Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520/1-1598), was the chief advisor and Lord Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth. He served at Court for 40 years through 3 reigns. He worked closely with his cousin, Blanche Parry, the Queen’s confidante. He established an efficient secret service and groomed his second son, Sir Robert Cecil, to succeed him. Lord Burghley’s grandfather, David Sitsylt, moved from Alt-yr-Ynys, Walterstone [SMR 6191] in the south-west of the county, to Lincolnshire in the 1480s. However, Sitsylt / Cecil cousins continued to live in the original family home. Alt-yr-Ynys was a small manor house with a fine Tudor ceiling in the parlour and some stained glass windows, one of which is the Cecil coat-of-arms now in Walterstone Church. An account of the 1597 funeral of William Cecil of Alt-yr-Ynys at Walterstone Church still exists in a letter from Paul Delahay to Lord Burghley in the Salisbury Manuscripts.

Source: Ruth Richardson

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1567-1601) courtier and one-time favourite of Queen Elizabeth. Commanded several military expeditions and finally led rebellion against queen and was executed. Robert Devereux was born at Netherwood, Thornbury, in the north east of the county.[SMR 6689]. The manor house, which stood on a medieval site with Mortimer connections, and was situated in a large park, has unfortunately been pulled down.

Blanche Parry, (Blanche ap Harry), daughter of Henry Myles and Alice (Milborne) of Newcourt, Bacton.

Blanche (1507/8-1590) was introduced at the Tudor Court by her aunt Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy, who was Princess Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress. Lady Troy provided a stable, happy environment for the childhoods of Elizabeth and her brother (Edward VI). She, and her niece Blanche, may have influenced Elizabeth’s religious views for there was a Lollard connection in their family. When Lady Troy retired (Elizabeth was about 12 or 13 years old) Lady Troy intended Blanche to succeed her but Elizabeth’s governess, Kate Ashley, was appointed. Blanche remained as second in the household until Kate Ashley died in 1565 and then she became the Chief Gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Chamber and Keeper of Her Majesty’s Jewels. (She had been in charge of the jewels since the reign of Queen Mary.)

Blanche had supervised the rockers of Elizabeth’s cradle and regularly slept in the little girl’s room. As she rode with the Princess she was allocated food for her horses and stabling. She remained single throughout her life and was so devoted to Elizabeth that she accompanied her to the Tower during Elizabeth’s imprisonment there. For Elizabeth’s Coronation Blanche was given 7 yards of scarlet, 15 yards of crimson velvet, 1¼ yards of cloth of gold yellow with work and ¾ yard cloth of gold black with work, which must have been made into truly beautiful dresses. Her salary of £33-6s-8d remained unchanged throughout the reign.

Blanche’s family were closely connected with the Herberts of Raglan Castle and her father was Steward of Dore Abbey. Her family tree was recorded in a poem by the bard Guto’r Glyn. Blanche herself acquired lands in Herefordshire - in Fawley, Bowley, Marden and Wellington, and in Yorkshire - in Rise, Wheldrake and Thorganby Church. In Wales she held Usk (long held by her family), Glasbury and land around Llangorse Lake.

Blanche was in charge of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Chamber (her ‘Head’ Chamber), the Queen’s jewels, the Great Seal of England, the Queen’s furs, books and personal linen. She received money on the Queen’s behalf, was a conduit for passing information to the Queen, channelled Parliamentary bills and acted as the Queen’s confidante. She worked closely with Lord Burghley, her cousin. She may have helped with the publication finances of the Welsh Bible. Her unused monument in Bacton Church, dated before November 1578, is the first known instance of Queen Elizabeth being depicted as Gloriana, as an icon.

Blanche became blind in the 1580s but continued to live at Court. When she died she was buried at Saint Margaret’s Church, adjacent to Westminster Abbey. The Queen paid for her funeral which had the status of a baroness. Blanche Parry provided stability in the Queen’s life.

