Member of the Parliament of England
George Carleton
|
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Born
| 1529
|
---|
Died
| January 1590 (aged 60–61)
|
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Spouse(s)
| |
---|
Issue
| - Castle Carleton
- Elizabeth Carleton
|
---|
Father
| John Carleton
|
---|
Mother
| Joyce Welbeck
|
---|
George Carleton
(1529 ? January 1590) was a lawyer, landowner and
Member of Parliament
with strong
Puritan
sympathies. It has been suggested that he was the secret author of the
Marprelate tracts
, and both he and his third wife were prosecuted for their involvement in the
Marprelate controversy
. Ordered to appear daily before the Privy Council in April 1589, he died in early 1590 before a decision in the proceedings against him had been reached.
Family
[
edit
]
George Carleton, born in 1529, was the second son of John Carleton of
Walton-on-Thames
,
Surrey
, and
Brightwell Baldwin
, Oxfordshire, and Joyce Welbeck, the daughter of John Welbeck of
Oxon Hoath
,
Kent
. His maternal grandmother, Margaret Culpeper, was the aunt of
Henry VIII's
fifth wife,
Katherine Howard
.
[3]
The inscription on his father's monument states that he had four brothers,
Anthony Carleton
(grandfather of
Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester
);
[4]
William (said to have been a priest); John (who died unmarried at
Bologna
); and Edward, and four sisters: Anne, who married Rowland Lytton;
[5]
Katherine, who married Francis Blount, younger brother of
James Blount, 6th Baron Mountjoy
;
[4]
Mabel, who married John Fetch of
Haddenham, Buckinghamshire
; and Jane, who married Erasmus Gainsford, son of Sir John Gainsford (d.1540) of
Crowhurst, Surrey
.
Career
[
edit
]
Carleton's father had been receiver to the
Abbot of Westminster
and deputy receiver-general to the
Dean
and Chapter of Westminster, and through this connection George Carleton was granted an
exhibition
at
Christ Church, Oxford
.
[3]
In 1552 he was admitted to
Gray's Inn
.
He later used his legal skills in the interests of friends, kinsmen and others, acting as trustee in the affairs of his brother,
Anthony Carleton
, his brother-in-law, Rowland Lytton,
Sir Richard Knightley
,
[7]
[8]
and
James Blount, 6th Baron Mountjoy
, who by 1566 was thousands of pounds in debt.
[3]
He served in a military capacity on two occasions, in 1557 as a captain at the siege of
St Quentin
, and in 1573 as treasurer to the
Earl of Essex's
expedition to
Ireland
.
[3]
Over time he became a substantial landowner. He inherited his father's property at
Walton-on-Thames
, and spent his early years there, but by 1568 had conveyed it to his younger brother, Edward.
[3]
His inheritance from his father also included lands in
Cambridgeshire
and
Huntingdonshire
. Through his second marriage he acquired lands in
Oxfordshire
and
Northamptonshire
, including the manor of
Overstone
, which he used as a principal residence.
[3]
He also purchased extensive lands in
Gloucestershire
,
[3]
and during the later part of his life acquired substantial interests in former monastic properties in the
fenlands
, including some 1000 acres of marshland used for grazing, as well as a house in
Wisbech
and the manor of Coldham.
[3]
[9]
As a landowner in the Lincolnshire fens he pioneered the use of windmills, served as a commissioner for sewers,
[10]
and was the first to have 'inned any marsh in
Holland
'.
He was also involved in financial transactions with his stepson by his second marriage,
Sir Anthony Cope
. In 1571 they entered into a recognizance in the amount of £1000, and in 1576 Carleton was granted the stewardship of the manor of
Wollaston
in
Northamptonshire
, which he appears to have obtained for Cope's benefit.
[3]
He served as a
Justice of the Peace
in the counties of
Oxfordshire
, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire, as well as the
Isle of Ely
. Perhaps through the influence of
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford
, he was chosen as a
Member of Parliament
for Poole in 1571 and Dorchester in 1572, 1576, and 1581.
