Edward ZOUCHE

(11th B. Zouche of Harryngworth)

1. Elizabeth ZOUCHE

Married 2: Sarah HARRINGTON (B. Hastings /B. Zouche of Harringworth) Oct 1611

Son of George la Zouche, 10th Baron Zouche and his wife Margaret Welby. He was a royal ward from 1570, matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge in Easter 1570, M.A. 1571; admitted to Gray’s Inn, 1575; and the only commissioner dissatisfied with the evidence against Mary, Queen of Scotland, in her trial at Fotheringhay Castle, Oct 1586. He lived and travelled abroad from 1583 to 1587.

Elizabeth I of England sent him as ambassador to Scotland, Jan – Apr 1594, and to Denmark, Jun – Jul 1598.

Among his offices were: Deputy Governor of Guernsey 1600-01; Lord President of the Council of Wales, 14 Jun 1602 – 1607; Privy Counsellor 11 May 1603; Commissioner of Claims for the Coronation of James I, 7 Jul 1603; Commissioner for compounding for knighthoods, 17 Jul 1603; Commissioner to banish Jesuits, 5 Sep 1604; Commissioner to inquire into injuries done by pirates, 16 Jul 1609; Councillor for the Virginia Company, 23 May 1609; Councillor for New England, 3 Nov 1602; Commissioner to treat with France 4 Jul 1610; Commissioner for the Treasury 16 Jun 1612–1614; Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle for life, 13 Jul 1615, (resigned to the Duke of Buckingham, Nov 1614); Commissioner for the rendition of Flushing and Brill, 21 May 1616; Privy Councillor (Scotland) 29 Jun 1617; Commissioner to inquire into abuses in the Treasury, 10 Jul 1618; Commissioner of Ecclesiastical Causes, 29 Apr 1620 and 21 Jan 1624/5; Commissioner for defective titles of lands, 4 Jul 1622 and 26 Jul 1623.

From 1605, his main residence was Bramshill House in Hampshire. About the 27 Mar 1616, the King's Master Shipwright, Sir Phineas Pett, had bargained with Sir Walter Raleigh to build a vessel of 500 tons, and received £500 from him on that account. The King, through the under the recommendation of the Lord Admiral, Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, allowed Pett to lay her keel on the galley dock at Woolwich royal dockyard. In the same year he was commissioned by the Lord Zouche, then Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, to construct a pinnace of 40 tons, in respect of which Pett remarks:

towards the whole of the hull of the pinnace, and all her rigging, I received only £100 from the Lord Zouche, the rest Sir Henry Mainwaring (half-brother to Raleigh) cunningly received on my behalf, without my knowledge, which I never got from him but by piecemeal, so that by the bargain I was loser £100 at least."

He had many literary friends, among them being Ben Jonson and Sir Henry Wotton. 

About 1578 he married his cousin Eleanor, daughter of Sir John Zouche and Eleanor Whalley. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, and lived apart after 1582. Sir John Zouche, wrote to Lord Burghley complaining of her treatment:

My Lord Souche (sic} put away this his lady twenty-nine years ago and refusing her all allowance was by law sentenced there-unto, which he not performing was excomunicate; from which he went beyond sea and returning was ordered to pay her 50s the week, from which poor allowance with a small addition from her friends hath this Baron's wife...ever since lived. She was oft dangerously sick that physic was chargeable. He never disbursed a penny, and now dead she might have rotted in her chamber ere he would have buried her.

She was buried in Apr 1611, and about six months later Edward married Sarah, daughter of Sir James Harington, and formerly wife of Francis Hastings, styled Lord Hastings, and of Sir George Kingsmill. There were no children of this marriage, and on his death the Barony of Zouche fell into abeyance between his daughter Mary and the heirs of his daughter Elizabeth, the abeyance being terminated in 1815 in favor of Sir Cecil Bisshopp, 12th Baron Zouche.

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