Entering the law, he was practising as an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas by 1474 and in 1476 acted as Deputy to the Sheriff of Worcestershire. In the 1480s he was the third Prothonotary, the Clerk of Assize on the Western Circuit and became a Bencher of the Inner Temple. He was a Pleader in the Yearbooks from 1480. Chosen a Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire in 1493, he was created a Serjeant-at-Law in 1495, with clients including Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Buckingham. On 30th October 1500 he was made one of the King's Serjeants. In 1501 he was pleading for himself in a suit relating to lands in Essex, and the same year he was joined with Thomas Frowick, Serjeant-at-law, Hugh Oldom, clerk, Thomas Grete, clerk, Nicholas Nynes, Thomas Fereby, and Edmund Nowers, in leving a Fine of a messuage and lands in Ridge, Hertfordshire. In 1504 he was added to the Commission of the Peace for Worcestershire. On 21 May 1509, he became a Justice of the King's Bench, being knighted by King Henry VIII that year, and held his position until 28 November 1533, in which year he was present with the other judges at the Coronation of Anne Boleyn and at some of the State receptions connected with that ceremony.[1]
Sir Humphrey Coningsby purchased Penne's Place at Aldenham, Hertfordshire, and at his death in 1535 it passed to his grandson Humphrey, who died in 1559, when Penne's Place descended to his son Edward, who died only two years later, in 1561, and was succeeded by his brother Thomas. In 1640 Fitz William, son of said Thomas Coningsby, sold the site of Aldenham Hall or Penne's Place to Henry Coghill.[2]
Sir Humphrey Coningsby married thrice. His second wife was Alice Ferriby [3] He held the office of Justice of the Kings Bench in 1510.[4]
In his Will he mentions "my late wives, Alice, Anne, and Isabel", but that is not the order of marriages; this is set forth in The Genealogist, 1910.[5] If this is correct, and it appears it may be, it may be that not all of the children belong to Alice Ferriby.
Children of Sir Humphrey Coningsby and (allegedly) Alice Ferriby :
Humphrey Coningsby b. c1470 [by the first wife?]
William Coningsby (2nd son) b. c1475, d. 10 Sep 1540
John Coningsby (3rd son) b. c1478, d. 14 Jun 1547
Thomas Coningsby b. c1480, d. 1527
Elizabeth Coningsby b. before 1470, d. 1546
Amphillis Coningsby b. c1487, d. 18 Jan 1531/32
Margaret Coningsby b. c1488, d. b 1535
Jane Coningsby b. c1502
Coningsby
Upon the sixteenth of November, this being the eleventh year of the king (1495), was holden the serjeants' feast in Ely Place, there being nine serjeants of that call. The king, to honour the feast, was present with his queen at the dinner ; being a prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the professors of the law having a little of that, that, as he governed his subjects by his laws, so he governed Ins laws by his lawyers." [6]
Holinshed [7] says that all the chief lords of England also dined at this feast.[6]
Coningsby acquired Penne's Place, Hertfordshire, under the provisions of the will of Ralph Penn,' dated 11th March, 1483-4, proved F.C.C. (27 Logge) 30th September, 1485, of which he was an executor [8]. In 1501 he was joined with Thomas Frowik, serjeant-at-law, Hugh Oldom, clerk, Thomas Grete, clerk, Nicholas Kynes, Thomas Fereby, and Edmund Nowers in levying a fine of a messuage and lands in Ridge, Hertfordshire ; and in 1507 he and Anne, his (second wife), were joined with Thomas Grete, clerk, Thomas Fereby, and Edmund Nowes, in levying one of a messuage garden, and land in, Aldenham. [6]
North Piddle: in June 1488 William Berkeley, Earl of Nottingham, conveyed the manor shortly afterwards to Humphrey Coningsby and Isabel his [?first] wife, with Edward Willoughby and Robert Logg acting as trustees. [9]
On 30th October, 1500, Coningsby `was made one of time King's serjeants. In the following year we find him pleading for himself in a suit relating to lands in Essex (" Transactions of Essex Archeological Society," vol. v, p. 19). A paper, which deals chiefly with the administration of justice, headed " A remembrans made by Humfrey Conyngesby for the Kynges matters at Yorke, the thirde weke of Lent, ann. Hen. VII sexto-decimo," is preserved among the miscellaneous muniments of Westminster Abbey [10][6]
