FROWDE, William (d.1623), of Shurland, Isle of Sheppey, Kent

An old Kent family named Frudd lived at Milton near Sittingbourne, but it seems most likely that Frowde was the son of Charles Frowde, a bailiff of Cardiff in the mid-1590s. For the Frudds of Milton, see Arch. Cant. xxiv. 226; Canterbury Mar. Lics. 10. For the possibility that William was son of Charles Frowde, see PROB 11/76, f. 91. In 1596 Charles helped bring (Sir) William Herbert† of Swansea into Star Chamber, having been re-elected bailiff the previous year as a sturdy champion of the townsmen against the disorderly conduct of the local gentry. VCH Glam. iv. 189-90; Cardiff Recs. ed. J.H. Matthews, i. 319; STAC 7/3/15. The noble Herberts were not involved in these disputes, and Frowde himself entered the service of the earl of Montgomery, taking up residence on the former Crown manor of Shurland, on the Isle of Sheppey, and marrying into a local gentry family. There he held a tenement and received a pension that, combined, were worth £40 p.a. PROB 11/142, f. 383v.

As constable of Queenborough Castle, five miles from Shurland, Montgomery was ‘well pleased’ to hear in November 1620 that the corporation meant to elect his servant to the third Jacobean Parliament. Cent. Kent. Stud. Qb/C1/30. A seat was probably desired to assist in the defence of Sir Robert Mansell’s* glass monopoly, in which the earl had an interest, but Frowde left no trace on the parliamentary records. ‘Sick in body’, Frowde drew up his will on 20 Mar. 1623. He left small bequests to his family, as well as debts amounting to £899 10s., including £200 owed to Montgomery and £45 to Matthew Wren. He was dead by 23 Nov. 1623, the date the will was proved. PROB 11/142, ff. 383v-4. No further member of his family sat in Parliament, though his eldest son Philip served as a cavalier colonel in the Civil War and was knighted in 1665. Reps. and Trans. Devon Assoc. xxiv. 456; P.R. Newman, Roy. Officers in Eng. and Wales, 146.