Sir Peter EURE

Born: Belton, Lincolnshire, England

Died: 25 Jun 1612, Washingborough, Lincolnshire, England

Father: Robert EURE

Mother: Maria VAVASOUR

Married: Barbara MERES (dau. of Sir John Meres and Barbara Dallison) (m.2 William Saltmarshe)

Children:

1. Ralph EURE of Washingbrough

2. Edward EURE

3. John EURE

4. Richard EURE

5. Michael EURE

6. Thomas EURE

7. Barbara EURE

The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.

Second but first surv. son of Robert Eure of Belton, Lincs. by Maria, dau. of Sir Peter Vavasour. Educ. Thavie’s Inn; L. Inn 1578. Married 1603, Barbara (d. 1642), dau. of Sir John Meres of Aubourn, Lincs. Suc. fa. Dec. 1558. Kntd. 1603.

J.p. Lincs. (Lindsey) from c.1583, rem. 1587, rest. by 1594.

Eure became heir to the small family estates at the age of nine, his elder brother William dying during their father’s lifetime. He entered Lincoln’s Inn from Thavie’s Inn as a man of nearly 30, and remained a practising lawyer. As late as 1603 his absence in Lincolnshire ‘all last term’ is mentioned as though it were unusual. For one reason or another he was struck off the Lindsey commission of the peace in 1587. The Privy Council had ordered a purge of justices on grounds of insufficient landed qualification, recusancy, or the presence of other members of the family on the commission. Eure was described as ‘unmeet, being in most respects to be touched with all the former articles’. The only thing known against him, however, is that in 1574 he had been sent to the Marshalsea for a short time on a charge of being privy to false coining in Lincolnshire. Any suspicion of recusancy was evidently dissipated by 1594, when his name reappeared on the commission: in any event, as a Member of Parliament in 1589 he presumably took the oath of supremacy.

He sat on a committee, 11 Mar 1589, for a bill about the city of Lincoln, and was probably the ‘Mr. Juers’ who was on the delegation from the Commons to the Lords on 29 Mar 1589 urging a declaration of war against Spain. As burgess for Lincoln he was eligible to attend a committee on salted herrings on 11 Mar 1589. There is no mention of Eure in the journals of 1601. His return for Lincoln might be ascribed to his local standing, but there is no obvious reason for his return at Derby. The most likely patron would appear to be Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury: perhaps Eure did legal work for him.

His marriage in his fifties caused John Chamberlain to comment:

"I am sure it will be news that Master Evers hath got a young wife in Lincolnshire, where he was hammering about her all last term, and hath not yet showed his face among his friends".

Eure became ‘a father of four children in five years’.

There is little information about Eure as a county official, apart from a reference as justice of the peace or commissioner of sewers. In the latter capacity he signed a letter in 1594 to Burghley and Egerton, recommending that Lincolnshire should have only one sewers commission instead of a separate one for each of the three divisions. At least once he was employed by the Crown outside his own county, as one of the commissioners to survey the Irish estates of Lord Burgh, who died in 1579. He presumably went to Ireland, but no details of his work there survive. He was one of the Lincolnshire gentlemen who met James I at York during the new King’s journey to London: on 11 May 1603 he was knighted at the Charterhouse.

On 6 Nov 1611 John Chamberlain, invited to supper at the house of Walter Cope, wrote to Dudley Carleton:

"Sir Peter Evers was likewise invited, but he is not in case to feast, being as they tell me in a desperate case and far gone in a consumption".

He had for some time suffered from dropsy, and on 13 Nov he made his will. To the poor of Washingborough, South Langton and Belton he left £3. His wife received her jointure lands in South Langton, the manor of Washingborough ‘wherein I do now dwell’ and household goods and plate. Provision was made for his sons Ralph, Edward, Thomas and Michael, and for his daughter Barbara. He died 25 Jun 1612, about a fortnight after leaving London for Washingborough, where he was buried, and where his widow continued to live until her re-marriage in 1614.

Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. l), 337-8; Chamberlain Letters ed. McClure, i. 182, 266, 308, 364; Lansd. 53, f. 187; 60, f. 189; 76, f. 136; APC, viii. 251, 260, 280; xxviii. 70, 74, 115; D’Ewes, 445, 454; Lincs. Wills, ed. Maddison, ii. 74-7; Rylands Eng. ms 311.

Sources:

J.C.H.: EURE (EVERS), Peter (c.1549-1612), of London and Washingborough, Lincs.

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