He was also superintendent over the
Jesuits
and Catholic
recusants
during their imprisonment in
Wisbech Castle
.
Carleton was an 'ardent'
Puritan
who believed that
Elizabeth I's
only 'reliable subjects' were Puritans like himself, and put forward to
Lord Burghley
a proposal that the Queen's Catholic subjects should be settled on plantations in Ireland, as well as a proposal for a militia composed 'chiefly of such as be religious' to guard the Queen.
[3]
He befriended
Percival Wiburn
, a Puritan preacher in Northampton, and after Wiburn had been silenced by the authorities, brought two other radical ministers from London, Nicholas Standon and Edward Bulkeley, whose sermons were given at Carleton's home at Overstone.
[3]
In Parliament, he devoted his energies to bringing about further religious reform 'along Presbyterian lines', supporting the efforts in that regard of
William Strickland
,
Paul Wentworth
, and
Peter Wentworth
.
Carleton's Puritan views led him, during the last year of his life, to involvement in the printing of the
Marprelate tracts
. In 1589 he married
'Mistress Crane'
, at whose country home at
East Molesey
in Surrey, across the river from
Hampton Court Palace
, the first of the Marprelate tracts,
Martin's
Epistle
, was printed by
Robert Waldegrave
on a secret press in October 1588.
After the printing of the
Epistle
, the press was moved to
Fawsley
in
Northamptonshire
, the home of
Sir Richard Knightley
, whom Collinson terms 'an enthusiast not entirely
compos mentis
, whose affairs were in Carleton's hands'.
Martin's
Epitome
was printed at Fawsley. From there the press was taken to the
Whitefriars
in
Coventry
, and to
Wolston Priory
in
Warwickshire
, where further tracts were printed. Although the secret press was not captured by agents of
Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby
, until August 1589, according to Carlson, as early as April 1589 Carleton had been ordered to appear before the
Privy Council
, and directed to attend daily until given permission to depart.
After the capture of the secret press in August, those in whose homes the Marprelate tracts had been printed were arrested and imprisoned in the
Fleet
. Carleton died in early January 1590 before a decision had been reached in any proceedings which may have been instigated against him. His widow was ordered by the
Court of Star Chamber
to be imprisoned at the Queen's pleasure, and heavily fined, as were others who had been involved.
Both Longley and Collinson have suggested that Carleton might have been the secret author of the Marprelate tracts.
Marriages and issue
[
edit
]
He married firstly, in 1559, Audrey Gainsford, widow successively of George Taylor of
Lingfield, Surrey
, and
Sir George Harper
(1503?1558) of
Sutton Valence
,
Kent
, and daughter of Sir John Gainsford (d.1540) of
Crowhurst, Surrey
, and his fifth wife Audrey Shaa, daughter of
Sir John Shaa
,
Lord Mayor of London
. She died in early 1560.
[21]
He married secondly, in 1561, Elizabeth Mohun (d.1587), widow of Edward Cope of
Hanwell
,
Oxfordshire
and daughter of Walter Mohun of Overstone,
by whom he had a son, Castle Carleton, and a daughter, Elizabeth Carleton.
He married thirdly Elizabeth Hussey, the eldest daughter of Sir Robert Hussey (d.1546) of
Linwood, Lincolnshire
, and his second wife, Jane Stydolf, the daughter of Thomas Stydolf of Surrey.
Her father was a younger brother of
John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford
,
while her paternal grandparents were
William Hussey
(d.1495),
Chief Justice of the King's Bench
, and Elizabeth Berkeley, the daughter of Thomas Berkeley of
Wymondham, Leicestershire
.
[27]
There were no children of his first and third marriages.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
Carleton, George (1529?90), of Overstone, Northamptonshire, Wisbech and Coldham, Isle of Ely, History of Parliament
Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- ^
a
b
Fuidge, N.M., 'Carleton, Anthony (c.1522?76), of Brightwell Baldwin, Oxfordshire, History of Parliament
Retrieved 15 December 2013.
