Family and Education

b. 2 Mar. 1525, 1st s. of Sir Robert Drury II, and bro. of William and Dru^†. educ.?L. Inn, adm. 30 Jan. 1543. m. by 1544, Anne or Agnes, da. of Nicholas Bowerman of Brook, I.o.W., 2s. 3da. suc. fa. 21 May 1577.1

Offices Held

J.p. Bucks. 1558/59, 1577-d.; commr. musters 1576; sheriff 1578-9.2

Biography

Little is known of the life of Robert, grandson of Sir Robert Drury I of Hawstead, Suffolk, and heir of the founder of the line of Buckinghamshire Drurys. It is not clear whether he or his cousin Robert Drury II was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1543. His wife was the daughter of Elizabeth or Anne, sister of Sir John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, but there is no indication that this connexion furthered his career.3

Drury was doubtless with his father among the Buckinghamshire men who rallied in support of Mary in July 1553, but the recipient of an annuity of £13 6s.8d. for ‘service at Framlingham’ was almost certainly his cousin, who is known to have submitted to the Queen at Framlingham. Sir Robert Drury and Sir Edmund Peckham, a neighbour and friend in south Buckinghamshire, sat as knights of the shire in Mary’s first Parliament, and it must have been their influence, and especially Peckham’s, which secured the return of their sons for Chipping Wycombe both then and two years later. Drury may have shared Henry Peckham’s disenchantment with the Marian regime, for in 1555 he followed Sir Anthony Kingston’s lead in voting against a government bill. He sat in his third and final Parliament in 1559. While his father was alive Drury took little part in local administration, but from 1577 he was one of the most active members of the Buckinghamshire bench until his own death on 5 or 6 Feb. 1593.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Date of birth given in Coll. Top. et Gen. vi. 92. A. Campling, Fam. Drury, 73, 102; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 162; Berry, Hants Gen. 78; PCC 96 Leicester.
• 2. Lansd. 56, ff. 168 seq.
• 3. VCH Hants, v. 216; LP Hen. VIII, xxi.
• 4. Lansd. 156(28), ff. 90, 92-94; CPR, 1553-4, p. 243; Guildford mus. Loseley 1331/2; APC, xiv. 80; xix. 239, 389; xx. 105; C142/234/43, 376/97; VCH Bucks. iii. 197; Bucks. Recs. xvii. 191.