Richard Southwell (abt. 1530 - abt. 1600)

Born about 1530 in Danbury, Essex, England [uncertain]

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1600 at about age 70 in London, England [uncertain]

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Biography

Family and Education b. by 1531, 1st illegit. s. of (Sir) Richard Southwell of London, and Wood Rising, Norf. by Mary, da. of Thomas Darcy of Danbury, Essex. educ. Corpus Camb. matric. 1545; L. Inn, adm. 4 Feb. 1547. m. ^[1] by Dec. 1555, Bridget (d.1583 or later), da. of Sir Roger Copley of Gatton, 3s. 4da.; ^[2] by Oct. 1589, Margaret, da. of John Styles of Ellingham, Norf., 2s. 3da. ^[3]

In 1589 the Jesuit Robert Southwell exhorted his father Richard Southwell alias Darcy to return to Catholicism, reminding him that ‘the world never gave you but an unhappy welcome, a hurtful entertainment, and now doth abandon you with an unfortunate farewell’. The elder Southwell was the first of four children borne by Mary Darcy to Sir Richard Southwell before their marriage. Most of Sir Richard Southwell’s estates passed at his death in 1564 to his nearest legitimate male heir, his nephew Thomas Southwell, but under a settlement of September 1545 Richard Southwell inherited the manor of Horsham St. Faith and other property in Norfolk. This settlement was presumably made at the time of his engagement, or perhaps at his brother Thomas’s, to Audrey Malte, the illegitimate daughter of the King’s tailor, who after the breaking off the engagement married John Harington II, leaving him free to espouse the bookish servant of Princess Elizabeth, Bridget Copley.^[4]

Southwell’s single Membership of Parliament was a by-product of his betrothal or marriage to Bridget Copley, whose mother had a life-interest in the manor of Gatton, and it may have been helped by his kinsman Sir Anthony Browne who as sheriff returned him: his fellow-Member Leonard Dannett was a distant relative of Lady Copley. He was joined in the House by his uncle Sir Robert Southwell, who is the more likely to have been the ‘Mr. Southwell’ to whom two bills were committed. Before the dissolution he and his father obtained a licence to sell some property in London.^[5]

After 1595 and it was while a prisoner in the Fleet (for what reason has not been found) that he died in June 1600. By his will made on 17 Oct. 1596 he remembered the poor at Horsham St. Faith and left his wife an annuity of £80. A year later he had added a codicil making better provision for his wife and shortly before his death he confirmed these arrangements. According to Father Garnet, writing on 1 July 1600, Southwell died a Catholic.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ Date of birth estimated from education. Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 259; Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch.), i. 124-6; C. Devlin, Robert Southwell, 7; H. Spelman, Hist. of Sacrilege (1895 ed.), 152-4; Letters of Sir Thomas Copley (Roxburghe Club 1897), pp. xix, 169.
2. ↑ Add. 34395, f. 36 seq.; DNB (Southwell, Robert); Devlin, 8, 202; LP Hen. VIII, xx; Emden, Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. 1501-40, p. 364; Narr. Ref. (Cam. Soc. lxxvii), 45; Strype, Eccles. Memorials, i(1), 595; Black Bk. L. Inn, i. 288, 291-3, 296, 318, 323; PCC 19 Stevenson.
3. ↑ Date of birth estimated from education. Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 259; Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch.), i. 124-6; C. Devlin, Robert Southwell, 7; H. Spelman, Hist. of Sacrilege (1895 ed.), 152-4; Letters of Sir Thomas Copley (Roxburghe Club 1897), pp. xix, 169.
4. ↑ Date of birth estimated from education. Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 259; Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch.), i. 124-6; C. Devlin, Robert Southwell, 7; H. Spelman, Hist. of Sacrilege (1895 ed.), 152-4; Letters of Sir Thomas Copley (Roxburghe Club 1897), pp. xix, 169.
5. ↑ CJ, i. 25; CPR, 1553, p. 272
6. ↑ Copley Letters, 97, 169, 182; PCC 13 Brudenell, 56 Wallop; H. Foley, Jesuit Recs. i. 303, 358; Devlin, 201-3, 289, 290.

• SOUTHWELL, alias Darcy, Richard (by 1531-1600), of Lincoln's Inn, London; Horsham St. Faith, Norf. and Gatton, Surr. Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982. Retrieved from http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/southwell-richard-1531-1600

See also:

• Benolte, Thomas; Philipot, John; & Owen, George. The Visitations of the County of Sussex: 1530 and 1633-4. London: The Harleian Society, 1905. Vol LIII, p 111.
• Harvey , William. The Visitation of Norfolk in the Year 1563 (Miller & Leavins, Norwich, 1878) Volume 1. Page 126.