Source: ‘Mistress Blanche, Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante’ by Ruth E. Richardson, published Logaston Press 2007 and www.blancheparry.com

Newcourt, Bacton, [SMR 31186] built by Harri Ddu ap Gruffudd (Blanche Parry’s great-grandfather) in 1452, using local oak trees, was the family manor house surrounded by formal gardens and a deer park. It lost its status in the 17th century and became a farmhouse. A drawing of 1814 preserves its general appearance. Only the site remains. See ‘Mistress Blanche, Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante’ by Ruth E. Richardson, published Logaston Press 2007, for picture and details.

Sir James Croft of Croft Castle:

Sir James supported Lady Jane's claim to the throne and was imprisoned in the Tower on Mary's accession. However, he was pardoned and in 1570 during Elizabeth's reign he became comptroller of the Royal household and a privy councillor.

Croft Castle [SMR 6347] is managed by the National Trust and is open to the public. Herefordshire Archaeology carried out archaeological work in the grounds during 2001-2004. Click here to read about the work.

Sir John Hawkins,

In recent years Sir John Hawkins has all but disappeared from the histories of late Tudor sea-farers, perhaps because of his slave-trading links. However, staff and students from Lady Hawkins' School, Kington have shown in a recently published book that the Elizabethan sea-dog is a very worthy character to appear in history books. A slave-trader and merchant, a diplomat and a politician, a courtier and a double-agent, Treasurer and Controller of Queen Elizabeth's navy his life was not only exciting but he was more important to the realm than the more famous Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.
	The book tells Hawkins' amazing story. With royal backing he established the slave trade route from Plymouth to the west coast of Africa and then to the 'New World' of the Americas. His slaving voyages were also journeys of discovery as he and his crews encountered strange peoples and creatures, as well as great dangers. They also took Hawkins into the very heart of a newly emerging conflict between Philip II's Catholic Spain and Elizabeth Protestant England. Hawkins' treachorous treatment by Spaniards at San Juan de Ulua would never be forgotten by the sea-farer but he would have his revenge with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The Queen appointed Hawkins Treasurer and Controller of her navy and in these roles he restructured the royal fleet and dramatically improved the sea-worthiness and fighting capabilities of its ships. It would be to a large extent thanks to Hawkins that the Spaniards were defeated in 1588.
Hawkins' later life was also full of danger and adventure. He helped foil the Ridolfi Plot and save the life of Queen Elizabeth and was also the victim of a failed assasination attempt. Although a native Devonian, the great sea-farer would establish a link to Herefordshire through his second marriage - to Margaret Vaughan of Hergest, Kington. It may also have been that the couple married at Eardisley Castle. Little more is known of Hawkins' Herefordshire connections but Lady Hawkins' School, built in 1632 as part of the bequest of Lady Margaret, was almost certainly possible due, in part, to the fortune Sir John had amassed on his voyages. (Nic Dinsdale)

John Scudamore, gentleman usher and esquire for the body to Henry VIII.

He had become rich by speculating with the property gained as receiver for the Dissolution of the Monasteries. For example, the site and demesne lands of Abbey Dore were granted to John Scudamore in 1536 under the Act of Suppression of King Henry VIII. He rebuilt Holme Lacy . The Scudamores used their wealth to build an impressive Tudor manor house at Holme Lacy. [SMR 6463]

Sir John Scudamore and Mary Shelton,

John Scudamore was the grandson of his aforementioned namesake. He too carved out a career for himself at court. John was made a gentlemen pensioner, one of fifty well-born men whom Henry VIII had formed into a quasi-military corps in 1539. At court John met and proposed to Mary Shelton, a relation of the Queen Elizabeth and one of her maids of honour. The queen was loathe to consent to their marriage and was said to have beaten Mary so badly she broke her finger. Eventually she relented and John and Mary were married late in 1573 or early in1574. Unlike other courtiers, who never regained Elizabeth's favour after marriage, he was eventually forgiven and even gained a knighthood in 1592. The poet Spenser has immortalised John Scudamore in his poem about Queen Elizabeth, Faerie Queene:

"Scudamour doth his conquest tell, Of vertuous Amoret: Great Venus Temple is describ'd, And louers life forth set." (Book IIII)

In 1601 he became steward of the city of Hereford and a member of the Council in the Marches, as well as serving as standard-bearer of the gentlemen pensioners from 1599 to 1603. His wife Mary also remained in royal service and was given a gift of £300 by the usually not overly generous Queen. John's devotion to Queen Elizabeth was immortalised by the poet Spenser in his Faery Queen. (Book iv)

John, Viscount Scudamore (1601-1671):

John Scudamore also took an interest in agricultural matters and imported a breed of cattle from France (now known as Hereford Cattle) and a type of cider apple. King James made him a Baronet and sent him to the French Court as ambassador. During the Civil War Scudamore was one of the leading royalists in the county which eventually led to a four year imprisonment in London. For his financial support and personal sacrifices he gained a peerage.

