London 1557).
  42. ↑ Calendar of Patent Rolls, Philip & Mary IV: 1557-1558 (HMSO London 1939/Kraus, Nendeln 1970), p. 300.
  43. ↑ Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth Vol. I: 1558-1560 (HMSO 1939), pp. 353-54 and pp. 431-37.
  44. ↑ Beavan, The Aldermen of London, II, p. 34.
  45. ↑ T.N.A. Chancery Final Decrees, C 78/16 no. 34 (1 Elizabeth), images 0071-75, C 78/26 no. 34 and C 78/27 no. 18 (6 Elizabeth) images 0045-76 with pedigrees (Images in Robert Palmer's Anglo-American Legal Tradition website (University of Houston/O'Quinn Law Library). Also C 4/30/22 (Pleadings).
  46. ↑ G.W. Prothero, Select Statutes and other Constitutional Documents illustrative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1894), pp. 227-35. Cal. Pat. Rot. Elizabeth Vol. II, 279-80.
  47. ↑ Cal. Pat. Rot. Elizabeth Vol. I, pp. 29-30.
  48. ↑ Cal. Pat. Rot. Elizabeth Vol. I, p. 118.
  49. ↑ Diary of Henry Machyn, pp. 236-37.
  50. ↑ Will of Anthony Hussey (P.C.C. 1560 (Mellershe)).
  51. ↑ Diary of Henry Machyn, p. 240.
  52. ↑ John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (1720), II.ix, pp. 156-57. (HRIonline/University of Sheffield). The verses are shown in correct measure in Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, at p. 35. The monument was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
  53. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  54. ↑ Diary of Henry Machyn, p. 256.
  55. ↑ A.L. Jenckes, The Origin, the Organization and the Location of the Staple of England (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1908), pp. 66-74, at p. 67.
  56. ↑ Cal. Pat. Rot. Elizabeth I, Vol. III, item 922, pp. 178-80.
  57. ↑ Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth Vol. II: 1560-63 (HMSO 1948), pp. 279-80.
  58. ↑ Cal. Pat. Rot. Elizabeth Vol. II, p. 523.
  59. ↑ W.J.J., 'Chester, Sir William,' History of Parliament online.
  60. ↑ Diary of Henry Machyn, pp. 303-04.
  61. ↑ E. Goldsmid (Ed.), Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English nation collected by Richard Hakluyt, Vol. XI: Africa (E. & G. Goldsmid, Edinburgh 1889), pp. 167-70.
  62. ↑ R. Kerr, A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VII (Blackwood and Ballantyne, Edinburgh 1812), Part II Book III, Chapter VII, Section X, pp. 299-306.
  63. ↑ Kerr, General History of Voyages, VII, pp. 306-09. Goldsmid (ed.), Principal Navigations, XI,pp. 170-73.
  64. ↑ 'The first voyage of the worshipful and right valiant knight Sir John Hawkins.... made to the West Indies 1562,' in E. Goldsmid (Ed.), Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English nation collected by Richard Hakluyt, Vol. XV: America part iv; West Indies; Voyages of Circumnavigation (E. & G. Goldsmid, Edinburgh 1890), pp. 123-25.
  65. ↑ Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, Volume III: 1563-1566 (HMSO 1960), items 488 and 489, p. 120.
  66. ↑ Goldsmid (ed.), Principal Navigations, III Part ii (1886), pp. 283-84, 304-05, 319-25.
  67. ↑ Beavan, The Aldermen of London, II, p. 34.
  68. ↑ Note, in J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, Camden Society (London 1848), Original Series Vol. XLII, p. 381.
  69. ↑ Beavan, The Aldermen of London, II, p. 34.
  70. ↑ Will of Willeam Beswicke, Draper of London (P.C.C. 1567).
  71. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, p. 36 and note.
  72. ↑ Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, February 28, 1843, (By Command, HMSO London 1843), p. 265.
  73. ↑ Welch 1887.
  74. ↑ The National Archives, Discovery Catalogue, item description E 133/1/199.
  75. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  76. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, p. 38.
  77. ↑ Index to Acts of Administration in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. III: 1581-1595, British Record Society Vol. 76 (1954), 1595.135.
  78. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, pp. 38-41. (Robert Cooke, Clarenceux), Visitation of London 1568, p. 1.
  79. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  80. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, pp. 41-88. See short summary in P. Collins and S. Fischer, 'The story of Chicheley Hall' (Reports), Notes and Records of the Royal Society Vol. 65 issue 2 (2011), pp. 183-96.
  81. ↑ H.S.G., 'Pedigree of Freer or Frere of "The Blanketts", Worcestershire', in J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Herald and Genealogist, V (J.G. Nichols and R.C. Nichols, London 1870), pp. 427-29. See 'Parishes: Claines', in A History of the County of Worcester Vol. 3 (V.C.H., London, 1913), pp. 300-08 (British History online accessed 17 May 2017).
  82. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, at p. 68.
  83. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  84. ↑ (ROLLCO).
  85. ↑ Will of Robert Tempest, Draper and Merchant of the Staple at Callais of London (P.C.C. 1551 (Bucke)).
  86. ↑ Waters, Chester of Chicheley, I, at pp. 39-40, including abstract of Robert Tempest's will.
  87. ↑ Sentence of Robert Tempest (P.C.C. 1559).
  88. ↑ 'A Manuscript relating to the family of Offley', at pp. 85-86.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Welch, Charles (1887). "Chester, William". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 10. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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