Family of Edward + LEWKNOR and Dorothy + WROTH

Husband: Edward + LEWKNOR

Wife: Dorothy + WROTH

Child 1: Mary + LEWKNOR

Note on Husband: Edward + LEWKNOR

16. EDWARD LEWKNOR, of Kingston Bowsey (in Kingston by Sea) and Hamsey, Sussex, Groom Porter to King Edward VI and Queen Mary I, Burgess (M.P.) for Horsham, Sussex, 1553, son and heir, born about 1518 (aged 11 in 1529). He was a legatee in the 1527 will of his father. He married before 1542 DOROTHY WROTH, daughter of Robert Wroth, Esq., of Durants (in Enfield), Middlesex, by Jane, daughter of Thomas Haute, Knt. They had four sons, Edward, Knt., Thomas, Stephen, and William, and five daughters, Leverest [Lucrece?] (wife of William Jackson), Anne, Mary, Dorothy (wife of Benjamin Pellatt, Esq.), and Elizabeth. On his mother’s death, he took possession of the manor of Kingston Bowsey (in Kingston by Sea), Sussex. In 1551 the king and Council recommended him for the packership of London, but the City refused on the ground that the yield of the office had been allocated to the poor. In 1553 he was granted the manor of King’s Barns (in Upper Beeding) and an estate called New Park (in Lower Beeding), Sussex by the king. In Feb. 1556 he and his cousin, William West, the disabled heir of the 9th Lord la Warre, were informed by Henry Peckham of the conspiracy being hatched by Henry Dudley, Knt., against Queen Mary I, and asked to procure a copy of the will of King Henry VIII as proof of the queen‘s ineligibility to wear the crown. Lewknor sent the document to West’s house in St. Dunstan’s, Farringdon Without, where it was handed over to Peckham. Lewknor was also said to have had meetings with sympathizers both at his house in Sussex and in London, and more vaguely to have been privy to a plot to kill the Queen during a card game. On 6 June 1556 he was taken to the Tower of London and on 15 June following he was tried at Guildhall and sentenced to death for treason. EDWARD LEWKNOR died a prisoner in the Tower of London 6 Sept.

5

1556. Following his attainder in 1556, the Crown granted the manors of Kingston Bowsey (in Kingston by Sea) and Hamsey, Sussex to his widow, Dorothy. She and his brother, Anthony Lewknor, appear to have broken the entail on the manor of Kingston Bowsey, Sussex in 1559. Dorothy left a will dated 1587, proved 26 Aug. 1589 (P.C.C. 68 Leicester).

Source Material

Strype Eccl. Mems. 3(1) (1822): 494. Gurney Rec. of the House of Gournay 2 (1848): 469–470 (Lewknor pedigree). Nichols Diary of Henry Machyn (Camden Soc. 42) (1848): 108, 114. Sussex Arch. Colls. 3 (1850): 89–102. Elwes Hist. of the Castles, Mansions & Manors of Western Sussex (1876): 130–131. Benolte et al. Vis. of Sussex 1530 & 1633–4 (H.S.P. 53) (1905): 25–30 (Lewknor pedigree: “Edward Lewknor of Kingston Bewsey. = Dorathey d. of Sr Rob. Wroth of Enffeild knight.”). English Rpts. 7 (1901): 898–899. Denham Parish Regs.: 1539–1850 (1904): 86–93, 198–219. Comber Sussex Gens. 3 (1933): 148–162. Davis Anc. of Mary Isaac (1955): 177–178. VCH Sussex 6(1) (1980): 132–138; 6(3) (1987): 34–37; 7 (1940): 83–87. Bindoff House of Commons 1509–1558 2 (1982): 528–529 (biog. of Edward Lewknor).