William Drury

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Sir

William Drury
Born2 October 1527
Hawstead, Suffolk, England
Died13 October 1579(1579-10-13) (aged 52)
Waterford, Munster, Ireland
Spouse
Margaret Wentworth
​
(m. 1560)​
Children3
Parent

Sir William Drury (2 October 1527 – 13 October 1579) was an English statesman and soldier.

Family

William Drury, born at Hawstead in Suffolk on 2 October 1527, was the third son of Sir Robert Drury (c. 1503–1577) of Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire, and Elizabeth Brudenell, of Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. He was the grandson of another Sir Robert Drury (c. 1456–2 March 1535), Speaker of the House of Commons in 1495. He was a brother of Sir Robert Drury (1525–1593) and Sir Drue Drury (1531/2–1617).[1]

Career

Drury was educated at

Elizabeth I.[3]

In 1554 he sat as

Chipping Wycombe. In 1559, he was sent to Edinburgh to report on the condition of Scottish politics, and five years later he became Marshal and deputy-governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed.[3] He was a close observer of the affairs of Mary, Queen of Scots and her house-arrest in Lochleven Castle, was in constant communication with Lord Burghley
and wrote to him on 3 April 1568 regarding her escape from that place on 25 March, about which he gave a full account.

He went to Scotland with Sir Henry Gates and met Regent Moray in the Great Hall of Stirling Castle on 19 January 1570, and they had a discussion in his bedchamber after dinner.[4] Moray was proceeding to keep an appointment with Drury in Linlithgow when he was mortally wounded, and it was probably intended that Drury should be murdered also.[3]

After this event, Drury led two raids into Scotland; at least thrice he went to that country on more peaceable errands, during which, however, his life was continually in danger from assassins. As ambassador with Thomas Randolph in April 1572 he stayed at Restalrig Deanery. There he plotted with Archibald Douglas to kidnap George, Lord Seton from the shore at Leith, but the plan did not take effect.[5] In May 1573 he commanded the force which compelled Edinburgh Castle to surrender. A year later, a letter from the defeated and executed commander of the castle, William Kirkcaldy of Grange came to light, which mentioned the jewels Mary, Queen of Scots had left behind in Scotland, and that Drury had taken some for a loan of £600.[6] During the 1573 siege Drury billeted at the house of Robert Gourlay on the Royal Mile, a few hundred metres from the castle.[7]

In 1576, he was sent to

Lord Justice of Ireland, taking the chief control of affairs after the departure of Sir Henry Sidney
.

After they were betrayed to Drury by the

Corca Dhuibhne, Irish Catholic Martyrs Bishop Patrick O'Hely and Friar Conn O'Rourke were brought before Drury for interrogation. Both Franciscans insisted that they were not involved in anything except their religious mission, and refused to take the Oath of Supremacy or answer questiond about alleged plans by the Pope and King Philip II of Spain for invading the British Isles
. I'm response, Drury ordered them both delivered to torture.

According to Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, "These orders from Drury were executed with an uncommon degree of barbarity. The two prisoners were first placed on the rack, their arms and feet were beaten with hammers, so that their thigh bones were broken and sharp iron points and needles were cruelly thrust under their nails, which caused an extreme agony of suffering. For a considerable time they were subjected to these tortures, which the holy confessors bore patiently for the love of Christ, mutually exhorting one another to constancy and perseverance."[8]

At long last, both Franciscans were taken from the rack and hanged under orders from Drury from a tree outside one of the gates in the walls of Kilmallock on 13 August 1579.[9] Their bodies were then left suspended for fourteen days,[10] during which both bodies were used for target practice by Kilmallock military garrison of the Tudor Army.[11]

According to Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, "When the martyr-prelate was being hurried to execution, he turned to Drury, and warned him that before many days he himself should appear before the tribunal of God to answer for his crimes. On the fourteenth day (sic) after, this unhappy man expired in great agony, at Waterford, of a distemper that baffled every remedy."[12] The Second Desmond Rebellion had just broken out when Sir William Drury died in October 1579.[3]

Marriage and issue

Ruins of St Alphage London Wall, where Sir William Drury and Margaret Wentworth were married

On 10 October 1560 at

St Alphage London Wall Drury married Margery Wentworth (died 1587), widow of John Williams, 1st Baron Williams of Thame, and daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, by whom he had three daughters:[13][14][15]

Legacy

After Drury's death, his widow married, in 1580, James Croft (died 4 September 1624), the third son of

Sir James Croft of Croft Castle, Herefordshire. Croft had served as a captain under Margaret's second husband, Sir William Drury, in 1578–9. The couple settled on property in Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, which had come to Margaret through her first marriage.[18]

Drury's letters to Cecil, and others, are invaluable for the story of the relations between England and Scotland at this time.[3]

His house in London later gave its name to the Drury Lane.[19]

After painstaking investigation by the

beatified by Pope John Paul II in September 1992.[20]

References

  1. ^ Kelsey 2004.
  2. ^ "Drury, William (DRRY527W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ a b c d e  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Drury, Sir William". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 603.
  4. ^ Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1791), pp. 28–30.
  5. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 297
  6. ^ William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 36.
  7. ^ Grant's Old and New Edinburgh Vol 1 Chapter 12
  8. ^ D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 50-51.
  9. ^ Edited by Patrick J. Cornish and Benignus Millet (2005), The Irish Martyrs, Four Courts Press, Dublin. Pages 32–56.
  10. ^ Edited by Patrick J. Cornish and Benignus Millet (2005), The Irish Martyrs, Four Courts Press, Dublin. Pages 46–47.
  11. ^ D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 51.
  12. ^ D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 51.
  13. ^ Kelsey 2004; Jack 2004.
  14. ^ Wentworth, Margaret, in A Who's Who of Tudor Women Archived 21 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  15. ^ a b Sir William Drury, tudorplace.com[unreliable source].
  16. ^ Richardson IV 2011, p. 442.
  17. ^ Moffat 1904, p. 183.
  18. ^ Kelsey 2004; Jack 2004; Ellis 2004.
  19. ^ Thornbury, Walter. "The Strand (Northern Tributaries): Drury Lane and Clare Market". British History Online. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
  20. ^ Edited by Patrick J. Cornish and Benignus Millet (2005), The Irish Martyrs, Four Courts Press, Dublin. Pages 19–31.

Further reading

Attribution

  • The History of the Family of Drury, by Arthur Campling, F.S.A., London, 1937, p. 102.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Drury.
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