WILLOUGHBY, Sir William (c.1566-1615), of Aston Rowant, Oxon., Great Marlow, Bucks. and Gray’s Inn, London

Willoughby’s family held property in Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire, and was distantly related to the Lincolnshire magnates, the lords Willoughby of Eresby.Bk. of Fam. Crests, i. 501; ii. pl. 65, n. 19; Vis. Notts. 102. He should not be confused with a namesake from the Lincolnshire branch of the family, also knighted in 1603. However, it is just possible that he was the ‘Mr. Willoughby’ called to the bar of Gray’s Inn in 1608, as he gave his address as Gray’s Inn in 1598, although there were two other Willoughbys studying there at the time. PBG Inn, i. 183; GI Admiss. (Francis Willoughby, Henry Willoughby). Another namesake was alleged to have met Sir Edmund Baynham† and Robert Catesby in London shortly before the Gunpowder Plot, but this man was said to have been a Suffolk landowner, while the predestinarian preamble to the Member’s will makes it unlikely that he had Catholic sympathies. Shaw, ii. 102; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 490, 522; PROB 11/126, f. 257.

In his father’s will, Willoughby was bequeathed property in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, but the family’s main estate went to his elder brother, Gilbert. PROB 11/72, f. 47; C142/220/26. When the latter died in 1594, the wardship of his three-year-old son was sold to William Swayne, possibly the MP for Chippenham in 1589. C142/238/85; WARD 9/158, ff. 121v-2. Willoughby’s principal benefactor was his uncle John Rotherham, a Chancery six clerk, T.D. Hardy, Principal Officers of Chancery, 106. who made Willoughby his sole executor and bequeathed him the manors of Cublington, Buckinghamshire and Easthampstead, Berkshire, together with a 25-year lease of Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire and the mansion house of Seymours, in Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to be shared with Rotherham’s widow.VCH Bucks. iii. 73, 78, 97; PROB 11/97, f. 30; C142/253/100; 142/518/14.

Willoughby was resident at Seymours in 1602, when his property was valued at £40 in lands and goods, but later moved to Aston Rowant, purchasing the neighbouring manor of Kingston Blount from John Hungerford* for £8,200 in 1610. In the same year he also bought other lands later used to endow an annual £10 charity. C142/372/150; VCH Oxon. viii. 25; VCH Bucks. iii. 76; Recs. of Bucks. viii. 197. On the strength of Rotherham’s legacy, Willoughby was appointed a Buckinghamshire magistrate in 1601, and two years later was knighted at Great Hampden, in Buckinghamshire. He is not known to have attended any of the county’s three parliamentary elections held that year.

Returned to the Commons in 1614 for Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, Willoughby had no personal links with his constituency, and was presumably nominated by John Hungerford, from whom he had earlier bought Kingston Blount manor and who owned property within the borough. Willoughby was named to a single committee, for the bill to ascertain fines for settling Sir John Fortescue’s* manor at Winslow, Buckinghamshire, on his recusant son (Sir) Francis† (12 May).CJ, i. 503a; C142/305/132; VCH Bucks. iii. 466.

Willoughby sold various properties during his lifetime, including Easthampstead manor to Sir Richard Lovelace*. VCH Berks. iii. 78. He passed Aston Rowant to his eldest son, Sir Rotherham, but this reverted to him after the latter’s death in 1613. C142/684/14. In his will of 28 Oct. 1615, Willoughby gave the manor of South Muskham, Nottinghamshire, to his grandson William, while Sir Rotherham’s widow Lady Anne, who shortly thereafter married Sir George Morton*, had her jointure estate confirmed for life. C142/372/150. Kingston Blount manor and the lease of Aston Rowant descended to Willoughby’s two surviving sons. PROB 11/126, f. 257. Willoughby died on 29 Oct. 1615, whereupon the wardship of his grandson, William, was purchased for £1,000 by Morton. C142/349/161; WARD 9/162, f. 231v. Neither of his sons sat in Parliament.