William Sharington

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Sharington by Holbein

conspirator, and High Sheriff of Wiltshire
.

Early life

Sharington was the eldest son of Thomas Sharington, a

will dated 15 October 1519, and Sharington sold it in 1532.[3] The manor had come to Sharington's great-grandfather Henry Sharington, who was steward to the Bishop of Ely, when he married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Edmund de Swathing.[4]

Career

Sharington's early career is obscure. He married Ursula, an

queen consort. By 1539, Sharington had been appointed a page of the king's robes, and in 1540 was promoted to Groom of the Robes. The king trusted him, and in 1541 he was made a page of the Privy chamber and in 1542 a Groom of the Chamber. Also in 1542, he was appointed steward and constable of Castle Rising, in his home county of Norfolk. In 1544, he joined the household of Queen Catherine Parr.[1]

In 1540, following the dissolution of the monasteries, Sharington paid £783 for Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, soon beginning to convert it into a private residence, in which he demonstrated good taste. He retained much of the medieval fabric of the house, adding a three-storey octagonal tower, tall Renaissance chimneys, and a stable courtyard, while demolishing a church.[1][2] Hutton, in his Highways and Byways in Wiltshire, comments:

All the sixteenth century work of Sir William Sharington is of great beauty ... What Sharington spared he jealously guarded.[5]

At about the same time, for his friend John Dudley, later Duke of Northumberland, Sharington designed a range of new buildings at Dudley Castle which were erected within the old castle's walls and which have been called the Sharrington Range.[6]

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, rebuilt by Sharington

In June 1541 Sharington

knights of the Shire for Wiltshire.[1]

Apart from his interests in land, Sharington was a

moneylender.[8]

In 1546, in a development which ultimately led to his downfall, Sharington became under-treasurer of a newly re-established

marks (or £133 6s 8d) a year. With a staff of six men, including an engraver, Bristol was the only mint outside London to make gold coins, and also the only one apart from that at the Tower of London to have its own engraver. As well as English coins, it also produced the coinage of Ireland.[1][9]

In 1547, Sharington was appointed to

Justice of the Peace for Wiltshire.[1]

By 1548, Sharington had begun to defraud the Bristol mint by making coins too light and by minting more coins than had been ordered, keeping false records to fend off discovery. According to his later confession, he had been afraid that his minting activity would leave him out of pocket. He may also have been anxious about the costs of his development at

testoons for personal gain.[15] However, all testoons of the period struck in quantity by English mints were produced in base silver.[citation needed
]


The Articles of

high treason laid against Thomas Seymour included the following:

Yt is also objected and laied unto your charge that having knowledge that Sir William Sharington, knight, had committed treason, and otherwise wonderfully defrauded and deceiv'd the Kinges Majestie, nevertheless you both by your self, and by seeking Counsel for him, and by all means you could, did aid, assist, and beare hym, contrarie to your dewtie and Allegiance to the Kinges Majestie, and the good laws and orders of the realm. Yt is objected and laied unto your charge that where you owed to the said Sir William Sharington, knight, a great sum of Mony, yet to abet, beare and cloake the great falshood of the said Sharington you were not afraid to saye and affirm, before the Lord Protector and the Council, that the said Sharington did owe you a great sum of Mony, viz. 2800l. and to conspire with him in that falshood, and take a Bill of that feigned debt into your custody.[16]

In saving his neck, Sharington had successfully sought the help of Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, and had pleaded with Somerset himself. Without Thomas Seymour, they saw Sharington as no political threat to them, and he was also helped by Hugh Latimer, who referred to him in a sermon preached before the king during Lent of 1549, calling him "an honest gentleman, and one that God loveth ... a chosen man of God, and one of his elected".[17][18] In November 1549 Sharington was pardoned, and on the payment of £12,867, he recovered his estates.[1][2]

