Family and Education

s. of Peter Birde, of Winchester. m. aft. 1588, Clare, wid. of (1) Ellis Wynne; (2) Ambrose Barnaby; (3) William Dyer.

Offices Held

Freeman, Winchester 1561, chamberlain 1562-3, bailiff 1564-5, mayor 1571-2, 1577-8, 1584-5.

Biography

Birde, a grocer and haberdasher, was related by marriage to William Kingsmill, the last prior and first dean of Winchester, and though he may have taken the oath of supremacy he was, like most of the citizens of Winchester, at least tolerant towards Catholicism. On 4 Nov. 1564, as bailiff he was one of three ordered to appear before the Privy Council about ‘matters of religion’, and a week later he was sent to the Marshalsea for not helping to arrest two people (presumably Catholics) at Winchester. He was released on 23 Nov., and the corporation paid him £4 to cover his expenses. He was presented as a recusant in 1582 and during his last mayoralty, in March 1585, there was a complaint to Walsingham that the chief recusants in the city were not kept strictly enough. He died after March 1595.

C3/234/30; APC, vii. 156, 162, 166-7; J. H. Milner, Hist. Winchester, ii 311; T. Atkinson, Eliz. Winchester, 97, 235; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 103; S. H. Cassan, Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, i. 79-80; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 230; information from Dr. Adrienne Rosen.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes