William Petre

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Sir William Petre. 16th century painting

Sir William Petre (* 1505 or 1506; † January 13, 1572 in Ingatestone ) was an English politician who was elected at least eight times as a member of the House of Commons . He survived the politically changeable time in England of the 16th century, while he had as secretary to the kings Henry VIII. And Edward VI. and Queen Maria I. had a considerable influence on English politics for many years.

origin

William Petre was born into a free peasant family in Devon . He was a son of John Petre of Tor Newton in Torbryan in Devon and his wife Alice, a daughter of John Collinge of Woodland in Devon. His siblings included John Petre and Robert Petre. His father made it possible for him to study at Oxford around 1519, where he distinguished himself through his eagerness to learn. In 1523 he became a Fellow of All Souls College . In 1526 he acquired the degree of a bachelor's degree in both Roman and canon law . In 1533 he earned the degree of Doctor of Law .

Advancement at the royal court and to a rich landowner

It is said that the Earl of Wiltshire hired Petre to teach his son George Boleyn between 1526 and 1529 . In June 1529 he became royal lawyer in the proceedings against the papal legates Campeggio and Wolsey over the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon . In 1530 he was one of the royal attorneys who were supposed to obtain expert opinions on the validity of the marriage from various foreign experts. He won the favor of Chancellor Cromwell , who employed him from 1536 in the royal chancellery. As commissioner for spiritual affairs, he led a church meeting on June 16, 1536 in St. Paul's Cathedral . In the next few years he helped to organize the dissolution of the English monasteries , whereby he obviously acted dutifully and, unlike others, did not enrich himself. In return for his services, he received Clatercote Priory in Oxfordshire , he had about £ 70 annual income from the property, and an annual pension of about £ 100. By his marriage with the family Tyrrell from Essex used acquired Petre 1537 in Südessex land of further dissolved monasteries. In 1538 he leased the estate of Ging Abbess from Barking Abbey . He expanded this property to Ingatestone through acquisitions over the next few years . Since he had a good knowledge of their possessions through his work in the dissolution of the monasteries, he was able to acquire further lucrative lands in Essex, Oxfordshire and Somerset for which he paid at least £ 1,600. By the end of 1540 he is said to have had an annual income of around £ 500 from his estates. He remarried shortly after the death of his first wife, and his second wife, Anne Brown, brought other estates in Cambridgeshire , Essex and Hampshire with them, from which they earned a further £ 280 a year. From around 1540 he built Ingatestone Hall as his country house.

William Petre coat of arms

Service as royal secretary

Secretary of Henry VIII

Through his work in the royal chancellery, Petre occasionally served as a judge, while in 1537 he interrogated the rebels Robert Aske in the Tower of London . In April 1539 he was a member of the six-member committee that drafted the later Six Articles that became the basis of the Church of England . Petre survived Cromwell's fall in 1540, during which he interrogated Bishop Tunstall in the Tower and searched Cromwell's apartment. In the next few years he took on other offices. He was knighted in January 1544 when he became royal secretary with William Paget on January 21, 1544 . In this position he took part in meetings of the Privy Council and was one of the counselors of Queen Katharina Parr . From April to July 1545 he was an envoy in Brussels . To finance the war with France , Petre took out loans on behalf of the king and served on commissions selling land from the Crown Estate . Together with the dean of St Paul's Cathedral, he traveled to France in September 1546 for negotiations, which however remained unsuccessful. Petres preferred position with the king aroused the displeasure of the Earl of Surrey , since Petre was of non-noble descent.

Secretary of Edward VI.

Petre is believed to have been a member of the House of Commons during the reign of Henry VIII, but his election as MP for Borough Downton in Wiltshire in 1536 is uncertain. His membership in the parliaments of 1539 and 1542 is even more uncertain. However, from 1544 Petre belonged to the House of Lords as royal secretary . In the 1547 general election, he was elected Knight of the Shire for Essex. In the House of Commons, Petre was one of the active MPs, which he also kept under Edward VI. continued his office as royal secretary and thus a member of the House of Lords. After William Paget became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in June 1547 , Petre remained sole secretary to the king until Sir Thomas Smith was appointed second secretary in April 1548 . Unlike Smith, Petre also survived the fall of Lord Protector Somerset in October 1549 by taking the side of the Earl of Warwick in good time . Smith's successor was initially Nicholas Wotton . Petre, however, received the lucrative office of treasurer of the Court of First Fruits and Tenths on October 20, 1549 , with which he was responsible for the taxation of the clergy. In addition, Peter’s activity as royal secretary was so extensive that he hardly held any other offices. In January 1550 he was one of the four ambassadors who negotiated a peace treaty with France after the surrender of Boulogne and finally signed it in May. In April 1550, however, Petre fell seriously ill and only recovered after several months. In January 1553 he resigned as treasurer of the Court of First Fruits. He was likely re-elected as Knight of the Shire for Essex in the spring 1553 general election.

