Sir Edward BAYNTUN

Born: 1517, Bromham Hall, Wiltshire, England

Died: 1593

Father: Edward BAYNTUN (Sir) (See his Biography)

Mother: Elizabeth SULYARD

Married 1: Agnes AP RHYS (d. 19 Aug 1574) (dau. of Rhys Ap Griffith Fitzuryon Rhys and Catherine Howard, C. Bridgewater)

Children:

1. Henry BAYNTUN (Sir) (See his Biography)

2. William BAYNTUN (d. as an infant in 1564)

3. Anne BAYNTUN (d. 1587)

4. Margaret BAYNTUN (d. young)

5. Catherine BAYNTUN (d. 1582)

6. Elizabeth BAYNTUN (d. AFT 1593)

7. Son BAYNTUN

8. Son BAYNTUN

9. Son BAYNTUN

10. Son BAYNTUN

11. Son BAYNTUN

12. Son BAYNTUN

13. Son BAYNTUN

Married 2: Anne PACKINGTON (d. 1578) 1574

Children:

14. Henry BAYNTUN

Second son of Sir Edward Bayntun. When his father died in 1544, Edward's older brother, Andrew, inherited the Manor of Bromham and continued to reside at Bromham House.

However in his father's will, Edward Bayntun inherited The Ivy – a very large house at the centre of the old Manor of Rowden in the parish of Chippenham and he continued to live there for 20 years. The Manor of Rowden was Crown property from Saxon times until the reign of Henry VIII, when it was purchased by his father shortly before he died. The Bayntun's had been renting the property previously for some years.

Edward resided at Rowden until his brother, Andrew, died without a male heir in 1564. He then inherited, at the age of 46, the Manor of Bromham and subsequently moved into Bromham House.

The Court Book for the Manor of Bromham, for the period 1545 to 1557 is in the Wiltshire Records Office.

A deed dated 13 Jun 1566, and executed the following month, acknowledges Edward Bayntun, his wife Agnes and their heirs with the possessions or inheritance of Sir Andrew Bayntun. The deed referred to the Manors of Bremhill, Stanley, Bromham Battle and Clench.

He was a Member of Parliament for Wiltshire County in 1562-1563 and again in 1570; M.P. for Devizes in 1571; M.P. for Calne in 1572 and M.P. for Chippenham Borough in 1588-1589. He married Agnes Ap Rhys of Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire in South Wales and they had 13 children. When she died there were five children living and 15 years later when Sir Edward died there were just three of their thirteen children alive – Henry, Anne and Elizabeth. The names of more than half of their children are unknown as the custom of recording baptisms only began in Bromham in 1566. Agnes claimed to have previously married at Stourton Chapel in 1545 to William, 7th Baron Stourton, by whom she had a daughter, Mary.

In 1561, Sir Edward conveyed the Manor of Godswell and the Manor of Heywood to Thomas Long.

William Bayntun – the first born child of Edward and Agnes – was allegedly murdered by witchcraft as an infant by Agnes Mills of Stanley, Co. Wiltshire in 1564. In the Chancery proceedings which followed, she said she did the same murder by the procurement and enticement of Dorothy Mantill or Mantell, the wife of Henry Bayntun (b. ABT 1520), Edward's brother, who was hoping that if Sir Edward failed to produce another male heir, the subsequent fortune of his estates would go to her husband, presuming Edward would die before him. Afterwards Agnes Mills was hanged for the same murder at Fisherton, Co. Wiltshire, but in spite of proceedings in Chancery the following year, Dorothy does not seem to have been prosecuted. Dorothy and Henry Baynton already had three sons — Henry (b. 1553), Edward (b. 1555), and Roger (b. 1557)— and two daughters. Confusing the issue was the testimony of one Jane Marshe, who first supported the accusation against Dorothy and then, fearing she would never be let out of prison if she did not change her story, accused Edward and Agnes of bribing her to accuse Dorothy. Jane’s fate, too, is unknown. One further bit of confusion is caused by the fact that Sir Edward Baynton had two brothers named Henry. The younger, actually his half brother, was born c. 1536 and married Anne Cavendish. He was not implicated in the murder of young William.

A deed dated 31 Mar 1570 assigned Edward's interest in Battle Abbey to Thomas Ivye of West Kingston. In 1571 Edward Bayntun sold his family's share of “Whitlegh” – the ancient property of the Mauduit, Molines and Hungerford families.

When his first wife died on 19 Aug 1574 Edward re-married Anne Packington and in the same year he was awarded the honour of Knight Bachelor of Wiltshire.

In 1575 he sold part of the Manor of Rowden, including The Ivy House to Edward Hungerford, but he retained the part that gave manoral rights of which the Bayntun family were still Lords of the Manor of Rowden well into the 19th century with a farm fee recorded in 1868.

In 1577 Faulston House and the Manor of Faulston was sold to Thomas Vaughan of Bredwardine, Co. Hereford and a year later his second wife Anne Packington died in 1578.

Sir Edward was appointed Justice of the Peace (Chippenham Division) in 1592 and he died a year later in 1593. His large ancient marble tomb at the south east angle of the Beauchamp Chapel, in the Church of St. Nicholas, Bromham, is very interesting and includes brass figures showing a knight kneeling and his two wives and two of his three children that were alive at the time of their father's death. The rhyming couplet on the tomb reads:

Here lieth Edward Bayntun, Knight, within this marble clad, By Agnes Ryce, his first trew wyfe, that thyrtyne children had. Where of she left alyve withe him at her departure thre, Henry, Anne and Elizabeth, whose pictures now here see. (see brass below). The XIXth days of Auguste she deceased, of Christ ye year, 1574. These little figurs standing bie present the nomber here. Then married to Anne Packington, his second wyfe she was, For whose remembrance here in tombe these lynes he left in brasse. Anno Dni 1578

When Sir Edward Bayntun died he was succeeded by his eldest son and heir Sir Henry Bayntun.

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