Francis Wolley

Sir Francis Wolley (1583 – November 1609) was the son of Queen Elizabeth's Latin secretary, Sir John Wolley, and Elizabeth More, the daughter of Sir William More of Loseley, Surrey. He was a Member of Parliament, and one of those to whom King James granted the Second Virginia Charter. From 1601 to 1609 he provided a home at Pyrford for John Donne and Anne More after their clandestine marriage.

Family Francis Wolley, born in 1583, was the son of Queen Elizabeth's Latin secretary, Sir John Wolley, and Elizabeth More, one of the queen's ladies of the Privy Chamber. Wolley's father and mother had both been previously married, Sir John Wolley to Jane Sanderson, and Elizabeth More to Richard Polsted, but neither marriage had produced issue.

Wolley was christened on 4 April 1583. The queen stood godmother, with the Countess of Lincoln, Surrey's "fair Geraldine", acting as her proxy, and both Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln, and Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, personally present at the ceremony as his godfathers.

Career

In 1595, when he was only twelve years of age, his father unsuccessfully made suit to have Francis joined with him in his office of Clerk of the Pipe Rolls. Sir John Wolley died on 28 February 1596, and in the same year Wolley entered Merton College, Oxford. In early October 1597, Wolley's mother, Elizabeth, took as her third husband Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor, Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley. Wolley was granted the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1598, and in 1600 entered Lincoln's Inn,

In 1600 Wolley exchanged New Year's gifts with Queen Elizabeth.

Wolley was among the many knights created by King James at the Charterhouse on 11 May 1603, and on 10 August entertained the king and Anne of Denmark at Pyrford. In 1605 he obtained the reversion (i.e. promise of the position when it next fell vacant) of the office of Clerk of the Pipe Rolls which his father had tried to obtain for him a decade earlier, and in 1607 was appointed to the clerkship itself. He also obtained a reversionary interest in the keepership of Folly Park in Windsor Forest.

On 23 May 1609, Wolley was among the members of the Virginia Company of London to whom King James granted the Second Virginia Charter.

Wolley made his last will 11 August 1609, adding a codicil on 1 November, six days before his death at Pyrford. In the will, which was probated on 12 December, he bequeathed £4,000 for a ‘fair tomb’ to be built in Old St Paul's Cathedral for himself and his parents, and the large sum of £1,300 to various servants. Wolley's first cousin, Sir Arthur Mainwaring, son of his mother's sister, Anne More, and her husband, Sir George Mainwaring, was his heir.

Sir Francis Wolley and Mary Hawtrey had no issue. By an unnamed mistress, Wolley had an illegitimate daughter, Mary Wolley, who married Sir John Wyrley. The dramatist John Ford dedicated his play The Lady's Trial to his friends 'John Wyrley, esquire' and 'Mistress Mary Wyrley, his wife'.

Ancestry

Footnotes