LEE, Walter (c.1550-aft.1597), of the Inner Temple, London and Langley, Salop.

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.1550, 1st s. of Richard Lee of Langley by Eleanor, da. of Walter Worstley of Worstley, Salop. educ. Shrewsbury 1562; I. Temple 1569. unm.

Offices Held

Biography

Lee’s father was a prominent local gentleman and j.p. whose influence secured the Bridgnorth seat for his son. Lee himself was, in the words of (Sir) Richard Corbet II, a ‘notorious ... and evil disposed person’. In 1585 the Privy Council summoned him to answer for his ‘most lewd and bad dealing’, which included tricking a widow into signing a deed of gift, and swindling one William Grey out of ‘divers great sums of money, plate and jewels’. He eluded the pursuivant and sheltered in the house of two Catholics, Thomas and Anthony Acton. Though Lee ought to have taken the oath of supremacy to sit in Parliament in 1584, he appears to have been a Catholic, and after the Babington plot he withdrew to the Continent where he ‘conversed with Sir William Stanley and like ill-affected persons’. He was disinherited by his father in the will he made in 1590, and his mother was forbidden to help him. However, he was again in Shropshire in 1597 ‘practicing and attempting sundry violent and outrageous courses’. The date of his death has not been ascertained.

Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 320; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), v. 50; APC, xiv. 16-17, 292; xvi. 130-1, 345; xviii. 306; xxi. 280-1; xxiii. 95; xiv. 398; PCC 48 Sainberbe.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.J.C.

Notes