Family and Education

b. by 1508. m. (1) by 1542, Alice; (2) Isabel, wid. of one Wharff, 2s. 1da.2

Offices Held

King’s falconer by Nov. 1529-?d.; bailiff, Huntingdon 1552-3.3

Biography

Although Philip Clampe’s parentage has not been established, his ancestors are said to have settled in England from the Netherlands. He claimed gentle birth. The Nicholas Clampe whom he replaced as chief falconer to the King during the 1520s may have been either his father or the brother whose children are mentioned in his will. His son John joined him in the royal service and seems to have succeeded him briefly as falconer.4

When the Austin Friary at Huntingdon, then rated a ‘very poor’ property, was suppressed in 1539 (Sir) Richard Rich had it placed in Clampe’s charge. A year later it was granted to Thomas Ardern and Sir Richard Long, but in 1542 they sold it to Clampe, who settled there. In 1546 he was assessed towards the subsidy at Huntingdon on goods worth £40. During the 1550s he bought other property in the town, and at his death he also owned property at Brampton and Godmanchester, thus qualifying himself as an elector of the knights of the shire in 1547 and the spring of 1554. Described as a brewer, a trade he must have followed when not in attendance at court, he had in 1545 helped to overturn the election of William Horwood as bailiff of the town in favour of William Whitehead. Horwood took the matter to the duchy of Lancaster, which held the town’s fee-farm, but the outcome of the inquiry conducted for the duchy is not known. It was with Horwood that Clampe was to be elected to the third Parliament of Mary’s reign: the election accorded with the crown’s directive that only townsmen should be returned. Neither Clampe nor Horwood was among the Members prosecuted in the King’s bench for quitting this Parliament without leave before its dissolution.5

Clampe was a sick man when he made his will on 22 Oct. 1557. After providing for his wife Isabel and for his elder son John, both of whom he named as executors, he asked them to buy lands worth £20 a year for his second son Richard to find him ‘at learning’ and to give him £100 on reaching 21; to his daughter Dorothy he left 200 marks at her marriage.He also remembered his step-daughter Elizabeth Wharff and the children of his brother Nicholas. Clampe died at Huntingdon two days after making the will and was succeeded by John, who himself died on 19 Aug. 1558.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. LP Hen. VIII, xvii; PCC 16 Noodes; Wards 7/102/78.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, v.; Soc. Antiq. ms 125, f.23; C219/20/60, 21/78.
• 4. Vis. Cambs. (Harl. Soc. xli), 54; LP Hen. VIII, iv, v, xiii, xiv, xvi, xvii, xix, add.; Soc. Antiq. ms 125, f. 23; PCC 16 Noodes; information from Dr. R.C. Braddock.
• 5. Suppression of the Monasteries (Cam. Soc. xxvi), 192; LP Hen. VIII, xv, xvii; PCC 16 Noodes; E179/122/136; C219/19/44, 22/36; DL1/16/H3; CPR, 1553-4, p. 433.
• 6. PCC 16, 70 Noodes; Wards 7/102/78; CPR, 1560-3, p. 605.