Coningsby is named with three other serjeants-at-law in a recital in the Will, dated 31st March, 1509, of Henry VII. On 21st May following, within a month of the accession of Henry VIII, he was placed in the King's Bench as sole puisne judge, other justices being appointed subsequently [11]. He was knighted then or shortly afterwards. In 1533 he was present with the other judges at the coronation of Anne Boleyn and at some of the State receptions connected within that ceremony.[6]
In 1510 Coningsby built at his own expense the south aisle and steeple of Rock Church. A monument which he erected there to the memory of his father is described in Nash's Worcestershire (1799 edition, vol.i, p.12). In a window of the south aisle there was formerly represented a family group of a man in a scarlet gown [supposed to have been Humphrey Coningsby] on the right hand, with his sons behind him, and his wife and daughters opposite. On 11th June, 1513, he had licences to found perpetual chantries of one chaplain in a chapel of St. Mars' and St. George founded by him, at Copthorn Hill, Aldenham [Hertfordshire], and a chapel of the same dedication in St. Peter's Church, Rock.[6]
Coningsby owned considerable estates in several counties. By his first wife he left three sons and four daughters - Thomas, of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, whose descendants later held the now extinct Coningsbv peerages [12]; William, of whom below ; John, of Hertfordshire [13] Elizabeth, who married Richard Berkeley and afterwards Sir John FitzJames ; Amphillis, who married Sir John Tyndall ; Margaret, who married Sir Christopher Hildyard ; and Jane, who married George Raleigh. Coningsby married secondly, before 1507, Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Christopher Moresby of Scaleby, Cumberland, and widow of James Pickering (ob. 1498) of Killington, Westmoreland. She died at Scaleby on 5th October, 1523, leaving as her heiress Anne, daughter of her son Christopher Pickering, deceased. In her husband's absence, her funeral was conducted by her kinsman, Lord Dacre of the North. Coningsby's third wife [?error as she was already his wife in 1488] was Isabel (parentage not ascertained), who died before 15th November, 1531, and was buried at the White Friars, London.[6] Significant errors here. Bellewes after questioning the origins of Alice Ferriby in the Visitation of Worcestershire 1569 asks us to nevertheless accept everything else shown there.
Coningsby died on 2nd June (Inq. p.m. 26th September) 1535, and was probably buried at Aldenham. His Will, dated 15th November, 1531, proved P.C.C. (30 Hogenm) 26th November, 1536, leaves money to the churches of Aldenham, Elstree, Rock, and Neen Solers [14][6]
In 1535–6 Sir Humphrey Coningsby, one of the justices of the bench, died seised of the manor. His heir was his grandson, another Humphrey, the son of Thomas Coningsby, upon whom lands to the value of £100 had been settled at the time of the younger Humphrey's marriage in 1532 with Anne the daughter of Sir Thomas Englefield, also a justice of the bench.[9]
Sources
↑The Genealogist edited by H. W. Forsyth-Harwood, New Series, vol.xxvi, London, 1910, p.213 - "The Two Coningsbys" by G. O. Bellewes.
↑ Said by the Visitation of Worcestershire 1569 (p.43) to be from Lincolnshire where there is a village of South Ferriby, where a notable family of this surname long held sway.
↑The Genealogist edited by H. W. Forsyth-Harwood, New Series, vol.xxvi, London, 1910 - "The Family of Tindale" by William Pretyman, p.84n, citing sources.
↑ 6.06.16.26.36.46.56.66.7 From source: Article called "The Two Coningsbys" in The Genealogist, vol.xxvi, 1910.
↑Victoria County Histories, Hertfordshire, vol.ii, p.153
↑ 9.09.1 Quote from source: "Parishes: North Piddle," in A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4, ed. William Page and J W Willis-Bund (London: Victoria County History, 1924), 177-180. British History Online, accessed March 10, 2017, Manor
↑Memoirs of Family of Chester, by Waters, p. 259 seq., which contains an abstract of this Will.
General Collections Soc Gen, Hereford Notes
The Visitation of Hertfordshire 1634, p.45, - Conningsby of North Mimms
Heraldry of Worcestershire, p.148
List of Chief Justices of Duchy of Lancaster page 470 :-
The Memoirs of the Chesters of Chicheley Pages 259 - 262 Volume 1
J. H. Baker, ‘Coningsby , Sir Humphrey (d. 1535)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 24 Feb 2010:-
Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 187-13, 232-37, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.
