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William Darrell Of Littlecote
William Darrell (23 June 1539 – 1 October 1589) of Littlecote House, Wiltshire, later of Warwick Lane, London; was an English Member of Parliament for the constituency of Downton in 1572. Biography Darrell was the son of Sir Edward Darrell and his wife, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Sir Thomas Essex of Berkshire. He served as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Downton in 1572. During the Spanish Armada crisis, Darrell offered his services, with twenty horsemen, to Sir Francis Walsingham. John Aubrey recounts how, in 1577, a serving woman of the Darrells' household (at Littlecote in Wiltshire) was delivered of an illegitimate child and immediately upon its birth Darrell, the father, was handed the infant and cast it into the fireplace outside of the bedroom. The midwife, who did not know where she had been brought, afterwards succeeded in identifying the house and the room and Darrell was convicted of murder. The trial judge, Sir John Popham, took a huge bri ...
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Littlecote House
Littlecote House is a large Tudor architecture, Elizabethan country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat, in the English county of Wiltshire, about northeast of the Berkshire town of Hungerford. The estate includes 34 hectares of historic parklands and gardens, including a walled garden dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa. A Grade I listed building, Littlecote House is now a hotel and leisure centre. History Early house The first Littlecote House was built during the 13th century and was the home of the de Calstone family from around 1290. In 1415 Elizabeth de Calstone married William Darrell (the Wild), William Darrell and the Darrell family inherited the estate. Elizabeth Darrell's half-niece, also named Elizabeth Darrell (maid-of-honour), Elizabeth Darrell, was a maid of honour to Henry VIII's first queen Catherine of Aragon and had a well-publicised affair with the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1 ...
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Downton (UK Parliament Constituency)
Downton was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act. History The borough consisted of part of the parish of Downton, a small town six miles south of Salisbury. By the 19th century, only about half of the town was within the boundaries of the borough, and the more prosperous section was excluded: at the 1831 census the borough had 166 houses and a tax assessment of £70, whereas the whole town consisted of 314 houses, and was assessed at £273. Downton was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote rested solely with the freeholders of 100 specified properties or "burgage tenements"; it was not necessary to be resident on the tenement, or even in the borough, to exercise this right. Indeed, some of the tenements could not realistically be occupied, and one was in the middle of a watercourse. At the time of the Great Reform Act, The Earl ...
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Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, join with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas. The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, its ships were able to attack the Armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia to anchor in the Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to deviate from his instructions to ...
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Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham ( – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her " spymaster". Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Walsingham attended Cambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on a career in law at the age of twenty. A committed Protestant, during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England he joined other expatriates in exile in Switzerland and northern Italy until Mary's death and the accession of her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. Walsingham rose from relative obscurity to become one of the small coterie who directed the Elizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy. He served as English ambassador to France in the early 1570s and witnessed the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. As principal secretary, he supported exploration, colonisation, the development of the navy, and the plantat ...
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John Aubrey
John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, and who is particularly noted for his systematic examination of the Avebury henge monument. The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge are named after him, although there is considerable doubt as to whether the holes that he observed are those that currently bear the name. He was also a pioneer folklorist, collecting together a miscellany of material on customs, traditions and beliefs under the title "Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme". He set out to compile county histories of both Wiltshire and Surrey, although both projects remained unfinished. His "Interpretation of Villare Anglicanum" (also unfinished) was the first attempt to compile a full-length study of English place-names. He had wider interests in applied mathematics and astronomy ...
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John Popham (Lord Chief Justice)
Sir John Popham (c. 1531 – 10 June 1607) of Wellington, Somerset, was Speaker of the House of Commons (1580 to 1583), Attorney General (1581 to 1592) and Lord Chief Justice of England (1592 to 1607). Origins Popham was born in 1531 at Huntworth in the parish of North Petherton, near Bridgwater, in Somerset, the second son of Alexander Popham (c. 1504 – 1556) of Huntworth, twice MP for Bridgwater in 1545 and 1547, by his wife Jane Stradling, a daughter of Sir Edward Stradling (died 1535) of St Donat's Castle, Glamorgan; one of Jane's brothers is Thomas Stradling. St Donat's Castle situated on the south coast of Glamorgan was a short sail across the Bristol Channel into the inland port of Bridgwater on the River Parret. The Popham family had held the manor of Huntworth since the 13th century when Sir Hugh de Popham ( tempore Edward I) (a younger son of the Popham family of the manor of Popham, Hampshire) married Joan de Kentisbury, daughter and heiress of Sir Stephen ...
