LONG, John (c.1517-1600/2), of Draycot Cerne, Wilts.

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

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1554
Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. c.1517, yr. s. of Sir Henry Long of Draycot Cerne by 2nd w. Eleanor, da. of Richard Wrottesley of Wrottesley, Staffs.; bro. Robert. educ. ?Eton; ?King’s, Camb. adm. 13 Aug. 1533, fellow 1536-7, BA 1537/38. m. da. of one Bacon, at least 1s.2

Offices Held

Servant of 5th and 6th Earls of Shrewsbury; mayor, Lymington, Hants 1588-9, 1596-7.3

Biography

Of several contemporaries named John Long, only a younger son of Sir Henry Long enjoyed the connexions capable of procuring election at three northern boroughs and finally at Shafteshury. If Long was the Cambridge graduate and fellow of King’s he could have made his own friendships there, but his association with the north probably originated with his uncle Sir Richard Long (d.1546), a member of the council in the north from 1542, and was maintained through his aunt; when she took as her third husband John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, the marriage allied her with the Shakerley family of Derbyshire, which was to provide, in Grace Shakerley, a second wife for the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury. It is not known when John Long entered Shrewsbury’s service but he is found in it before the earl died in 1560 and was to continue in his son’s.4

At both Knaresborough and Hedon the decisive influence in favour of Long is likely to have been Shrewsbury’s, as it was in many elections in Yorkshire during these years. Long was both preceded and followed at Knaresborough by Ralph Scrope, who besides being related to Shrewsbury may have had a personal connexion with the Long family: there was a Richard Scrope at Castle Combe in Wiltshire, where Sir Henry Long was steward.5

In 1556 Long received a piece of land called ‘the Hayes’ at Wraxhall, Wiltshire, and an annuity of £8, but when in the course of Elizabeth’s reign he returned south it was to settle at Lymington in Hampshire. He made his will on 9 July 1600 and it was proved on 11 June 1602.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

Notes

  • 1. Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from that of elder brother and from possible education. Wilts. Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. cv, cvi), 117-19; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 118.
  • 3. E. King, Old Times Revisited: Lymington, 183, 187.
  • 4. HMC Shrewsbury and Talbot, ii. 326, 355; J. P. Yeatman, Chesterfield Recs. 135.
  • 5. St.Ch.2/30/149.
  • 6. PCC 17 Ketchyn, 43 Montague.