Weis, Frederick Lewis, The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215 (5th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999.), 6-11, 51-12, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.273 W426 1999
Smyth, John, The Berkeley Manuscripts: The Lives of the Berkeleys... (Gloucester: J. Bellows, 1883-85.), 1:263, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.2 B512.
Burke, Sir John Bernard, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, London: Pall Mall, 1883,
p.131, Family History Library, 942 D22bug 1883.
Phillimore, William Phillimore Watts, The Visitation of the County of Worcester Made in the Year 1569, London: Harleian Society, 1888, p. 43, Family History Library, 942 B4h v. 27.
Richardson, Douglas, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004.), p. 261, Family History Library, 942 D5rd.
Foss, Edward, Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England, 1066-1870 (London: J. Murray, 1870.), p. 184, Los Angeles Public Library, 347.0942 F751.
Hasler, P. W., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1558-1603 (London: H.M.S.O., 1981.), 1:636, Family History Library, 942 D3hp 1558-1603.
Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2005.), pp. 287, 842, Family History Library, 942 D5rdm.
Waters, Robert Edmond Chester, Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley, London: Robson & Sons, 1878, 1:257, 1:260, Library of Congress, CS439 .C55 1878. Pages 259 - 262 Volume 1
Stephen, Sir Leslie & Sir Sidney Lee (Editors), The Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to 1900 (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993.), 4:938, Family History Library, 920.042 D561n 1993.
Faris, David, Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999. [2nd Edition]), p. 115, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 F228 1999.
Muskett, Joseph James, Evidences of the Winthrops of Groton, co. Suffolk, England (Boston: Privately printed, 1894-96.), pp. 152, 153, NEHGS Library, CS439 .W6 1894.
Flower, William, The Visitations of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564 (London: Harleian Society, 1881.), p. 170, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 942.005 H284 v.16.
Harvey, William, The Visitation of Norfolk in the Year 1563 (Norwich: s.n., 1878-1895.), 2:238, Family History Library, 942.61 D23ha.
Chitting, Henry, The Visitation of the County of Gloucester Taken in the Year 1623 (London: Harleian Society Publications, 1885.), p. 8, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 942.005 H284 v. 21.
Blomefield, Francis, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1805-10.), 7:413, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 942.61 B653 folio.
Poulson, George, The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness in the East-Riding of the County of York (Hull, England: R. Brown, 1840-1841. FHL BRITISH Film #1,696,594.), 2:466, Family History Library.
The will of her father Sir Humphrey Coningbsy as reproduced in "Genealogical Memoirs of the extinct family - The Chesters of Chichley" by Robert Edmund Chester Waters; changed the descentant line quite considerably but put in no doubt that she married Sir John Tyndall and not Sir Thomas as previous authors had suggested.
Sir Humphrey Conyngesby Kt, one of the Kings Justices of the Pleas Will dated 15th Nov 1531 “To be buried in the Church of the White Friars, London, near the grave of my late wife Isabel , but if I die at Aldenham, or within seven miles thereof, then to be buried there , or if I die at Lock, or within fusty mile' thereof, then to be buried there To the Churches of Aldenham, Elstree, and Rock, 10s each, and to the repairs of the Church of \Teen Sollars, 20s To my daughter Elizabeth, late wife of Richard Berkeley, and now wife of Sir John Fitz-James Kt , fsU, which was owing to me by the said Richard at the time of his death, for the marriage of the three daughters of the said Richard Berkelev and Elizabeth To Dorothy, daughter• of John Tendall Esq , and of my daughter Amphelice, his wife, £10 towards her preferment in marriage and to each of the daughters of the said John Tendall and Ampheilce 40 marks for their preferment in marriage To Anne, wife of William Thorpe, and daughter of Christopher Hyllyarde, and my daughter Margaret his wife, now deceaaed, £5 To every daughter of my sons William and John Conyngesby, 40 marks each, and to every daughter of George Ralegh and my daughter Jane his wife, 40 marks. My manor of Stottesden in Salop, and my manor of Orleton, with its appurts in Orleton, Stoketon, Stanford, and Eastham in Worcestershire, to Humfrey Conyngesby, now under age and my next heir apparent, the son of my son Thomas Covyngesbv, to hold to him and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to the heirs male of my body, remainder to my heirs, My nephew Thomas Solley, My late wives Alice and Anne and Isabel To Humfrey Tendell my coyin and godson, son of John Tendall, and my daughter Ampheice his wife, five marks a year towards his finding, and the like sums to Maurice Berkeley, son of my daughter Elizabeth My sons Willam and John Conyngesby to be my executors, Sir John Fitz-James Kt , and Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert,' Kt , a Kings Justice of Common Pleas, to be overseers of my Will. Will proved 26th Nov. 1535 In C P C. [ 30 Hogen ]
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Not sure who "protected the project , Not me I assure you but it is a rescent occurence
I appologise if the Coningbsys are a mess, back in 2000 there were no Coningsbys in Wikitree and I struggled accumulating over 400 referencepapers/copies and attempted to build a tree whih was as accurate as I could do at that time, the internet has assisted greatly in the last few years, unfortunatly i did not have that resource when i started out!
