Edward Stradling (politician, around 1529)

Sir Edward Stradling (around 1529 - May 15, 1609 ) was an English nobleman, politician and writer.

Origin and education

Edward Stradling came from the Stradling family , an old gentry family with estates in south Wales and south west England. He was the eldest son of Thomas Stradling and his wife Catherine Gamage . He studied at Oxford University and from February 1552 at the Inner Temple in London. Then he made a cavalier tour to France, Italy and Germany.

Activity as a politician

Stradling's father held a number of local offices as a Catholic during the reign of Queen Mary I and was elected MP for the House of Commons in the 1553 and 1554 general elections through the influence of the Earl of Arundel . In the general election in April 1554, the young Edward Stradling ran successfully for the Borough of Steyning in Sussex , where Arundel had considerable political influence. In the general elections in November 1554 and 1555 he did not run again, but in 1558 he and his younger brother David Stradling were re-elected as MPs for the Borough of Arundel in Sussex with the support of Arundel . With the accession of Elizabeth I to the throne , Stradling's political career seemed to have ended in November 1558, as he was a Catholic. While his father withdrew to his Welsh possessions as a staunch Catholic, his brother David and two of his sisters fled abroad. Edward, on the other hand, changed his denomination, whereupon he was pardoned in 1559. Due to the attitude of his family, he remained suspicious of the new government as a possible recusant , as a secret Catholic. After his father's death in 1571, he inherited the family estates. He was now able to win the government's trust. Occasionally he stayed at the royal court and served from 1573 to 1574 as justice of the peace and in 1573, 1582 and 1595 as sheriff of Glamorgan for one year each . He also took on several smaller local offices. In October 1573 he was knighted . Occasionally there was tension with the Earl of Pembroke and other members of the Herbert family in Glamorgan. Given the political dominance of the family in south-east Wales, Stradling no longer ran in the general election. From 1590 to 1594 he served as Deputy Lieutenant for Pembrokeshire and 1595 for Glamorgan.

Activity as a scholar and writer

Stradling dealt during the reign of Elizabeth I, more and more with the history of his family and that of Wales . Between 1561 and 1566 he had already written a treatise on the Norman conquest of Glamorgan, which David Powel took over for his History of Cambria , published in 1584 . However, in order to increase the age and importance of his family, Stradling falsely claimed that his ancestors had already come to England with the Danes. Stradling sponsored the linguist Siôn Dafydd Rhys , for whom he took over the printing costs for 1250 copies of his grammar of the Welsh language in 1592 . He collected weapons, armor, old coins and above all manuscripts and books. His library in his residence, St Donat's Castle , became famous among his contemporaries. He had the castle itself and the surrounding garden significantly rebuilt. To do this, he had the port of nearby Aberthaw expanded. His learned friends included Thomas Sackville, 1st Baron Buckhurst , Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, and John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley . In 1840 a collection of his correspondence was published.

Marriage and inheritance

Stradling had signed a marriage agreement on January 20, 1567, after which he married Agnes Gage (1547-1624), a daughter of Sir Edward Gage from Firle , Sussex. He and his wife had a son who, however, died as a child. Then he and his wife adopted his great-nephew John Stradling , a son of Francis Stradling from Bristol . He inherited his property after his death.

Publications

• with David Powel a. a .: The historie of Cambria . Da Capo, Amsterdam 1969
• John Montgomery Traherne (Ed.): Stradling correspondence: a series of letters [addressed to Sir Edward Stradling] written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. With notices of the family of Stradling of St. Donat's Castle. London 1840

Web links

• Jones, ED: STRADLING family of Glamorganshire . In: Dictionary of Welsh Biography
• RJW Swales: STRADLING, Edward (1528 / 29-1609), of St. Donats, Glam. (History of Parliament online, Ref Volumes: 1509–1558)
• RA Griffiths: Stradling, Sir Edward (c. 1529-1609). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ralph A. Griffiths: The rise of the Stradlings of St Donat’s . In: Morgannwg , 7 (1963), p. 37.
2. ↑ Ralph A. Griffiths: The rise of the Stradlings of St Donat’s . In: Morgannwg , 7 (1963), p. 39.
3. ^ Ralph A. Griffiths: The rise of the Stradlings of St Donat's . In: Morgannwg , 7 (1963), p. 15.
4. ↑ Ralph A. Griffiths: The rise of the Stradlings of St Donat’s . In: Morgannwg , 7 (1963), p. 46.
5. ↑ Ralph A. Griffiths: The rise of the Stradlings of St Donat’s . In: Morgannwg , 7 (1963), p. 44.