(It should be noted here that the Scudamores of Kentchurch, the other branch of this family, sided with the parliamentarians during this conflict.)

Thomas Traherne (1637 - 1674) - In the Pursuit of Felicity

The poet Thomas Traherne was born circa 1637, the son of a Herefordshire shoemaker. There is no record of young Thomas ever attending any of the local schools. However, it is probable that a wealthy relative, Philip Traherne, an innkeeper and twice mayor of Hereford, sponsored his education. Brasenose College Oxford registers confirm that on March 1^st 1653 Thomas Traherne was entered as a Commoner and the usual fees were paid.

Regardless, or perhaps because of his humble upbringing and education, from an early age Traherne's quest was FELICITY (happiness, joy, bliss). He wrote about a child-like vision of a perfect world in spite of evil and corruption brought on by material greed and selfishness. "Man falls from the estate of innocence because he turns from nature to a world of artificiality and invention."

Of Oxford Traherne later wrote: "There was never a tutor that did professly teach Felicity, though that be the mistress of all other sciences… We studied to inform our knowledge, but knew not for what end we studied. And for lack of aiming at a certain end we erred in the manner." He believed that the self stood in the way of the individual achieving felicity: "It is the self, the so called individual self which is the obstacle to the enjoyment of this deep and glorious world, the enjoyment which is Felicity."

In 1657 Traherne was appointed Rector of Credenhill feeling a deep vocation for the priesthood: "I need the oil of pity and balm of love to remedy and heal…" He felt that the priest can help people in the quest for felicity: "The priest must cure evil; sin is an illness which can be remedied…"

In 1669 Traherne left Credenhill for London and in 1672 he moved to the Bridgeman estate at Teddington where he died in 1674. In his will he left five tenement houses in the Parish of All Saints in Hereford to the city for use of the poor. [G.H.M.]

If you would like to read a poem written by Thomas Traherne, click here

There is a Traherne Association in Hereford which organises an annual Traherne Festival in June.
For more information contact: Lionel Meredith, tel. 01432 263837.

Bishop Francis Godwin, (Bishop of Hereford and author, born in 1562)

After his death his book, "The Man in the Moone or A discourse of a voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales Thy Speedy messenger " was published. This early type of science fiction book became an instant success. By 1768 there had been 24 editions in four languages. In this story the character Domingo flies to the moon in a carriage drawn by wild swans. What makes this book so remarkable is not the choice of topic, but the visionary ideas, as for example, a rotating earth or the state of weightlessness the wild swans find themselves in whilst travelling through outer space:

"I found then by this Experience that which no Philosopher ever dreamed of, to wit, that those things which wee call heavie, do not sinke toward the Center of the Earth, as their naturall place, but are drawn by a secret property of the Globe of the Earth, or rather some thing within the same, in like sort as the Loadstone draweth Iron, being with the compasse of its attractive beames."

It is obvious that Bishop Godwin is familiar with Copernicus, yet the use of these ideas in the early 17^th century in a work of fiction is fascinating.

Robert Hues mathematician and geographer, (born at Little Hereford about 1553, died 1632)

Robert Masters explorer,(died 1619, buried in Burghill Church) Both Hues and Masters took part in Thomas Cavendish's circumnavigation (1586-1588) of the globe (the first since Drake's 1577-80).

This plaque depicting a globe is part of Robert Master's tomb in Burghill Church.

Another geographer born in Herefordshire, Richard Hakluytt, published an appeal for greater English overseas exploration in "Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America" in 1582.

TFM