CARLETON, Anthony (c.1522-76), of Brightwell Baldwin, Oxon.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1522, 1st s. of John Carleton of Walton-on-Thames, Surr. and Brightwell Baldwin by Joyce, da. of John Welbeck of Oxenhoath, Kent; bro. of George. m. Anne (d. 3 Apr. 1562), da. and coh. of Thomas Perient of Digswell, Herts., 1s. d.v.p. 1da.; (2) by Joyce, da. of Sir John Goodwin of Upper Winchendon, Bucks., wid. of Robert Saunders of Flore, Northants., 2s. 4da. suc. fa. 1551.1

Offices Held

‘Gent. waiter unplaced’ by 1559; escheator, Oxon. and Berks. ?Feb.-Nov. 1559; receiver-gen. Beds. and Bucks. Sept. 1559-Feb. 1565; j.p.q. Oxon. by 1559; commr. sewers, Bucks., Oxon. and Berks. 1567; commr. musters, Oxon. by 1573.2

Biography

Carleton was presumably returned for Westbury through his in-laws the Blounts. His sister Catherine married the 1571 Westbury MP Francis Blount, brother of James, 6th Lord Mountjoy. Unlike his brother George, Anthony never became prominent. He was apparently some sort of minor Household official at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, and the bishops’ letters in 1564 noted him (if he is the ‘Mr. Charleton’ then a j.p. for the city of Oxford) as a satisfactory justice of the peace in Oxfordshire, since he was sound in religion. He may have shared his younger brother’s puritan views: the preamble to the will he made 18 Dec. 1575 spoke of his trust in ‘the mercy and merits of our Lord Jesus Christ’, and his hope ‘thereby to be saved and by none other means’. Carleton died 18 Jan. 1576, and the will was proved in the following June. He appointed his widow sole executrix, and as overseers Dr. Thomas Wilson and Edward Denton, each of whom received £20. There were legacies of £20 to the poor, in addition to an unspecified amount described as ‘the gifts of John Jacob by me set down’. Each of the four younger daughters was to have £200 at her wedding, or on her 17th birthday. Dr. Wilson evidently found difficulty in getting the provisions of the will properly carried out: a letter survives from him to John Fortescue I, asking him to continue his kindness to the widow and the six fatherless children by approaching ‘that hardhearted man’ Sir Edmund Ashfield about land in Brightwell Baldwin. The Queen, from whom this property was leased, had directed Fortescue to be ‘very earnest in this matter, for the poor widow’s benefit’. The monument to Carleton and his first wife in Brightwell Baldwin church mentions John and Joyce, the children of his first marriage; there is also an inscription to his parents, describing his father as ‘the first of the name owner and lord of this town’.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. Wards 7/6/40; Vis. Oxon. (Harl. Soc. v), 123-4; P. A. Carleton, Memorials Carleton Fam. 28 seq.; CPR, 1553 and App. Edw. VI, 265; CP, iv. 408.
  • 2. EHR, xxiii. 676-7; Lansd. 5, ff. 30 seq.; 56, ff. 168 seq.; CPR, 1558-60, p. 112; 1569-72, p. 219.
  • 3. CPR, 1558-60, p. 112; Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 82; PCC 13 Carew; Lansd. 23, f. 174; information from Miss K. M. Longley.