LASCELLES, George (by 1499-1558), of Sturton and Gateford, Notts.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553

Family and Education

b. by 1499, 1st s. of Richard Lascelles of Sturton by Dorothy, da. of Sir Brian Sandford. m. Dorothy, da. of Geoffrey Paynell of Boothby Pagnell, Lincs., 5s. inc. Brian Lassells 4da. suc. fa. 4 Sept. 1520.1

Offices Held

Commr. oyer and terminer, Notts. 1538, relief 1550; j.p. 1547; comptroller, household of 2nd Earl of Rutland 1552-3, 1554-5 or later.2

Biography

Born into a branch of the Yorkshire family which had settled in Nottinghamshire by the 14th century, George Lascelles came of age at about the time he inherited his patrimony. Inheriting lands valued at £20 a year, he was to transmit to his son Brian an estate worth thrice that figure. His main acquisition, the manor of Sturton, which was granted to him in 1540 after the execution of its owner, Thomas Lord Darcy, may be viewed as a reward for his services during and after the rebellion of 1536, including his part in Darcy’s downfall: his testimony to the collaboration between Darcy and Robert Aske told heavily against Darcy. His support of Cromwell, with whom he was in contact when commissioned to dissolve Lenton priory in 1538, was in line with his brother John’s position in the minister’s household, although not with the outlook of their cousin, the conservative Christopher Lascelles. It is likely that George Lascelles leaned towards the Protestant views which, carried to extreme lengths, were to bring John Lascelles to a martyr’s death in 1546: the influence of the Hercy family (after whom he was to name one of his sons) would have worked in that direction, as would the association with Richard Whalley which may have led to Lascelles’s taking service with the 2nd Earl of Rutland.3

It was during his first term as comptroller of Rutland’s household that Lascelles was returned to his only Parliament. As a supporter of the Duke of Northumberland and lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, the earl doubtless wielded a decisive influence at the election; Lascelles’s fellow-knight, William Mering, who also sat for the only time, was a kinsman of Lascelles and a dependant of Rutland. Under Mary, Lascelles seems to have shared the earl’s loss of favour. Although he had himself ridden to Newark to proclaim the Queen, his suing out of a pardon at the time when he was pleading the earl’s cause before the Council may have been more than the conventional acquittance; he was dropped from the commission of the peace and given no part in local administration throughout the reign. His death in November 1558 deprived him of the prospect of rehabilitation. The absence of a will suggests that he may have died unexpectedly, perhaps of the disease then widespread.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: C. J. Black

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., Notts. IPMs, i (Thoroton Soc. rec. ser. iii), 119; Vis. Notts. (Harl. Soc. iv), 58-60; C142/124/152.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, xiii; CPR, 1547-8, p. 88; 1553, p. 357; HMC Rutland, iv. 371, 373.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xii-xv; C1/1242/9-11, 1376/81; M. L. Robertson, ‘Cromwell’s servants’ (Univ. California Los Angeles Ph.D. thesis, 1975), 514; D. Wilson, A Tudor Tapestry, passim; HMC Rutland, iv. 312.
  • 4. HMC Rutland, iv. 373, 375-6; CPR, 1554-5, p. 356; C142/124/152.