LEY, alias KEMPTHORN, William (by 1532-77 or later), of Cornw.

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 1532, prob. s. of John Ley of Kempthorne in Clawton, Devon, prob. bro. of John Ley alias Kempthorn I*. m. Anne.2

Offices Held

Commr. i.p.m. Cornw. 1570, Devon 1574.3

Biography

William Ley ‘gentleman’ was probably a younger brother of John Ley, the duchy official with whom he was chosen as senior Member for Dunheved in the second Parliament of Edward VI, and may have owed his single experience of the House to the relationship. Little trace of Ley has been found apart from his service at Westminster and his appointment to minor commissions in the southwest. In later life he and several others brought an action in the Star Chamber against Humphrey and John Borlase for ejecting them on 4 Sept. 1577 from some property at Jacobstow, Cornwall, but its outcome is not known.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

  • 1. The indenture (C219/20/28) is mutilated so that of the first Member’s name only ‘Will’m Kemth’ survives.
  • 2. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 288; St.Ch.5/B5/9.
  • 3. CPR, 1569-72, p. 33; 1572-5, p. 439.
  • 4. St.Ch.5/B5/9.