In April 1550, Sharington was appointed to travel to France with

Sir William Herbert was created Earl of Pembroke, Sharington was returned to the House of Commons at a by-election as one of the members of parliament for Wiltshire. He was appointed as Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1552.[1]

Family and death

After the death of his first wife, Ursula, Sharington married secondly Eleanor, daughter of William Walsingham and sister of Sir Francis Walsingham, and thirdly Grace Farrington, the widow of Robert Paget, an alderman of London; but he left no children. He died on an unknown date before 6 July 1553 and was succeeded in his estates by his brother Henry Sharington.[1][2] In July 1553, Lady Jane Grey and Mary I signed bills for the appointment of a new Sheriff of Wiltshire "in the room of Sir William Sharington, Knight, deceased".[19]

Portrait

A sketch of Sharington by Hans Holbein the Younger was acquired by King Charles II in 1675 and is still in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.[20] Inscribed at the foot 'William Sharinton', the drawing is in black and coloured chalks on pink-primed paper.[21]

Mint mark

Some coins of the Bristol mint during Sharington's control of it, including gold sovereigns of Henry VIII, bear as mint mark the letters "W. S." combined into a monogram, for 'William Sharington'.[22][23]

References

  1. ^
    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
    , Oxford University Press, September 2004
  2. ^ a b c d e f Sir William Sharington at nationaltrust.org.uk
  3. ^ History and antiquities of the county of Norfolk (Norwich: Printed by J. Crouse, for M. Booth, 1781), page 57 online at books.google.com
  4. ^ Francis Blomefield & Charles Parkin, An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk (1809) page 201 at books.google.com
  5. ^ Edward Hutton, Highways and Byways in Wiltshire (1928), p. 396
  6. ^ John Hemingway & Joan Tyson, The Archaeology of Dudley Castle online at blueyonder.co.uk
  7. ^ Nicholas Orme, Education in the West of England, 1066–1548 (1976), p. 147
  8. ^ a b 'SHARINGTON, William', in Stanley Thomas Bindoff, The House of Commons, 1509–1558, Volume 1, pp. 302–303 at books.google.com
  9. ^ Bristol Castle at brisray.com
  10. ^ Thomas SEYMOUR (1st B. Seymour of Sudeley)[unreliable source] at tudorplace.com.ar
  11. The National Archives: PRO
    SP 10/6, no. 13
  12. ^ British Archaeological Association, Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1875) p. 357
  13. ^ 'Confession of Sir William SHARINGTON, Vice-Treasurer of the Bristol Mint, 11 February 1548/49', in Richard Arthur Roberts & Montague Spencer Giuseppi, eds., Calendar of the manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury (1883), p. 68
  14. ^ Wilbur Kitchener Jordan, 'The Case of Sir William Sharington' in his Edward VI: the young King; the protectorship of the Duke of Somerset (1968), pp. 382–385
  15. ^ Ian W. Archer, Religion, politics, and society in sixteenth-century England (2003), note 19 on p. 56
  16. ^ Gilbert Burnet, A History of the Reformation of the Church of England page 225 online at books.google.com
  17. ^ Challis, op. cit., quoting "Latimer, Sermons (1906), 227"
  18. ^ Hugh Latimer, ed. Ernest Rhys, Sermons by Hugh Latimer, sometime bishop of Worcester (London: Everyman's Library no. 40, 1906), p. 227
  19. ^ Parliament, House of Commons, Parliamentary papers, vol. 31, page 72 online at books.google.com
  20. ^ Sir William Sharington c. 1540–43 at royalcollection.org.uk
  21. ^ K. T. Parker, The drawings of Hans Holbein in the collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle (Oxford: Phaidon, 1945), p. 56
  22. ^ Herbert Appold Grueber, Handbook of the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland in the British Museum, page 81 online at books.google.com
  23. ^ Royal Numismatic Society (Great Britain), The Numismatic Chronicle (1886), p. 145
Honorary titles
Preceded by Sheriff of Wiltshire
1552–1553 		Succeeded by
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