- ^
Lytton, Sir Rowland (1561?1615), of Knebworth, Hertfordshire, History of Parliament
Retrieved 15 December 2013.
- ^
Jointly with
Christopher Yelverton
.
- ^
Knightley, Sir Richard (1533?1615), of Fawsley, Northamptonshire, History of Parliament
Retrieved 15 December 2013.
- ^
'Wisbech Hundred: Elm',
A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely
: Volume 4: City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (2002), pp. 180?186
.
- ^
Kennedy, Mark E. (1983). "Fen Drainage, the Central Government, and Local Interest: Carleton and the Gentlemen of South Holland*".
The Historical Journal
.
26
: 15.
doi
:
10.1017/S0018246X00019580
.
- ^
Harper, George (1503?58), of Sutton Valence, Kent and London, History of Parliament
Retrieved 14 December 2013.
- ^
Hussey, William I (by 1473??1531), of London; Sleaford, Lincolnshire; North Duffield, Yorkshire, and Calais, History of Parliament
Retrieved 14 December 2013.
References
[
edit
]
- Black, Joseph L., ed. (2008).
The Martin Marprelate Tracts; A Modernized and Annotated Edition
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. l?li.
- Burke, Bernard (1866).
A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire
. London: Harrison.
- Carlson, Leland H. (1981).
Martin Marprelate, Gentleman: Master Job Throckmorton Laid Open in His Colors
. San Marino, California: The Henry E. Huntington Library.
- Collinson, Patrick (2004). "Carleton, George (1529?1590)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/37261
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- Collinson, Patrick (2013).
Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-Puritanism
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
9781107023345
.
- Cross, Claire (2004). "Crane, Elizabeth (d. in or before 1606)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/68274
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- Doe, Norman (2004). "Hussey, Sir William (d. 1495)".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/14271
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- French, G.R. (1865).
"A Brief Account of Crowhurst Church, Surrey, and Its Monuments"
.
Surrey Archaeological Collections
.
III
. London: Lowell Reeve & Co.: 39?62.
- Howard, Joseph Jackson, ed. (1874).
"The Visitation of Surrey"
.
Surrey Archaeological Collections
.
VI
. London: Wyman & Sons: 326?7
. Retrieved
15 December
2013
.
- McCorkle, Julia Norton (1931). "A Note concerning 'Mistress Crane' and the Martin Marprelate Controversy".
The Library
. 4th.
XII
(3): 276?83.
doi
:
10.1093/library/s4-XII.3.276
.
- Maddison, A.R., ed. (1903).
Lincolnshire Pedigrees, Vol. II
. Vol. LI. London: Harleian Society. pp. 526?32
. Retrieved
14 December
2013
.
- Metcalfe, Walter C. (1887).
The Visitations of Northamptonshire
. London: Harleian Society
. Retrieved
10 December
2013
.
- Pierce, William (1908).
A Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts
. New York: Burt Franklin
. Retrieved
10 December
2013
.
- Turner, William Henry, ed. (1871).
The Visitations of the County of Oxford
. Vol. V. London: Harleian Society. p. 123
. Retrieved
27 December
2013
.
External links
[
edit
]
- Will of George Carleton of Overstone, Northamptonshire, proved 16 January 1590, PROB 11/75/14, National Archives
Retrieved 15 December 2013
- Will of Anthony Carleton of Brightwell, Oxfordshire, proved 2 June 1576, PROB 11/58/192, National Archives
Retrieved 16 December 2013
- Will of George Taylor of Lingfield, Surrey, proved 28 January 1544, PROB 11/30/20, National Archives
Retrieved 15 December 2013
- Will of Sir John Gainsford, proved 29 October 1540, PROB 11/28/264, National Archives
Retrieved 15 December 2013