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Kintbury
Kintbury is a village and civil parish in the West Berkshire district, Berkshire, England, between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford. The village has a convenient railway to and , proximity to other transport and local cultural destinations, including Roman and Norman sites, and forms part of a very large Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Wessex Downs which extends from the River Thames at Streatley to West Wiltshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Clapton, Elcot and Winding Wood. Amenities Amenities in the village have included the Church of England parish church, primary school, a post office, a corner shop, and a bakery. A Roman Catholic youth retreat and work centre, St Cassian's Centre, is south-west of the village centre, between Inglewood and Titcomb. There are two pubs in the village; The Blue Ball and The Dundas Arms. The village has sports facilities including tennis, bowls and football clubs, as well as an indoor leisure centre. The village h ...
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Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London to the east, Surrey to the south-east, Hampshire to the south, and Wiltshire to the west. Reading, Berkshire, Reading is the largest settlement and the county town. The county has an area of and a population of 911,403. The population is concentrated in the east, the area closest to Greater London, which includes the county's largest towns: Reading (174,224), Slough (164,793), Bracknell (113,205), and Maidenhead (70,374). The west is rural, and its largest town is Newbury, Berkshire, Newbury (33,841). For local government purposes Berkshire comprises six Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas: Bracknell Forest, Borough of Reading, Reading, Borough of Slough, Slough, West Berkshire, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead ...
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1539 Births
__NOTOC__ Year 1539 ( MDXXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events January–March * January 4 – Giannandrea Giustiniani Longo is elected two a two year term as Doge of the Republic of Genoa in Italy, succeeding Giovanni Battista Doria. * January 12 – Treaty of Toledo: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (and Charles I of Spain) and Francis I of France agree to make no further alliances with England. The treaty comes after Henry VIII of England's split with Rome and Pope Paul III. * January – Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War – Battle of Naungyo, Burma: The Toungoos decisively defeat the Hanthawaddys. * February 9 – The first horse race is held at Chester Racecourse, the oldest in use in England. * March 1 – King Henry VIII of England summons Parliament to meet, with the session to start on April 28. * March 2 – Askia Isma'il, ruler of the Songhai Empire in West Africa, dies after a reign of slight ...
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1589 Deaths
Events January–March * January 5 – The reign of Catherine de' Medici as Countess of Auvergne ends after 64 years and she is succeeded by her grandson, Charles de Valois. * January 7 – The College of Sorbonne votes a resolution that it is just and necessary to depose King Henry III of France, and that any private citizen is morally free to commit regicide. * January 17 – The French city of Chartres closes its gates to King Henry III and subsequently recognizes 65-year-old Charles I, Cardinal de Bourbon as King Charles X. * January 26 – Job of Moscow is elected as the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. * February 6 – King Philip of Portugal issues an order to the Viceroy in Portuguese India (Goa) for the arrest of explorer João da Gama, but da Gama continues toward Mexico without being aware of the order. * February 26 – Valkendorfs Kollegium is founded in Copenhagen, Denmark. * March 6 ** Ralph Fitch becomes the first ...
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Politicians From Wiltshire
A politician is a person who participates in policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles or duties that politicians must perform vary depending on the level of government they serve, whether local, national, or international. The ideological orientation that politicians adopt often stems from their previous experience, education, beliefs, the political parties they belong to, or public opinion. Politicians sometimes face many challenges and mistakes that may affect their credibility and ability to persuade. These mistakes include political corruption resulting from their misuse and exploitation of power to achieve their interests, which requires them to prioritize the public interest and develop long-term strategies. Challenges include how to keep up with the development of social media and confronting biased media, in addition to discrimi ...
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