Humphrey Swynnerton

Humphrey Swynnerton, according to an effigy in Shareshill parish church, where he was buried. Cassandra Giffard, Swynnerton's wife: an effigy at Shareshill, formerly part of their tomb.

Humphrey Swynnerton (c. 15161562) was a Staffordshire landowner, a Member of the English Parliament and an Elizabethan recusant.

Background and early life Swynnerton's father was Thomas Swynnerton of Swynnerton Hall and Hilton Hall, Staffordshire. His mother was Alice Stanley, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stanley of Pipe Ridware and Clifton Campville.

Both his parents were from landed gentry families based in the southern half of Staffordshire. Of his grandparents, the most distinguished was Sir Humphrey Stanley, who was knighted by Henry VII after the Battle of Bosworth and made a banneret after the Battle of Stoke Field. A close associate of the king, he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1537, Swynnerton became bailiff of the Black Ladies estate, near Brewood, a small Benedictine nunnery dissolved by the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act. They fell into two quite distinct parts. Swynnerton, which had been in the family longest, is near Stone, Staffordshire. Hilton is about 30 km (20 miles) to the south, close to Wolverhampton. The family had also had an interest in the Littel Saredon estate in Shareshill, close to Hilton, possibly still did. Even further afield, there were also lands at Barrow, Cheshire. Swynnerton clearly found this dispersal uneconomic.

Ownership of the Cheshire lands was disputed by Sir John Savage and, in 1555, Swynnerton came to an agreement and sold them to him. However, he divided his time between Hilton and Swynnerton, treating both as home. Hilton was assessed in 1545 as being worth only £20 annually.

In addition to his estates, Swynnerton drew incomes from other posts, which belonged to his father before him. He became steward of the Royal Forest of Cannock in 1541, and in 1559–60 was escheator for Staffordshire.

Member of Parliament

Swynnerton served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Stafford in the second parliament of Queen Mary's reign, which assembled in April 1554. The influence of the Giffards, now at the height of their power in the county, must have secured him the seat. In the electoral indenture, completed in Latin, he was placed second in order of precedence, with the 21-year-old John Giffard as his senior. The returning officer was the High Sheriff of Staffordshire, Thomas Giffard, his own brother-in-law and John Giffard's father.

Swynnerton shared the Giffards' religious conservatism and can only have welcomed the restoration of Catholicism by Mary. his son-in-law's brother. Swynnerton almost certainly supported the Marian restoration of Catholicism in its entirety.

When Elizabeth I came to the throne in November 1558, she immediately called a parliament to pass the Act of Superemacy, establishing herself as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Church of England as avowedly Protestant. This faced Catholics like Swynnerton with a clear choice between continuing to hope for a Catholic revival within the church or breaking with it to become a separate community. The dissenting or recusant group were distinguished by taking advantage of the general pardon issued by Elizabeth at her coronation on 15 January 1558. In common with Thomas Giffard, Swynnerton sued for pardon.

Swynnerton made his will on 6 July 1561.