I have always accepted tt there may be errors but was not aware there were so many but others have also added as time went on
my sincere appologies for the problem. omly wish I could help in other than a minor way all my reference papers were lost in a house move some three years ago and hence cannot trace much of what I did as a rookie genealogist.
Regards Robin
I refer to the Will above which can be found in "Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley" by Robert Edmond Chester Waters, B.A., Barrister-at-Law, London, vol.1, 1878, p.260-1.
Sir Humphrey specifically mentions "my late wives Alice [Ferriby], Anne [Moresby], and Isabel". Whether that is supposed to be the correct order of them is another matter. However, in 1488 William, Earl of Nottingham conveyed the manor of North Piddlle, Worcestershire, to Humphrey Coningsby and Isabel his wife, Edward Willoughby and Robert Logg acting as trustees. It seems therefore, that Isabel was his second wife and that they were already married in 1488. I attempted to add Isabel to this profile but was blocked under some 'project' reason. (Given the mess the Coningsbys were in before I started sorting them out it seems the 'project' is not up to much.) As Anne Moresby's first husband, James Pickering of Killington, Westmoreland, did not die until 1498, she must be Sir Humphrey Coningsby's third wife.
As for the Franceys wife, I question this. Needs a clear contemporary reference.
re his burial I suspect that someone has inadvertantly added the wrong date for I have no evidence of a date as late as that. The article on the two Coningbys is clear about dates of death and inq pm. Can someone please alter dates as I am not part of the protected profile
Some excellent material here, but also oddities. Was he born at Rock, or 40 km away at Hope under Dinmore where he acquired lands in his fifties? If he died in 1535, was he only buried fifteen or sixteen years later in 1551?
Sir Humphrey Conyngesby Kt, one of the Kings Justices of the Pleas Will dated 15th Nov 1531 “To be buried in the Church of the White Friars, London, near the grave of my late wife Isabel , but if I die at Aldenham, or within seven miles thereof, then to be buried there , or if I die at Lock, or within fusty mile' thereof, then to be buried there To the Churches of Aldenham, Elstree, and Rock, 10s each, and to the repairs of the Church of \Teen Sollars, 20s To my daughter Elizabeth, late wife of Richard Berkeley, and now wife of Sir John Fitz-James Kt , fsU, which was owing to me by the said Richard at the time of his death, for the marriage of the three daughters of the said Richard Berkelev and Elizabeth To Dorothy, daughter• of John Tendall Esq , and of my daughter Amphelice, his wife, £10 towards her preferment in marriage and to each of the daughters of the said John Tendall and Ampheilce 40 marks for their preferment in marriage To Anne, wife of William Thorpe, and daughter of Christopher Hyllyarde, and my daughter Margaret his wife, now deceaaed, £5 To every daughter of my sons William and John Conyngesby, 40 marks each, and to every daughter of George Ralegh and my daughter Jane his wife, 40 marks. My manor of Stottesden in Salop, and my manor of Orleton, with its appurts in Orleton, Stoketon, Stanford, and Eastham in Worcestershire, to Humfrey Conyngesby, now under age and my next heir apparent, the son of my son Thomas Covyngesbv, to hold to him and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to the heirs male of my body, remainder to my heirs, My nephew Thomas Solley, My late wives Alice and Anne and Isabel To Humfrey Tendell my coyin and godson, son of John Tendall, and my daughter Ampheice his wife, five marks a year towards his finding, and the like sums to Maurice Berkeley, son of my daughter Elizabeth My sons Willam and John Conyngesby to be my executors, Sir John Fitz-James Kt , and Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert,' Kt , a Kings Justice of Common Pleas, to be overseers of my Will. Will proved 26th Nov. 1535 In C P C. [ 30 Hogen ]