Secretary of Maria I.

After the death of Edward VI. Petre was brought to the Tower at the request of the Duke of Northumberland, the former Earl of Warwick, where he and other councilors swore allegiance to the aspirant to the throne Jane Gray . However, he was able to escape from the Tower on July 19, 1553 and a little later belonged to the councilors who declared Henry VIII's daughter Maria to be queen instead of Jane Gray . Thereupon Mary, after she had become queen, reappointed him on July 30, 1553 as royal secretary, and gave him Shute House from the possession of Northumberland . This was certainly favored by Peter’s second wife, who was a Catholic and friends with the new queen. In his office he dealt with measures against abuse of office and supervised the royal finances together with Bishop Gardiner . Above all, however, he was now responsible for British foreign policy. In this capacity he was one of the Queen's closest advisers. During the Wyatt conspiracy , he raised a posse in Essex and presumably fought the rebels himself. Subsequently, he was one of the judges who interrogated captured rebels and sentenced, while in March 1554 he interrogated Mary's half-sister Elizabeth , who was suspected of having supported the rebellion, in the Tower of London . Petre negotiated the Queen's marriage contract with the Spanish Prince Philip . When Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull in June 1555 , according to which the dissolved monasteries should get their property back, he withheld them and in November 1555 managed to issue a new bull in which the Pope accepted the sale of church property. In 1556, Petre fell ill again, which is why he resigned his office as royal secretary in March 1557. He was succeeded by William Cecil .

Political activity under Elizabeth I.

Even after his resignation as royal secretary, Petre remained a member of the Privy Council and continued to run as Knight of Shire for Essex in the general election. Maria I had appointed Petre to be one of her executors . Even under Elizabeth I, he continued to belong to the Privy Council and was re-elected as Knight of the Shire in the 1559 general election. When William Cecil was traveling for several months in northern England and Scotland from 1559 to 1560, he briefly took over the office of royal secretary again. The Queen, who loved Petre personally, honored him with a three-day visit to Ingatestone Hall in July 1561, for which he spent around £ 136. In the general election in 1563 he was re-elected as Knight of the Shire. From November 1564 to May 1566, Catherine Gray, Jane Gray's sister, who had fallen out of favor with the Queen for her secret marriage, was under his supervision at Ingatestone. Because of his age, poor health and limited hearing, he finally retired from politics in 1566.

The Ingatestone Hall estate in Essex, built by Petre

Religious attitude, further land acquisition and testament

For many years Petre managed not to commit himself on the question of religion. His second wife Anne remained a Catholic until her death. Under Maria I, Petre did not take action against Protestants, although this was expressly permitted by parliament. He did not take the oath of Supremacy until 1569 , but the Catholic priest John Woodward served in his residence in Ingatestone until his death . Not only was Petre a prudent politician, but he had also used his position to expand his land holdings. Thanks to his thrift, he had an average annual surplus of around £ 600, which he invested in land purchases. In doing so, he acquired a sizable property in his hometown of Torbryan near Ipplepen in Devon, but he had acquired large estates above all around his home in Ingatestone. In his will, Petre generously gave the Ingatestone poor house and other charitable institutions, but also All Souls and especially Exeter College , Oxford, where he is honored as the second founder.

Family and offspring

Petre had married Gertrude Tyrrell, daughter of Sir John Tyrrell of Warley , Essex , in 1533 or 1534 . With her he had a son and two daughters:

  • Elizabeth Petre
  1. ∞ John Gostwick
  2. ∞ Edward Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex

After the death of his first wife on May 28, 1541, Petre married Anne, a daughter of Sir William Browne , Lord Mayor of London in 1514 and widow of John Tyrrell († 1540) from Heron in East Thorndon in Essex, before March 1542 . He had several children with her, including:

His inheritance became his eldest surviving son, John Petre from his second marriage.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shute History: Shute Timeline. Retrieved November 6, 2017 .
  2. ^ Exeter College Special Collections: William Petre. Retrieved November 6, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Petre, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petre, Sir William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English politician and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH 1505 or 1506
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1572
Place of death Ingatestone